Giovanni da Verrazano arrives in New York

Giovanni da Verrazano is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524, including New York Bay and Narragansett Bay.

In New York Bay, he encountered the Lenape and observed what he deemed to be a large lake, really the entrance to the Hudson River. He then sailed along Long Island and entered Narragansett Bay, where he received a delegation of Wampanoag and Narragansett people.

On sighting the mouth of the harbor, he later described “a very agreeable site located between two hills between which flowed to the sea a very great river.” Verrazzano wrote a report based on his travels to the New World. This document, called the Cellere Codes (a copy of which is located in the Morgan Library in New York City) later served to instruct explorers such as Henry Hudson.