{"id":30946,"date":"2014-03-31T00:05:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T07:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=30946"},"modified":"2014-03-31T01:32:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T08:32:51","slug":"new-york-city-called-big-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2014\/03\/new-york-city-called-big-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Why There is an Area of New York Called “The Bronx” and Why Ambulances are Called That"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bronx\"<\/a>Why There is an Area of New York Called “The Bronx”<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is thanks to a seventeenth century Scandinavian man by the name of Jonas Bronck, originally from T\u00f3rshavn in the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n

In 1639, Bronck immigrated to New Amsterdam in New Netherland, which was right next to what is today called Bronx River, named after Jonas Bronck.<\/p>\n

Why? In New Amsterdam, Bronck owned a 680 acre farm which was called, unimaginatively, \u201cBronck\u2019s Land\u201d and the river abutting it \u201cBronck\u2019s River.\u201d He held this land for just four years before dying in 1643. From there, various people owned this property, keeping the name Bronck\u2019s Land, until Colonel Lewis Morris acquired it and renamed it the \u201cManor of Morrisania.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the renaming of the land, the river next to it continued to be called \u201cBronck\u2019s River.\u201d From the river\u2019s name, the modern-day name of \u201cBronx\u201d got extended to the region directly around the river in the late nineteenth century. The name for the region has stuck ever since.<\/p>\n

As to why it\u2019s \u201cBronx\u201d instead of \u201cBronck\u2019s,\u201d this isn\u2019t clear, but the switch happened around the same time there was a big push for the simplification of English; remnants of this can be seen today in the names of the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox (instead of \u201cSocks\u201d). It may be that the switch from \u201cBronck\u2019s\u201d to \u201cBronx\u201d happened for the same reason, though this is just speculation, and I could find no direct documented evidence of this; so take it with a grain of salt. But the time period (the late nineteenth to early twentieth century) of the switch, at least, matches up.<\/p>\n

Why Ambulances are Called Ambulances
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ambulance\"<\/a>The word \u201cambulance\u201d ultimately derives from the Latin \u201cambulare,\u201d meaning \u201cto walk.\u201d This gave rise to the French \u201ch\u00f4pital ambulant,\u201d essentially meaning \u201cmobile hospital.\u201d In the beginning, this didn\u2019t mean as we think of it today, but was generally just used to refer to a temporary medical structure that could be easily moved, particularly early on referring to movable army medical hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmbulance,\u201d in English, first appeared around 1798, which also referred to these temporary hospital structures at first.<\/p>\n

Mobile medical transport vehicles were also being called ambulances in French around this time thanks to Frenchman Dominque-Jean Larrey and his \u201cflying ambulance\u201d (ambulance volantes). These ambulances were designed to get injured soldiers off the battlefield and to medical aid during battle, rather than waiting until the fight was over as was common before.<\/p>\n

By the mid-nineteenth century, the word (in English) extended to refer to any vehicle used to transport the wounded from battle fields to the military hospitals. One of the first instances of this was during the Crimean War (1853-1856). Shortly thereafter, during the American Civil War, such medical transport vehicles were known as \u201cambulance wagons.\u201d The former, \u201cambulance,\u201d name for mobile medical vehicles has stuck around ever since.<\/p>\n

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