Maine Timeline History

Loggers at Russell Camp, Aroostook County, ca. 1900

1000 A.D.: Viking Norse: explorers are thought to have landed on the coast

1498: John Cabot explorers the coast of Maine

1604: Pierre du Guast of France lands at Dochet Island, and founded St. Croix settlement; later moving on to Nova Scotia due to a harsh winter

1607: Popham Colony, an English settlement, is built. It lasts less than six months after a difficult winter

1614: British Captain John Smith visits the area

1622: Monhegan, Maine's first permanent European settlement, is established. The entire territory is granted to John Mason and others

1652: Maine comes under the control of Massachusetts

1760: After many years of battles during French and Indian War, a treaty with the Indians is finally reached

1775: Residents attack and capture a British ship, and it's now called the "First Naval Battle of the American Revolution."

1812: Bangor captured and significant parts of Maine seized by the British

1820: Maine becomes the 23rd state

1842: The Webster-Ashburton Treaty successfully decides the official border between the state, and the neighboring country of Canada

1851: Harriet Beecher Stowe writes Uncle Tom's Cabin in Brunswich. State takes an active anti-slavery stand.

1866: Devastating fire in Portland.

1941: President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, visit Rockland

1948: Margaret Chase Smith becomes the first Republican woman elected to the U.S. Senate

1961: The USS Abraham Lincoln, the first Polaris submarine, is launched at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard

1979: State Senator, Edmund Muskie, becomes U.S. Secretary of State

1980: To settle the long dispute over land, the U.S. pays over 80 million dollars to the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indians

1997: State Senator, William Cohen, becomes U.S. Secretary of Defense