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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.
This is a
Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
Image 1
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...)
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 is the first to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch in a 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...)
Image 3
First page of the first issue: January 1, 1828
The Yankee (later retitled The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette) was one of the first cultural publications in the United States, founded and edited by
John Neal (1793–1876), and published in
Portland, Maine as a weekly periodical and later converted to a longer, monthly format. Its two-year run concluded at the end of 1829. The magazine is considered unique for its independent journalism at the time.
Neal used creative control of the magazine to improve his social status, help establish the American
gymnastics movement, cover
national politics, and critique
American literature,
art,
theater, and social issues. Essays by Neal on American art and theater anticipated major changes and movements in those fields realized in the following decades. Conflicting opinions published in The Yankee on the
cultural identity of
Maine and
New England presented readers with a complex portrait of the region. (Full article...)
Image 4
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 author, 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...)
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...)
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...)
Unanticipated problems beset the expedition as soon as it left the last significant colonial outposts in Maine. The
portages up the
Kennebec River proved grueling, and the boats frequently leaked, ruining
gunpowder and spoiling food supplies. More than a third of the men turned back before reaching the height of land between the Kennebec and
Chaudière rivers. The areas on either side of the height of land were swampy tangles of lakes and streams, and the traversal was made more difficult by bad weather and inaccurate maps. Many of the troops lacked experience handling boats in
white water, which led to the destruction of more boats and supplies in the descent to the
Saint Lawrence River via the fast-flowing Chaudière. (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...)
The trail was first proposed in 1921 and completed in 1937. Improvements and changes have continued since then. It became the Appalachian National Scenic Trail under the
National Trails System Act of 1968. (Full article...)
Image 2
R.D. Hume in the 1890s
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...)
Image 3
Portrait of Hill from the El Ojo yearbook (1923)
John Henry Hill (July 4, 1852 – October 13, 1936) was an American lawyer, educator, school administrator, and military officer. He was the second principal of the
West Virginia Colored Institute (present-day West Virginia State University) from 1894 until 1898. West Virginia State considers him its second president.
Hill was born into
slavery in 1852 in
Charles Town, Virginia, (present-day
West Virginia). During the
American Civil War, he relocated to
Maine where he
studied law. He became Maine's second
African-American lawyer in 1879, and became West Virginia's first African-American lawyer after his admission to the bar of
Jefferson County's
circuit court in 1881. Hill then served in the
10th Cavalry Regiment for six years, during which time he participated in the
Apache Wars. He was a schoolteacher and then principal at
Shepherdstown's African-American public school, Shadyside School, from 1889 until 1893, and then served as the second principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute from 1894 until 1898. Hill resigned as principal to serve in the
United States Volunteers during the
Spanish–American War from 1898 to 1899. Hill returned to the institute in 1899, when he was appointed Commandant of Cadets and professor of mathematics, and remained there until 1903. Following his death in 1936, West Virginia State named Hill Hall in his honor. (Full article...)
Image 4
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...)
For nearly a half century, Costello was one of the most prominent members of the Lewiston-
Auburn community. In addition to running its largest morning and afternoon papers, he was a longtime
trustee of both Bates College and the
Androscoggin County Savings Bank, serving as the latter institution's president from 1931 to 1939. He was an active
Freemason and member of the
United Baptist church. (Full article...)
The Battle of Machias (August 13–14, 1777) was an amphibious assault on the
Massachusetts town of
Machias (in present-day eastern
Maine) by
British forces during the
American Revolutionary War. Local militia aided by Indian allies successfully prevented British troops from landing. The raid, led by Commodore Sir
George Collier, was executed in an attempt to head off a planned second assault on
Fort Cumberland, which had
been besieged in November 1776. The British forces landed below Machias, seized a ship, and raided a storehouse.
The result of the raid was disputed. Collier claimed the action was successful in destroying military stores for an attack on Fort Cumberland (although such stores had not been delivered to Machias), while the defenders claimed that they had successfully prevented the capture of Machias and driven off the British. (Full article...)
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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.
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Brooklyn's West Street Foundry, owned by Wilson Small, built the engine for Error: {{
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help), which on debut in 1853 was the largest and fastest steamboat in
Maine coastal service?
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.