Geography and Weather

From New York Bay to Montauk, Long Island is 118 miles long.
Long Island was created by a vast glacier that moved down from northern Canada. As it moved, it melted and deposited rock and debris in huge mounds. These mounds of earth formed the surface of Long Island.
The melting glacier caused the waters to rise and to flood areas that were once dry land. One of the areas that flooded is known today as Long Island Sound. Great rivers of water flowed to the sea, creating the flatlands of the Hempstead Plain. The melting glacier gave the island its profile and surface.
Geography shaped the history of Long Island. It made it ideal for building ships, trying out early flying machines, planting potatoes, and building houses. It also helped determine where to lay the tracks for the Long Island Rail Road.
Long Island, including Brooklyn and Queens, is home to two-fifths of the population of New York State - 7.5 million people.
Long Island is constantly being reshaped by the forces of wind and weather. We always have had to live with hurricanes.

Nature

Long Island has beautiful beaches. There are salt marshes, barrier islands, and maritime forests on Fire Island. Many birds soar over the island. The osprey is a bird that makes a spectacular dive to catch its fish. There are whales, tuna, blue sharks, hammerheads, and tiger sharks in the waters around Long Island.

Native Americans

Native Americans came to Long Island during the Ice Age. They used spears to hunt the giant cave bear and the giant sloth. Later, native hunters created the bow and arrow to hunt deer. They were also fishermen.
Native Americans would harvest whales for their oil and meat. They collected clay for pottery. Indian artifacts have been found in many areas of Long Island.
Members of the Shinnecock tribe still live on the East End of Long Island.

The Dutch came to trade. On Long Island, they got wampum - seashells - which they traded for furs. White wampum was made from the whelk shell found on the eastern shores of Long Island.
The English also came to Long Island. They came for land and opportunity and for religious and political freedom.
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, pirate ships flourished along Long Island's coastline in its many inlets, bays, and harbors. There are rumors that Captain Kidd, the notorious pirate buried treasure on Gardiners Island.

The early settlers had to produce everything they needed for daily life.
The British Royal Navy used the wood of the black-locust tree for the masts of their ships.
During the American Revolution, British soldiers made life difficult for the Colonists. Important spy activity took place on Long Island. The Culper spy ring sent messages using invisible ink. In Setauket, a woman named Anna Strong used her washline to transmit secret information.
When the Revolutionary War was over, many Islanders looked to the sea to make their living. Sag Harbor and Cold Spring Harbor were great whaling centers. Whale oil was used to light colonial homes. Intricate carving and engraving were done on whales' teeth and whale bone. This was called scrimshaw, which was taken from a Dutch worked that means "a man who has a lot of time on his hands and doesn't know what to do with it."

In the 1700s, most of the African-Americans on Long Island were slaves.
Jupiter Hammon was the first black published poet. He was a slave at Queens Manor in Lloyd's Neck, owned by the Lloyd family.
Emancipation from slavery began on Long Island in 1799.

The first train, in 1844, made the 95-mile trip from Brooklyn to Montauk in three-and-a- half hours.
The railroad brought seafood products into the city and transported people to Long Island.

The Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1833, established a new way of life - commuting.
Levittown, the first affordable housing development, was built after World War II.The automobile and the first network of expressways led to the expansion of the suburbs in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Theodore Roosevelt, our 26^th president, lived at Sagamore Hill in the town of Oyster Bay. He was known as America's first "conservation president."
Charles Lindbergh took off in a monoplane from Roosevelt Field bound for Paris. He flew more than 3,000 miles without refueling.
Long Island is known as the cradle of aviation. Leroy Grumman of Grumman Aircraft built planes that helped the United States win World War II.
War ships were built in the Brooklyn Navy Yards.
The lunar module that helped to put a man on the moon was created on Long Island.
Dr. James Watson, a co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA that unlocked the door to the secrets of life, is the president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.