The territory of Maine has been inhabited by
Indigenous populations for thousands of years after the glaciers retreated during the
last ice age. At the time of European arrival, several
Algonquian-speaking nations governed the area and these nations are now known as the
Wabanaki Confederacy. The first European settlement in the area was by the French in 1604 on
Saint Croix Island, founded by
Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons. The first English settlement was the short-lived
Popham Colony, established by the
Plymouth Company in 1607. A number of English settlements were established along the coast of Maine in the 1620s, although the rugged climate and conflict with the local
Indigenous people caused many to fail. As Maine entered the 18th century, only a half dozen European settlements had survived.
Loyalist and
Patriot forces contended for Maine's territory during the
American Revolution. During the
War of 1812, the largely undefended eastern region of Maine was occupied by British forces with the goal of annexing it to
Canada via the
Colony of New Ireland, but returned to the United States following failed British offensives on the northern border, mid-Atlantic and south which produced a
peace treaty that restored the pre-war boundaries. Maine was part of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts until 1820 when it voted to secede from Massachusetts to become a separate state. On March 15, 1820, under the
Missouri Compromise, it was
admitted to the Union as the 23rd state.
John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876) was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s in the United States and Great Britain, championing
American literary nationalism and
regionalism in their earliest stages. Neal advanced the development of
American art, fought for
women's rights, advocated the end of
slavery and racial prejudice, and helped establish the
American gymnastics movement.
The first American author to use natural
diction and a pioneer of
colloquialism, Neal was the first to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch in a US work of fiction. He attained his greatest literary achievements between 1817 and 1835, during which time he was America's first daily newspaper columnist, the first American published in British
literary journals, author of the first history of
American literature, America's first
art critic, a short story pioneer, a children's literature pioneer, and a forerunner of the
American Renaissance. As one of the first men to advocate women's rights in the US and the first American lecturer on the issue, for over fifty years he supported female writers and organizers, affirmed intellectual equality between men and women, fought
coverture laws against women's economic rights, and demanded
suffrage, equal pay, and better education for women. He was the first American to establish a public gymnasium in the US and championed athletics to regulate violent tendencies with which he himself had struggled throughout his life. (Full article...)
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The unnamed hurricane at peak intensity on November 1
The 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as The No-Name Storm (especially in the years immediately after it took place) and the Halloween Gale/Storm, was a damaging and deadly
nor'easter in October 1991. Initially an
extratropical cyclone, the storm absorbed
Hurricane Grace to its south and evolved into a small unnamed
hurricane later in its life. Damage from the storm totaled over $200 million (1991 USD) and thirteen people were killed in total, six of which were an outcome of the sinking of Andrea Gail, which inspired the
book and later
movie, The Perfect Storm. The nor'easter received the name, playing off the
common expression, after a conversation between Boston
National Weather Service forecaster
Robert Case and author
Sebastian Junger.
The initial
area of low pressure developed off the coast of
Atlantic Canada on October 28. Forced southward by a
ridge to its north, it reached its peak intensity as a large and powerful
cyclone. The storm lashed the east coast of the United States with high waves and
coastal flooding before turning to the southwest and weakening. Moving over warmer waters, the system transitioned into a
subtropical cyclone before becoming a tropical storm. It executed a loop off the
Mid-Atlantic states and turned toward the northeast. On November 1, the system evolved into a full-fledged hurricane, with peak sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km/h), although the
National Hurricane Center left it unnamed to avoid confusion amid media interest in the precursor extratropical storm. The system was the twelfth and final tropical cyclone, the eighth tropical storm, and fourth hurricane in the
1991 Atlantic hurricane season. The tropical system weakened, striking Nova Scotia as a tropical storm before dissipating. (Full article...)
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Portrait of Willis by
Mathew Brady studios, circa mid-1850s
Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806 – January 20, 1867), also known as N. P. Willis, was an American writer, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including
Edgar Allan Poe and
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. His brother was the composer
Richard Storrs Willis and his sister Sara wrote under the name
Fanny Fern.
Harriet Jacobs wrote her autobiography while being employed as his children's nurse.
Born in
Portland,
Maine, Willis came from a family of publishers. His grandfather
Nathaniel Willis owned newspapers in Massachusetts and Virginia, and his father
Nathaniel Willis was the founder of Youth's Companion, the first newspaper specifically for children. Willis developed an interest in literature while attending
Yale College and began publishing poetry. After graduation, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the New York Mirror. He eventually moved to New York and began to build his literary reputation. Working with multiple publications, he was earning about $100 per article and between $5,000 and $10,000 per year. In 1846, he started his own publication, the Home Journal, which was eventually renamed Town & Country. Shortly after, Willis moved to a home on the
Hudson River where he lived a semi-retired life until his death in 1867. (Full article...)
Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a "
Goodwill Ambassador", becoming known as America's Youngest Ambassador and subsequently participating in
peacemaking activities in Japan. With the assistance of her father, Arthur (an academic), she wrote a book titled Journey to the Soviet Union, which chronicled her visit to the country. She later became a child actress, hosting a child-oriented special on the
1984 United States presidential election for
The Disney Channel and playing a co-starring role in the television series Lime Street. Smith died at the age of 13 in 1985, onboard
Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808, which crashed short of the runway on final approach to the
Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Maine. (Full article...)
After graduating from
Williams College, Brown joined the family corporation, then known as the Berlin Mills Company, and became manager of the Woods Products Division, overseeing the company's woodlands and logging operations. He became an early advocate for
sustainable forest management practices, was a member of the
New Hampshire Forestry Commission from 1909 until 1952, and served on the boards of several forestry organizations. As chair of the Forestry Commission, Brown helped send sawmills to Europe during World War I to assist the war effort. He was influenced by the
Progressive movement, instituting employee benefits such as company-sponsored care for injured workers that predated modern
workers' compensation laws. As a
Republican, he served as a
presidential elector for New Hampshire in 1924. (Full article...)
Officials in Maine wanted a commemorative
half dollar to circulate as an advertisement for the centennial of the state's admission to the Union, and of the planned celebrations. A bill to allow such a coin passed Congress without opposition, but then the state's centennial commission decided to sell the coins for $1, double the face value. The
Commission of Fine Arts disliked the proposed design, and urged changes, but Maine officials insisted, and de Francisci converted the sketches to plaster models, from which
coinage dies could be made. (Full article...)
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Neal Dow (March 20, 1804 – October 2, 1897) was an American
Prohibition advocate and politician. Nicknamed the "Napoleon of
Temperance" and the "Father of Prohibition", Dow was born to a
Quaker family in
Portland, Maine. From a young age, he believed
alcohol to be the cause of many of society's problems and wanted to ban it through legislation. In 1850, Dow was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union, and the next year he was elected
mayor of Portland. Soon after, largely due to Dow's efforts, the
state legislature banned the sale and production of alcohol in what became known as the
Maine law. Serving twice as mayor of Portland, Dow enforced the law with vigor and called for increasingly harsh penalties for violators. In 1855,
his opponents rioted and he ordered the
state militia to fire on the crowd. One man was killed and several wounded, and when public reaction to the violence turned against Dow, he chose not to seek reelection.
Dow was later elected to two terms in the
Maine House of Representatives, but retired after a financial scandal. He joined the
Union Army shortly after the outbreak of the
American Civil War in 1861, eventually attaining the rank of
brigadier general. He was wounded at the
siege of Port Hudson and later captured. After being
exchanged for another officer in 1864, Dow resigned from the military and devoted himself once more to prohibition. He spoke across the United States,
Canada, and Great Britain in support of the cause. In
1880, Dow headed the
Prohibition Party ticket for President of the United States. After losing the election, he continued to write and speak on behalf of the prohibition movement for the rest of his life until his death in Portland at the age of 93. (Full article...)
A commemorative coin craze in 1936 saw some coins authorized by the
United States Congress that were of mainly local significance; the York County issue was one of these. Legislation permitting the half dollar passed Congress without opposition in the first half of 1936. Maine artist Walter H. Rich designed the issue; his work has garnered mixed praise and dislike from numismatic authors. (Full article...)
Robert Deniston Hume (October 31, 1845 – November 25, 1908) was a
cannery owner, pioneer
hatchery operator, politician, author, and self-described "pygmy monopolist" who controlled
salmon fishing for 32 years on the lower
Rogue River in U.S. state of
Oregon. Born in
Augusta, Maine, and reared by foster parents on a farm, Hume moved at age 18 to
San Francisco to join a salmon-canning business started by two of his brothers. They later re-located to
Astoria on the
Columbia River, where they prospered. After the death of his first wife and their two young children, Hume moved again and started anew in
Gold Beach, at the mouth of the Rogue.
In 1877 Hume bought rights to a Rogue River
fishery, then built a
salmon cannery and many other structures and acquired all of the
tidelands bordering the lower 12 miles (19 km) of the river. He remarried, invested in a small fleet of ships and a salmon hatchery and expanded his business interests to include a store, hotel, newspaper, and many other enterprises in Gold Beach and in the nearby community of
Wedderburn, which he founded. Canning, shipping, and selling hundreds of tons of salmon over the years, he became known as the Salmon King of Oregon. (Full article...)
The outcome of the referendum was reversed three years later when voters approved
2012 Maine Question 1, which legalized same-sex marriage in the state again. (Full article...)
At the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts in
Findlay, Ohio, January 2022
Oshima Brothers is an American
folk-pop duo known for each playing multiple instruments and
looping their own
samples on stage to create a complex soundscape as if they were more than two. They share responsibilities based on natural proclivities, with Sean in charge of external communications and songwriting, and Jamie focusing on
mixing and
production. Almost every song is paired with a music video, which they produce on their own.
As siblings raised by
American folk musician parents in rural Maine, Sean and Jamie Oshima are self-taught musicians who started singing and playing music together as young children. Performing together as a band since 2015, they attracted a fan base within Maine following the release of their eponymous debut album in 2016. They developed a larger national audience with their 2019
EPUnder the Same Stars and subsequent national tours. Though the
COVID-19 pandemic kept them from performing live for over a year, they put out a second EP, Sunset Red, in 2020 and returned to touring in 2021. They released their second album Dark Nights Golden Days in April 2022, by which time they had over 115,000
Spotify followers and almost five million streams on the platform of their song "These Cold Nights". This is accompanied by a
visual album of the same name released the following October. (Full article...)
Montgomery's expedition set out from
Fort Ticonderoga in late August, and in mid-September began
besieging Fort St. Johns, the main defensive point south of Montreal. After the fort was captured in November, Carleton abandoned Montreal, fleeing to Quebec City, and Montgomery took control of Montreal before heading for Quebec with an army much reduced in size by expiring enlistments. There he joined Arnold, who had left Cambridge in early September on an arduous trek through the wilderness that left his surviving troops starving and lacking in many supplies and equipment. (Full article...)
"Not My Presidents Day" (sometimes "Not My President's Day", or "Not My Presidents' Day") was a series of rallies against the
president of the United States,
Donald Trump, held on
Washington's Birthday (an American federal holiday also known as Presidents' Day), February 20, 2017. Protests were held in dozens of cities throughout the United States. Demonstrations were also held outside London's
Houses of Parliament.
The marches were mostly coordinated through
Facebook. Organizers of the protest stated that although Trump was the president, they
wanted to show that he did not represent their values. Los Angeles was the first city to plan a "Not My Presidents Day" rally, which was attended by more than a thousand protesters. New York City saw the largest demonstration, with an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 people attending a rally outside
Trump International Hotel and Tower. The events were mostly peaceful, although thirteen people were arrested in
Portland, Oregon. (Full article...)
Its nickname is the "Shire Town". The Houlton High School sports teams are named "The Shiretowners". The
Meduxnekeag River flows through the heart of the town, and the border with the Canadian province of
New Brunswick is 3 mi (4.8 km) east of the town's center. Houlton was the home of
Ricker College, which closed in 1978. (Full article...)
This list was generated from
these rules. Questions and feedback
are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.
... that John Bunker was inspired to propagate old apple tree varieties after encountering Black Oxford apples while managing the
food co-op in
Belfast, Maine?
... that among the special events broadcast by the Maine Television Network during its brief existence were a fashion show, a basketball tournament, and an
ordination ceremony?
... that a Maine TV station was so protective of its evening newscast that it preempted nearly 40 percent of all
NBC Sports programming in 1994?
... that in 2009, residents of Maine voted to repeal a law that would have legalized same-sex marriage?
The list below, for each city, shows the population in 2010, the population estimate of 2019, the growth/shrinking percentage between the three, and the date of incorporation as a city.