Feb. 22, 1864: The three-masted steamer Bohemian, bound from Liverpool, England, to Portland, strikes Alden’s Rock, a ledge near Cape Elizabeth, at night in a dense haze. The accident kills 42 people, including two crew members. The ship, an iron vessel owned by the Ocean Steamship Co. of Montreal, was carrying 219 passengers, most of […]

Feb. 17, 1927: “The King’s Henchmen,” an American opera written by Deems Taylor and Rockland native, poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), opens successfully at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and becomes popular in book form as well. Feb. 17, 1952: A 36-hour blizzard powered by high wind begins to envelop […]

Feb. 16, 1804: In a maneuver masterminded by Navy Commodore Edward Preble (1761-1807) of Portland, a group of sailors stage a surprise attack and set fire to the frigate USS Philadelphia, which had run aground the previous year off Tripoli and had been captured by Barbary pirates. President Thomas Jefferson put Preble in charge of […]

Feb. 15, 1898: The armored battleship USS Maine explodes in the harbor at Havana, Cuba, killing 266 of its 354 crew members and accelerating the decline in U.S. relations with Cuba’s parent nation, Spain. The U.S. goes to war against Spain later that year. The ship, commissioned in 1895, was the first U.S. Navy vessel named […]