California becomes the first state in the U.S. to expand health coverage to undocumented residents
The plan will provide Medicaid coverage to approximately 90,000 undocumented residents between ages 19 and 25.
Migration & settlement
This archive covers positive developments in migration and settlement — from policy reforms and integration programs to community-led initiatives that help people build new lives. Stories here highlight what works when societies welcome and support people on the move.
Danish missionary Hans Egede establishes Godthåb, now Greenland’s capital Nuuk
Nuuk began in 1728 as Godthåb, a Danish-Norwegian fort planted on ground Inuit and earlier peoples had called home for roughly 4,000 years. The early colony was brutal, and smallpox in the 1730s devastated the region. Today, renamed Nuuk in 1979, it stands as the world’s northernmost capital and one of its most Indigenous.
British noblemen found Charles Town, the settlement that becomes Nassau
Nassau was founded in 1670, when British settlers landed on New Providence Island and built a small fort they called Charles Town, after King Charles II. Burned by the Spanish, rebuilt, and briefly overrun by pirates like Blackbeard, it was renamed Nassau in 1695 and grew into the capital of today’s independent Bahamas.
Dutch traders establish a foothold on the Essequibo River in Guyana
A Dutch trading post on the Essequibo River, founded in 1616, became the first European settlement in what is now Guyana. Tucked 25 kilometres upstream and built for commerce with Indigenous Lokono and Kalina communities, it grew quickly — exporting 15,000 kilograms of tobacco within seven years — and seeded the colony that would one day become a nation.
Spanish settlers found Tegucigalpa on a Lenca and Tolupan settlement site
Tegucigalpa was founded on September 29, 1578, when Spanish colonizers staked a mining claim in a mountain-ringed valley already home to the Lenca and Tolupan peoples. Its first mayor took office within a year, and over the next two centuries a cathedral, mint, and churches took root. It would become the capital of Honduras three hundred years later.
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds San Cristóbal de la Habana
Havana was founded in 1514 by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, though the settlement wandered Cuba’s coast for five years before anchoring beside a deep natural bay around 1519. That accidental harbor would become Spain’s “Key to the New World,” shaping Atlantic trade — and the lives bound to it — for centuries.
Columbus reaches the Americas, opening an era of transatlantic contact
Columbus reached the Americas on October 12, 1492, when a lookout on one of three Spanish ships spotted a Bahamian coastline after 69 days at sea. He believed he had found Asia, and died in 1506 still convinced. The landfall opened a sustained transatlantic exchange — and, for the Taíno who met him, a devastating one.
Moscow appears in the chronicles for the first time as a frontier town
In 1147 CE, a Russian chronicler jotted down a brief note about two princes meeting at a small outpost called Moscow. Within a decade, a wooden kremlin rose above the Moskva River, fortifying what had been a marshy frontier settlement. That throwaway line marked the moment a future capital first stepped into the written record.
Erik the Red founds the first successful European settlement in Greenland
Erik the Red sailed west from Iceland around 985 C.E., leading 25 ships toward a coastline he’d shrewdly named Greenland to attract settlers. Only 14 ships completed the journey, but those who landed built farms, churches, and a legal assembly that endured nearly 500 years — and later became the launching point for Leif Erikson’s voyage to North America.
Arawak people settle Jamaica, building a civilization of 60,000
Around 800 C.E., Taíno settlers reached a green, mountainous island they called Xaymaca — “land of wood and water.” Migrating up from South America, they built villages led by chiefs, farmed cassava in ash-enriched mounds, and grew to perhaps 60,000 people. Their words — barbecue, hammock, hurricane, canoe — still travel the world today.