On April 15, 2024, La Poste issues a block composed of a stamp to mark the 500th anniversary of the discovery of New York.
On April 17, 1524, while exploring the coast of an American continent of which he had no idea yet on behalf of King Francis I, the navigator of Florentine origin Giovanni da Verrazzano entered what would become the bay of New York. He named the region New France and the bay New Angoulême to pay homage to the king, born François d'Angoulême.
The time was one of exploration on behalf of the great European powers: the end of the 15th century saw a succession of expeditions by Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus and, between 1521 and 1522, that of Cortès, who conquered the Aztec empire, and that of Magellan, who goes around the world.
Verrazzano had already explored the region of Newfoundland and the Saint Lawrence in 1508. Aboard the Dauphine, this time he went up the American coast from the south in search of a passage to the Indies and brought back some the first detailed description, a description which will allow geographers of the time to establish relatively precise maps of the Atlantic coast of the new continent. He also describes a region inhabited by numerous native populations, notably in this large bay of New Angoulême where he meets the Lenapes.
But the news of Verrazzano's journey will remain unknown for a long time, his relationship with the king forgotten. Upon returning from the expedition, Queen Claude of France had just died and Francis I left for Italy, where he lost the Battle of Pavia. For a long time, the “discovery” of New York was attributed to Henry Hudson, an English navigator traveling on behalf of the Netherlands, who named the site “New Amsterdam” at the beginning of the 17th century. It was only in the middle of the 20th century that a French academic would retrace the epic of Jean de Verrazane (the other name of Giovanni da Verrazzano, under which he liked to sign his official documents) and return to the explorer the first of his “discovery”. The bridge that closes the bay between Brooklyn and Staten Island, completed in 1964, is then dedicated to him. Today it hosts the start of the city's famous marathon.
