May 9, 1775: With the onset of the Revolutionary War, Brunswick militiamen sneak into Falmouth (now Portland) and capture British Navy Lt. Henry Mowatt, captain of the 16-gun sloop-of-war HMS Canceaux, while he was on land. In an incident that becomes known as Thompson’s War, the Canceaux’s crew threatens to shell the city unless Mowatt […]

May 8, 1980: U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie (1914-1996), a Democrat from Maine, becomes U.S. secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter. He serves until Jan. 18, 1981, two days before the end of Carter’s presidential term. Under Muskie, the State Department holds its first high-level talks with the Soviet Union, trying in vain to convince […]

May 7, 1792: After a proposal to separate the District of Maine from Massachusetts is revived, the first districtwide vote on the issue is held. The “no” side prevails, 2,524-2,074. Proponents of separation are encouraged – they would have won if not for strong opposition in only six of the 89 towns that provided referendum […]

May 5, 2017: The newly designated Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, in northern Penobscot County, is added to a national list of 22 sites that President Trump’s administration is considering for possible reduction in size. Maine Gov. Paul LePage lobbied hard to get the site added to the list, having opposed the 87,000-acre monument’s […]

May 4, 1837: The Maine schooner Susan departs from the harbor in Savannah, Georgia, where the ship stopped for repairs. The crew apparently is unaware that a slave named Atticus, trained as a ship’s carpenter, has sneaked aboard to escape from his masters, James and Henry Sagurs. Atticus comes out of hiding once the ship […]

May 3, 1903: Nearly all of Kennebunk’s business district is wiped out in a three-hour fire of unknown origin that starts in the town’s four-story, wooden, electric lighting station. The loss includes the lighting station, two mills, five business blocks, two tenement buildings and seven other wooden buildings. The burned buildings cover an area of […]

May 2, 2018: The Maine Legislature overrides Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a bill that would bring about the sale of recreational marijuana, which voters decided to legalize under state law in a November 2016 referendum. The House votes 109-39 and the Senate, 28-6 to secure the bill’s final passage. The next step is the […]

May 1, 2008: Rising rivers throughout northeastern Maine and northwestern New Brunswick drive area residents out, force bridge closures and submerge many businesses and homes in the worst inundation in living memory, caused by 5 inches of rain and a rapidly melting snowpack. The Aroostook River in Masardis crests at 18.33 feet, a record level. […]

April 30, 1911: The Great Fire of 1911 begins in a hay shed on Broad Street in downtown Bangor. Over two days, the fire ravages the city’s core on both sides of Kenduskeag Stream, destroying 285 homes, 100 businesses, the public high school, two fire stations, six churches and a synagogue. The city library burns […]