In August 1776, the British forces under William Howe on Staten Island undertook an amphibious operation across the Narrows and landed in Brooklyn, where they routed Washington's Army at the Battle of Long Island. In 1964 the Narrows was spanned by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, and still the longest suspension bridge in the United States (by length of the main span).