New York was originally called New Amsterdam when it was established by the Dutch in 1614.  Surrounded by English settlements, the small colony was taken by the English in 1664 and rechristened New York.

The first permanent English settlement in the New World was Jamestown.  Plymouth, Massachusetts was founded in 1620.

Hernando de Soto is the first European known to have discovered and crossed the Mississippi River. His expedition ranged across the southeastern and western United States. He was searching primarily for gold, like many Spanish explorers of the time. The motivation for Spanish exploration is often illustrated by historians with the simple phrase “God, glory, and gold.” God—the desire to spread Christianity to Native populations. Glory—the desire to make a name for oneself back in Spain. Gold—the desire for wealth. It is important to remember these three primary motivations as they explain the actions of many European explorers at the time.

The city of St. Augustine was established in 1565, in what is now Florida. For many years prior the French and Spanish had tried and failed to establish a European community in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere. The city began life as a base from which the Spanish could combat both piracy and the French. After a shipment of slaves arrived the community grew at a reasonably fast rate.

Slavery was fairly widespread in the American colonies before the American Revolution.  Great Britain did not allow slavery until the early ninteenth century, and each colony got to decide its own laws about slavery. Slavery had become much more widespread on Southern plantations, and developed more strongly there. In the north, only a few states completely banned slavery. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut all slowly outlawed slavery shortly after the Revolution. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were the most notable large states to have never allowed slavery.

The term "primogeniture" refers to the practice of awarding all lands, titles, and finances that can be inherited solely to the firstborn son. It was practiced for hundreds of years in Europe and passed as an ideology into the nascent United States. In his important literary work, Democracy in America,Alexis de Tocqueville argues that the abolition of primogeniture would cause land to be spread much more evenly across society, encourage the overthrow of the established order, and spread democracy.

The nickname is "The Lost Colony." To this day, the colony's disappearance remains inexplicable.

Almost all of the colonies were directly linked at a governmental level to a specific church.  The two exceptions to this were Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, which both intentionally separated the church from the governmental structure, and provided religious freedom to anyone who wanted to come to the colony. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine, the Congregational Church, the sucessor to the separatist groups that founded New England, was the official church. In New York, Virginia, both Carolinas, and Georgia, the offical Anglican Church, headed by the British Crown, dominated.  Maryland was set up by Catholics, but still run by Anglicans.

After Columbus' initial voyages in the 1490s, most European powers came to America in an age of exploration. The Spanish were still the leaders in settlement. While their initial efforts did focus on Central and South America, and the conquest and subjugation of the Aztec and Inca Empires, the Spanish also went into North America. The Spanish established a fort and mission at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.

The Colony of Maryland was first established by George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, through a Royal Charter from Charles I in 1629. Calvert, a Catholic himself, felt a New World colony was the best place to establish a refuge for increasingly beleaguered English Catholics. The colony was not formally settled until 1634, and provided toleration for Catholics. Maryland remained a home for Catholics, but also was beset by unfriendly neighboring Anglicans in Virginia.