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, […]