History of Albany, New York (1664–1784) state capital in the United States. In the period leading up to the Second Anglo-Dutch War, King Charles II of England granted the land from Maine to Delaware, which included all of New Netherland, to his brother James, Duke of York. In April 1664 four ships with a combined 450-men fighting force set sail for New Amsterdam. Fort Orange was surrendered to the English 16 days after New Amsterdam (the city of New York). Surrender terms at New Amsterdam were quite generous. Fort Orange was renamed Fort Albany, and the village of Beverswyck was renamed Albany, in honor of the
New York City English vowels sounds)—New York City's split not identical though to Philadelphia's. Linguist William Labov has pointed out that a similarly-structured (though differently pronounced) split is found today in both the standard and London-area accents of England, indicating the likely origin of the New York split. New York City became an urban economic power in the eighteenth century, with the city's financial elites maintaining close ties with the British Empire even after the Revolutionary War. According to Labov, New York speakers' loss of the "r" sound after vowels (incidentally, not found in the nearby Delaware Valley) is thus an imitation of the