Connecticut USA
Destination Guide & Hotel Reservations
CONNECTICUT was named Quinnehtukqut by the Native Americans for the "great
tidal river" that splits it in two before spilling out into the Long Island Sound and
washing the old whaling ports of the coast. This small and densely populated state is a
sort of conservative, high-rent suburb of New York City, enabling commuters to earn Big
Apple salaries while avoiding New York state and city taxes. Its first white settlers
arrived in the 1630s: refugees from Massachusetts seeking liberty, good farmland and
trading opportunities. Connecticut soon became a center for " Yankee ingenuity
," prospering through the invention and marketing (often by the notorious and not
always honorable Yankee peddlers) of many a useful little household object. Although hit
very badly by English raids in the Revolutionary War, its role in providing the war effort
with crucial supplies made it known as "the provisions state ." After the
war, the original charter of Connecticut's first colonists was used as a model for the
American Constitution and gave rise to another nickname: "the Constitution state
." It continued to prosper during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with
steady industrialization and lucrative whaling along the southeastern coast. Today, much
of the old industry, especially in the north, has withered away, leaving areas of green
countryside, untroubled by noisy interstates, many verdant forests and the idyllic rural
villages that typify New England's PR image - but also unemployment and poverty. New
Haven in particular, home to Yale University, faces distinctly urban problems like
drug wars, homelessness and violent crime, which belie New England's myth of rural
tranquility.
The linchpins of Connecticut's economy - insurance companies, medical research and
military bases - hardly make for pleasing aesthetics, as demonstrated by the rather dull
capital city, Hartford ; and even the historic and other wise attractive coastline
is marred by some unfortunate stretches of sprawling gray concrete.
Reserve a Hotel Room in Connecticut USA
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