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 […]

Feb. 14, 2008: Bath Iron Works wins a $1.4 billion contract to build the first ship in the U.S. Navy’s newest class of guided-missile destroyers. The Zumwalt, or DDG 1000, is expected to be delivered in 2014. The contract is expected to help BIW avoid layoffs when construction of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers is complete. The […]

Feb. 13, 2019: The town of Skowhegan and the Main Street Skowhegan organization receive confirmation from Guinness World Records that their community set the world record for moose calling on June 9, 2018. On that date, registered Maine guide Robert Lambert led 1,054 people in a thunderous moose call that lasted 30 seconds during the Skowhegan […]

Feb. 11, 1904: The Henry B. Hyde, the largest ship built in Maine at the time, runs aground in a gale off Cape Henry, Virginia. The 268-foot, fully rigged, three-masted sailing vessel is recovered, but sinks permanently nearly eight months later. Workers trying to salvage the vessel after the initial shipwreck manage to get it […]

Feb. 10, 1886: At 4:45 a.m., the wooden passenger steamship Cambridge strikes Old Man’s Ledge off Port Clyde and sinks in 50 feet of water. The 248-foot vessel, carrying heavy freight, completely breaks apart, becoming the only Boston-to-Bangor steamer to be lost in more than a century of service. All crew members and the 40 […]