New York

On April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street and became the first president of the United States. New York City was the nation's first capital.

The first Congress met there, the Bill of Rights, the set of rules protecting Americans' freedoms, was written there, and the Supreme Court held its first session there. The capital moved to Philadelphia the following year, but New York was already the center of everything.

Long before Europeans arrived, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy governed this land. Five nations, later six, agreed to work together, settle arguments peacefully, and send leaders to a shared council where every nation had a voice. They'd been doing this for centuries before the U.S. Constitution was written.

The Dutch settled in the 1620s and called their colony New Netherland. The English took it in 1664 and renamed it New York.

About a third of all Revolutionary War battles were fought in New York. The 1777 Battles of Saratoga were the first big American victory that mattered on the world stage. France saw the win and decided to help.

The Revolution split the Haudenosaunee. Some nations sided with the British, others with the Americans. The war destroyed their confederacy and cost them most of their homeland.

In 1825, the Erie Canal opened and changed the country. The 363-mile waterway connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, made it far cheaper and faster to move goods, and turned New York City into the busiest port in America.

The canal didn't just carry goods. It carried new ideas. The women's rights movement was born in the canal town of Seneca Falls in 1848.

From 1892 to 1954, more than 12 million immigrants entered the country through Ellis Island. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.

You can stand where Washington took the oath at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan, then walk to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Upstate, hike the Saratoga Battlefield, cruise through a lock on the Erie Canal, or chase waterfalls at Niagara Falls, where 750,000 gallons of water pour over the edge every second.