New York

It was on this day in 1626 that Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan island, where a little settlement had been established on the southern tip by the Dutch East India Company, called New Amsterdam.
The Dutch had been drawn to Manhattan for many reasons. For one thing, it had access to the Atlantic, but it was protected by Sandy Hook, Long Island, and Staten Island. It was the perfect entrance point for shipping.
And also it was extraordinarily fertile and full of wildlife. Wild roses grew there. The fragrance of flowers drifted far out to sea. The oysters were huge, 12 inches; there were giant lobsters, six feet across; so many fish in the streams they could be caught by hand; flocks of birds, wild swans, blackbirds.
A few days after Peter Minuit arrived, he bought the island of Manhattan from the local tribes with cloth, beads, hatchets, other merchandise worth about $24, about $1 for each square mile of land.
New York City was one of the first great cities of the world to draw its population from all over the world. Even when there were less than 1,000 people living there at the beginning, there were more than 18 different languages spoken. New York City has at different times been the largest Irish or Jewish or Italian or black African city in the world. It was, and still is today, the most poly-lingual city on the planet.

Thanks to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac.