Dec. 15, 1885: Lloyd’s of London receives word that Red Jacket, the Rockland-built clipper ship that set a record by crossing the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Liverpool in slightly more than 13 days during its maiden voyage in 1854, has slipped its mooring in a storm and broken apart on rocks in Funchal […]

Dec. 14, 1897: Six sailors drown when the schooner Susan P. Thurlow, built in the Washington County coastal town of Harrington, strikes a reef on a wretchedly stormy night off Cushing Island, near Portland. The ship and its cargo are torn to pieces within an hour. One crew member, Charles Reimann, a German, survives the […]

Dec. 13, 1947: After five years of planning and two years of construction, the first 45-mile, four-lane section of the Maine Turnpike opens, linking Kittery to Portland. The Portland Press Herald dubs it the “Mile-a-Minute Highway.” It is the nation’s second toll expressway, the first being the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which opened in 1940. Dec. 13, […]

Dec. 12, 2015: Dale Sparrow, 46, a fishing boat captain, experiences chest pains at 3 a.m. while aboard the Danny Boy about 40 nautical miles southeast of Portland. He alerts the Coast Guard, which makes the rescue with an assist from a $4.3 billion Navy destroyer. You just never know who’s going to be in […]

Dec. 11, 1957: The iconic film “Peyton Place,” whose title entered the English language as a synonym for a community full of tawdry secrets, holds its premiere in Camden, where much of it was filmed. The Camden Theater hosts a capacity crowd of 610, including celebrities chased by searchlights, for two showings of the movie, […]

Dec. 10, 2010: Bushmaster Firearms International announces it plans to close its assembly plant in Windham, effective the following March 31. Founded in 1973, the company employs 73 workers in Maine at the time of the announcement. Bushmaster’s parent company, North Carolina-based Freedom Group Inc., says in a news release that the Windham staff will […]

Dec. 8. 1819: U.S. Rep John Holmes, Democrat-Republican from Maine, submits a petition to the House advocating for the admission of Maine as the 23rd U.S. state. U.S. Sen. Prentiss Mellen, a Massachusetts native residing in Portland, does likewise in the Senate. Holmes later becomes one of Maine’s first two U.S. senators. Mellen is appointed […]

Dec. 7, 1851: A massive fire breaks out around 5 a.m. in the Larrabee & Jordan grocery store in Portland, on the eastern side of Commercial Wharf, destroying many wharves and commercial buildings along the city’s waterfront. Twenty-seven stores and nine vessels burn. The city’s Eastern Argus newspaper gauges it to be the worst Portland […]

Dec. 6, 1819: Voters approve a draft of the forthcoming state of Maine’s new constitution. The “yes” side gets more than 90 percent of the vote. Dec. 6, 1931: Botanist Kate Furbish, 97, dies in her hometown, Brunswick, after a six-decade career in which she walked all over the state to describe, depict and catalogue […]