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
Demographics of New York City still be felt in areas of New York City. The Yorkville neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was a center of German-American culture. As of the 2000 census 255,536 New Yorkers reported German ancestry. In the middle of the 19th century, Little Germany, situated in what is now termed Alphabet City, was the first non-English-speaking urban enclave in the United States. Greek immigration to New York City began mainly in the 1890s. The push factors for immigration were the Balkan Wars and World War I. Greek immigration to New York City took place between 1890 until around 1917.