Click on links in the timeline to learn more, or ...
Go to TIMELINE: through 1820

1821	Maine's first free high school, and the second free high school in the nation, is established in Portland.
1822	The Kennebec steamship begins its run between Portland and Portsmouth, N.H.
1824	The Maine State Prison is built in Thomaston.
1826	Maine's first large-scale icehouse is built on the Kennebec.
1827	The Fourdrinier paper-making machine comes to New England.
1828	Portland's Abyssinian Church is founded, the first African-American church in Maine.
1830	The Cumberland and Oxford Canal opens.
1832	A new State House is built in Augusta. Maine's state capital moves there from Portland.
1834	The Maine Anti-Slavery Society forms. The Maine Insane Hospital is built.
1836	The Bangor-Veazie Railroad is constructed - it is used mainly for transporting lumber.
1838	An earthquake shakes New England, causing damage in Maine. Samuel Morse sends the world's first telegraphic message.
1839	The "bloodless" Aroostook War pits Canadians against Mainers over the northeastern boundary of the United States. Thomas B. Reed is born in Portland. China and Britain begin to fight the Opium War.
1842	The Webster-Ashburton Treaty establishes the northeastern border of Maine and the U.S. Maine's first seafood cannery opens in Eastport.
1846	Failure of the potato crop in Ireland spurs many people to immigrate to the U.S. The sewing machine is invented.
1847	Henry David Thoreau climbs Mt. Katahdin and later writes of his travels in The Maine Woods.
1848	Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto. U.S. territory expands in the Southwest as a result of the Mexican War.
1851	The Maine Law passes, prohibiting alcohol manufacture and sale in Maine.
1852	Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin.
1853	Maine buys all the land within its boundaries that is still owned by Massachusetts. Maine's Grand Trunk Railway is constructed, running from Portland to the St. Lawrence River.
1854	Bath's Old South Meeting House is burned by Know Nothing rioters.
1855	Portlanders rise up against Mayor Neal Dow in the June Riot. The Maine State Seminary (Bates College) is incorporated.
1856	Hannibal Hamlin switches from the Democratic to the new Republican Party and is elected governor.
1858	Joseph Peavey, of Stillwater, invents an improved logging tool called the "peavey."
1859	Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is published.
1860	Hannibal Hamlin becomes Vice President under President Abraham Lincoln. The first wave of French-Canadian immigration into Maine begins.
1861	The Civil War begins.
1862	The Maine Central Railroad is established.
1863	Joshua Chamberlain leads the 20th Maine regiment in a bayonet charge at the Battle of Little Round Top, Gettysburg. President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming all the slaves free.
1864	President Lincoln appoints William Pitt Fessenden to Secretary of the Treasury.
1865	The Confederate Army surrenders to the Union; the Civil War ends.
1866	A Great Fire razes much of Portland.
1867	The Canadian states are united as the Dominion of Canada.
1868	The Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (now the University of Maine at Orono) opens its doors.
1869	The first transcontinental railroad begins operating. Edwin Arlington Robinson is born. Mainer Oliver Otis Howard founds Howard University, one of the nation's first colleges for African Americans.
1872	The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church is built in Lewiston; it is the first French National church in Maine.
1873	The Maine Woman Suffrage Association is organized. Louis Francis Sockalexis is born.
1875	The first lobster pound is established in Vinalhaven. A new Maine law requires children between the ages of 9 and 15 to go to school for at least 12 weeks a year.
1876	The Poland Spring House is built.
1877	Marsden Hartley is born.
1878	The first commercial telephone exchange takes place.
1880	Le Messager newspaper is founded in Lewiston. Two political parties claim control of the Maine legislature after a disputed election.
1882	The Knights of Labor become active in Maine.
1884	James G. Blaine runs for president, but is defeated by Grover Cleveland. Bath Iron Works is founded.
1887	A new Maine law makes the maximum legal length of a workday ten hours. Capital punishment is abolished in Maine.
1891	The American Federation of Labor becomes active in Maine.
1892	Edna St. Vincent Millay is born in Rockland.
1894	The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad begins its run, making Aroostook County and the northern woods more accessible to tourists.
1896	Sarah Orne Jewett writes The Country of the Pointed Firs.
1897	The International Paper Company is founded. Cornelia "Fly Rod" Crosby becomes Maine's first registered guide. F.E. and F.O. Stanley develop the steam-driven car.
1898	Charles Herbert Woodbury starts an art school and colony in Ogunquit. The USS Maine sinks in Havana harbor, touching off the Spanish-American War.
1900	The Great Northern Paper mill is built in Millinocket. Maine's population reaches 694,500.
1902	Great Britain wins dominion over South Africa in the Boer War.
1903	The Ford Motor Company engineers the assembly line.
1904	Construction on the Panama Canal begins.
1909	The Maine legislature passes the Fernald Law, making it illegal to export hydroelectric power outside of the state.
1910	The Central Maine Power Company is founded. Japan annexes Korea.
1914	Prince Ferdinand is assassinated; WWI begins in Europe.
1915	The Turkish government kills one million Armenians.
1917	The Russian Revolution abolishes the monarchy. The U.S. enters WWI. The first Navy-built submarine is launched at the Kittery-Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
1918	World War I ends.
1919	The Eighteenth Amendment prohibits the manufacture and sale of alcohol throughout the nation. Lafayette National Park (later renamed Acadia National Park) is established on Mount Desert Island.
1920	The Nineteenth Amendment passes, giving women the vote. Maine's population reaches 768,000.
1922	The Irish Free State is established. James Joyce's Ulysses is published.
1924	Membership in Maine's Ku Klux Klan reaches 50,000.
1928	Joseph Stalin comes to power in Russia.
1929	Black Friday: the U.S. stock market crashes, initiating the Great Depression.
1931	Former Governor Percival Baxter donates 5,760 acres of land, including Mt. Katahdin, to form a new state park named after him.
1933	Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany; he begins to persecute millions of Jews. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sworn in as President. National Prohibition is repealed.
1934	Maine State Prohibition is repealed.
1935	The Quoddy Tidal Project is launched under the New Deal. The Wagner Act passes, giving workers the legal right to form labor unions without the interference of their employers.
1937	A shoe workers' strike in Lewiston-Auburn known as "The Battle of the Bridge" becomes violent.
1939	Gone with the Wind is released. War breaks out in Europe.
1941	The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
1944	The raft from a German U-boat is found in Hancock Point. German Prisoners of War held in a Houlton. POW camp help Aroostook County farmers harvest potatoes.
1945	World War II ends
1947	Forest fires sweep Mount Desert Island and southwestern Maine. The Maine Turnpike from Kittery to Portland opens to traffic.
1948	Margaret Chase Smith is elected as the first Maine woman to the U.S. Senate. Palestine is partitioned into Jewish and Arab states; the state of Israel is created.
1949	The People's Republic of China is formed.
1950	Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivers her Declaration of Conscience. The Korean War begins.
1952	The U.S. develops the H-bomb.
1954	Maine Indians are given the vote. Edmund Muskie is elected Governor of Maine. The U.S. Senate censures Senator Joseph McCarthy.
1955	The Maine Turnpike extends to Augusta.
1957	The Sinclair Act creates public School Administrative Districts (SADs). Sputnik is launched. Maine's Election Day moves from September to November.
1958	Edmund Muskie is elected to the U.S. Senate.
1959	Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba.
1960	Twenty-four percent of Mainers are earning an income below the poverty line.
1962	Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is published.
1963	President John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
1964	The Civil Rights Act passes.
1965	The Maine state legislature passes the Fair Housing Bill, making racial discrimination in housing illegal. The National Organization for Women is founded.
1968	Martin Luther King is assassinated. Edmund Muskie runs for Vice President on Hubert Humphrey's ticket.
1969	U.S. troops in Vietnam reach a peak of 543,400. Maine citizens pay a state income tax for the first time.
1970	Maine's population reaches 993,700.
1972	Margaret Chase Smith loses her first - and last - election. Maine Yankee nuclear power plant opens. A proposal to build the Dickey-Lincoln hydroelectric power project is abandoned. The oil tanker Tomano spills into Casco Bay.
1974	Maine elects Jim Longley, Maine's first independent governor. President Richard Nixon resigns.
1975	Maine's final river drive happens. The U.S. pulls out of Vietnam.
1976	The Maine legislature passes the returnable bottle bill.
1977	Franco-Americans get official recognition as an ethnic group. The U.S. government supports Maine Indians in their land claims case against the state of Maine.
1978	The Blizzard of '78 causes severe damage along the Maine coast.
1980	The Maine Indian Land Claims Case is settled out of court.
1983	Eleven-year old Samantha Smith, from Manchester, Maine, writes a peace-making letter to Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov. On his invitation, she visits the Soviet Union. 150 million Africans face near-famine.
1987	International Paper Company employees strike. The Iran-Contra scandal emerges.
1988	George Mitchell, of Waterville, is elected U.S. Senate Majority Leader.
1989	The Berlin Wall falls; the Cold War ends.
1990	The Americans with Disabilities Act passes.
1991	The Maine State government shuts down during a budget crisis. The U.S. fights Iraq in the Gulf War.
1992	The white policemen that beat black motorist Rodney King are acquitted of charges of police brutality.
1993	New York's World Trade Center is bombed by terrorists.
1997	Maine Yankee nuclear power plant closes. William Cohen, of Bangor, is appointed Secretary of Defense under President William Clinton. The Compact for Maine's Forests is rejected in a popular referendum.
1998	A severe January ice storm causes damage and power outages throughout the state.