New Orleans is 300 years old
My hometown turned 300.
Ever since Canadian-born French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville chose the swampy, flood-prone bend in the lower Mississippi River in 1718 as the spot for a new French colony, New Orleans has been a non-stop roller coaster of historical events.
Nouvelle-Orléans, as it was originally known, was ruled by three countries in less than a century — France, Spain and America — and swelled with Caribbean, European and African immigrants. It endured outbreaks of yellow fever, slave uprisings, river floods and one debilitating hurricane after another. The most recent big one, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, submerged 80% of the city, led to about 1,400 deaths and threatened the city’s very existence.This year, New Orleans, birthplace of jazz and jambalaya, celebrates its survival from three centuries of tumult with a 300th birthday party filled with exhibitions, panel discussions, street parades and parties. Throughout the city, large “300” signs have been set up in plazas and parks, each big enough for visitors to snap pictures beside.Sean Cummings, a New Orleans hotelier and entrepreneur, said the tricentennial is as much a tribute to the city’s resilience as it is its existence.
“For me, it’s a (sign) that something here works,” he said. “It’s lasted for 300 years, and New Orleans has managed to be not only part of the physical landscape as an American city but in many ways part of the poetic landscape.”
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Originally Posted by silvereyes
