Named after the beautiful view of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Mountain View, California, was founded in 1849 as a stagecoach stop on the route between San Jose and San Francisco.  The area was a land grant known as Rancho Pastoria De Las Borregas, given to Francisco Estrada by governor Juan Alvarado. At the time of

Known for being Chile’s sixth most populated city, Valparaíso, founded in 1536 by a Spanish explorer named Juan de Saavedra, gets its name from the explorer’s hometown in Spain. Strategically located between the Pacific Ocean and the steep hills of the extensive coastal mountain range, Valparaíso, lovingly referred to as “The Jewel of the Pacific,”

Located in Northwestern France, Saint-Brieuc got its name in honor of a Welsh monk known as Brioc, who brought Christianity to the area during the 6th century. Because of how close to the English Channel, the town was affected by the 2009 sea lettuce contamination of the beaches of Brittany. Among the lives lost to

While the area now occupied by the city of Amsterdam has been occupied by humans for at least 3,000 years, the city itself wasn’t established until 1170, after the All Saint’s Flood. This flood overtook parts of the Northern Netherlands and Holland. The settlement of Rotta became uninhabitable, thus creating Amsterdam. A dam was built

Located on the Seine river, amidst the vineyards that produce only the finest champagne in the world, Troyes has existed since Roman times and is currently the capital of the Aube department in the north-central portion of France. Nobody really knows when the town of Troyes was founded, but archaeological evidence suggests there were human