Where does the story of Pittsburgh begin?

I mean, you could go back 17,000 years when the first people arrive at the confluence of these rivers.

But the Allegheny rivers flowing north instead of South Bend, it's during the ice age because they're on top of the world.

The Andy Masich is the president and CEO of the Heinz History Center.

With his help, we move forward a few thousand years.

Picture now, about 20 years before the American Revolution, as the French and Indian War raged, as shown in the WQED documentary The War That Made America.

The British, the French and Native Americans were fighting for control of the Ohio Valley, a valley that looked much different than today.

There was nothing built here.

There were a couple of Indian towns, Shannon Penn's town, about 40th Street and Butler.

There was a Shawnee village on the north side, near where, PNC Park is today.

But you would have seen green, verdant hillsides, untouched, unspoiled by man.

At the time, Indian people traveled through this land, hunting.

But there weren't large permanent cities here.

At the time, the British and the French collided here in 1758.

The forks of the Ohio, as they called it, at that point of land, was strategic, because it locked up, the western waters and transportation on the western rivers.

So when George Washington and General Forbes arrived in 1758, they were gunning for Fort Duquesne, and they got it on November 25th, 1758.

The British captured the French Fort Duquesne.

And Washington turned to Forbes and said, what are we going to call this place?

And Forbes thought about it for a minute, and he said, why don't we call it Pittsboro?

We'll call it Pittsboro after, William Pitt the elder, William Pitt was the English secretary of State who oversaw the Army and the Navy and created Britain's plan to take over North America.

But they set up a town here, the town of Pittsboro.

And there were, farms or gardens that sort of radiated out from the fort, at the at the point, of course, the British weren't content to just occupy the French Fort Duquesne, which was a very small little square, bastion.

And they built one of the largest forts in North America, up to that time, Fort Pitt.

Fort Pitts Blockhouse is still standing today.

Meantime, over the next few decades following the American Revolution, the small town of Pittsboro slowly began to change.