Aug. 26, 2005: Workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery breathe a collective sigh of relief when they learn that a federal base-closing commission has left the shipyard off a list of military installations scheduled for closure. Gov. John Baldacci and members of the Maine congressional delegation attend a celebratory rally in front of […]

Aug. 25, 1894: Renowned poet and author Celia Thaxter (1835-1894) dies on Maine’s Appledore Island, in the Isles of Shoals, the inspiration for many of her poems. She is 59. Although she was born on the mainland – in Portsmouth, New Hampshire – and spent many years away, she is associated most closely with the […]

Aug. 24, 1857: Eastman Johnson (1824-1906), a prolific painter who was born in Lovell and raised in Augusta and Fryeburg, begins a two-month visit to Grand Portage, Minnesota Territory, where he creates a series of portraits “that for several reasons have come to be regarded as perhaps the most sensitive midcentury likenesses of Native Americans.” […]

Aug. 23, 1724: During a Colonial-era conflict known as Governor Dummer’s War, about 200 New Englanders under the command of Capt. Johnson Harmon and Capt. Jeremiah Moulton attack the Abenaki village at Norridgewock, killing dozens of Wabanaki Indians as well as the Rev. Sébastien Râle, leader of the Catholic mission there. The attackers are trying […]

Aug. 21, 1942: Walt Disney releases the animated film “Bambi,” which benefited from various Maine influences. Disney sent one of his employees, Damariscotta native Maurice “Jake” Day, a prolific artist, sculptor, photographer and naturalist, back to Maine to paint and photograph the area around Mount Katahdin in various seasons during the production of “Bambi.” As […]

Aug. 20, 2010: Federal officials announce the arrests of 47 people – more than half of them known gang members – as part of a regional campaign against gangs. Twenty-four of the suspects were arrested in Maine. The other arrests occur in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Those […]

Aug. 19, 1692: George Burroughs, 42, of Wells is hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, after being tried for and found guilty of witchcraft. The execution proceeds even though Burroughs’ chief accuser, Margaret Jacobs, 17, recants her testimony, saying that she suffered “such horror of conscience that I could not sleep for fear the devil should carry […]

Aug. 18, 1957: Amateur archaeologist Guy Mellgren, according to his own report, finds an 11th-century Norwegian coin at the Goddard prehistoric archaeological site on Naskeag Point in Brooklin. The coin, since donated to the Maine State Museum, has given rise to theories that Norsemen from that period traveled to Maine, or that local tribes acquired […]