Celebrations Today – March 15
Holidays and observances
- Christian feast day:
- Constitution Day (Belarus)
- Earliest day on which Palm Sunday can fall, while April 18 is the latest; celebrated on the sixth Sunday of Lent (Christianity)
- Hōnen Matsuri (Japan)
- International Day Against Police Brutality
- J. J. Roberts’ Birthday (Liberia)
- National Day, celebrating the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (Hungary)
- World Consumer Rights Day
- World Day of Muslim Culture, Peace, Dialogue and Film
- Youth Day (Palau)
Celebrations Today – USA: March 15
National Everything You Think Is Wrong Day
National Pears Helene Day
National Shoe the World Day
National Kick Butts Day – Changes Annually March 15, 2018
National Celebrate Scientists Day
National Genius Day
International Ask a Question Day
National Moth-er Day
National Children’s Craft Day
National Save a Spider Day
Today in US History: March 15
The Pine Tree State
Devil’s Pulpit, Bald Head Cliff, York, Maine, circa 1900.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
On March 15, 1820, Maine became the twenty-third state in the Union. Originally a province of Massachusetts, Maine is noted for its picturesque coastline and dense woodlands. Even today, ninety percent of Maine remains forested.
Explorer Samuel de Champlain reached the coast of Maine in 1604 and claimed it as part of the French province of Acadia. France and Britain disputed ownership until 1763, when the region was ceded to the British during negotiations ending the French and Indian War.
In the nineteenth century, jobs in the timber industry lured many French-speaking Canadians to Maine. Vital Martin, a Canadian who moved to Maine in 1898, found the woods of Penobscot County crowded in comparison to rural Canada. “Me, I don’t like to go out in the woods to hunt here,” Martin admitted in a 1938 American Life Histories, 1936-1940 interview. “It is too dangerous,” he continued, “You never can tell when someone will kill you for something else.” For the most part, the French speaking Martin preferred the civilized comforts of Old Town, Maine to the isolated country life he knew as a child in Canada:
I wouldn’t want to go back there,…This is a much better place…This job is steady the year around, an’ she’s not hard. I have a little garden there an’ I Keep the hen…The work is much easier now for the womans. She have the washer, the Frigidhaire [sic], an’ the electric light, an’ she have the water on the sink. Yes sir, the world has improved very much since I live in Canada.”Personal History of Vital Martin,” 1938.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
Explore the American Memory Collections to learn more about Maine:
- The twenty-nine WPA Life Histories from Maine touch upon a broad array of subjects, including folklore, religion, industries, French Canadians, bilingualism, and Native Americans. Search the collection on Maine and one of these keywords to find material on Maine related topics.
- Search on the term Maine in Map Collections to access approximately seventy-nine maps pertinent to the state. See, for example, an 1875 bird’s-eye view map of Bangor, Maine.
- 14 early photographs of Maine made by amateur photographer Joseph Kirkbride are featured in The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920.
- To locate additional pictures of the state, search on Maine in Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991, Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920, and America from the Great Depression to World War II: Color Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1939-1945.
Children Gathering Potatoes, vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine
Jack Delano, photographer, October 1940.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Color Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1939-1945 - Read Today in History features about two nineteenth-century sons of Maine—poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and martyred abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy. Or, see the Today in History feature on Acadia National Park, the first national park east of the Mississippi.
Kennebunkport, Maine, copyright 1911.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Maine is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi. Over the years, city dwellers have sought solitude in its forests and along its rocky coast. A fashionable resort since the early twentieth century, Kennebunkport remains a favorite vacation destination of former president and first lady George and Barbara Bush.
Today in History – March 15-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia