Posted inLocal & State, News

On this date in Maine history: Jan. 27

Jan. 27, 1893: Former U.S. House Speaker James G. Blaine of Augusta dies at his Washington home. Blaine was the Republican nominee for president in 1884, when he lost the general election to Grover Cleveland. Blaine’s body is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood. The remains of his wife, Augusta native Harriet […]

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Posted inLocal & State, News

On this date in Maine history: Jan. 26

Jan. 26, 1739: The Massachusetts General Court, having received a petition on the subject the previous year, incorporates Brunswick as the 11th town in Maine, which then was part of Massachusetts. The town holds six town meetings in 1739 and allocates 153 pounds and 15 shillings for expenses in the town budget. The town’s voters […]

Posted inLocal & State, News

On this date in Maine history: Jan. 25

Jan. 25, 1953: Bangor-based WABI-TV begins broadcasting as Maine’s first television station, on VHF channel 5. Its first owner is Community Broadcasting Service, which was founded in 1949 by former Gov. Horace Hildreth, owner of WABI radio station, from which the TV station got its call letters. Originally a multi-network affiliate, WABI-TV became a full-time […]

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On this date in Maine history: Jan. 23

Jan. 23, 2018: Selectmen in the town of Jackman, near the Canadian border, fire Town Manager Tom Kawczynski, who they said compromised the town’s image by publicly advocating racial segregation and condemning Islam. Four days earlier, news reports identified Kawczynski, an Arizona native, as the founder and leader of New Albion, a pro-white group that […]

Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News

On this date in Maine history: Jan. 22

Jan. 22, 1981: Belgian-born novelist and essayist Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), having lived for more than three decades in relative obscurity on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, attends a ceremony in Paris at which she becomes the first woman inducted into the prestigious Académie Française. Yourcenar is known best as the author of the novels “Memoirs of […]

Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News

On this date in Maine history: Jan. 21

Jan. 21, 1833: In Winthrop, Ezekiel Holmes (1801-1865) publishes the first issue of a long-running newspaper that eventually will become known as the Maine Farmer. Kennebec Journal co-founder Russell Eaton buys the newspaper in 1844 and moves it to Augusta, where it operates for another eight decades. Holmes, dubbed “the father of Maine agriculture,” also […]