March 13, 2020

This Sunday, March 15, is the bicentenary of the northeastern state of Maine. Throughout 2020, bicentennial celebrations and events are commemorating Maine’s entrance to the Union as the 23rd state in 1820.

The beautiful, rocky coast of Maine attracts thousands of vacationers to the state each year. The Portland Head Light, in Cape Elizabeth, is one of the best-known American lighthouses. It was built in 1791. credit: © Shutterstock

A special bicentennial flag is flying above Maine’s public and government buildings in 2020. This Sunday, Statehood Day celebrations in Augusta, the capital, include birthday cake, music, poetry, and speeches. Events later in the year include a bicentennial parade, a sailing ships festival, and the sealing of a time capsule. Special bicentennial programs include a “Maine in the Movies” series, which celebrates the state’s role in Hollywood films, and the mass planting of white pine saplings in new or existing public parks. The state is even publishing The Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook to showcase the state’s unique culinary traditions.

Maine state map. credit: World Book map; map data (c) MapQuest.com, Inc.

The Maine region was the home of Native Americans for thousands of years before English colonists first settled the area in 1607 (13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock). Such difficulties as cold weather and a lack of leadership, however, forced the settlers back to England in 1608. Colonists, primarily fishermen, returned to make permanent settlements in Maine in the 1620′s. Maine was a part of Massachusetts throughout its colonial history and for 44 years after the Declaration of Independence established the United States in 1776.

The Maine quarter features a lighthouse on a granite coast and a schooner. The lighthouse is the Pemaquid Point Light, northwest of Portland. The lighthouse dates from the 1820’s and is a popular tourist attraction. Granite is a common feature of Maine’s coastline and one of the state’s leading mined products. The schooner resembles one of Maine’s famous windjammers (sailing ships). credit: U.S. Mint

In 1785, a movement began for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts and for Maine’s admission to the Union as an individual state. Many people in Maine protested heavy taxation, poor roads, the long distance to the capital city of Boston, and other conditions. But before the War of 1812, most voters wanted Maine to remain a part of Massachusetts. The separation movement grew much stronger after the war. Many of those who favored separation won election to the legislature. They swayed many voters to their side. The people voted for separation in 1819, and Maine entered the Union the next year.

The name Maine probably means mainland. Early English fishermen used the term The Main to distinguish the mainland from the offshore islands, where they settled. New Englanders often refer to Maine as Down East. They call people who live in Maine Down Easters or Down Easterners. These terms probably come from the location of Maine east of, or downwind from, Boston. Ships from that port sailed down to Maine, and ships from Maine traveled up to Boston.

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is from Portland, Maine’s largest city, and the American Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain is from the town of Brewer. The author Stephen King, a native of Portland, sets many of his novels in Maine.

December 13, 2019

Tomorrow, on December 14, the southern state of Alabama celebrates its 200th birthday. Alabama entered the Union as the 22nd state in 1819, and celebrations and events have commemorated the bicentenary throughout the year.

Alabama’s Gulf Coast is the site of numerous resorts and vacation homes. This long, sandy peninsula extends into the Gulf of Mexico between Mobile and Perdido bays. Credit: © Jeff Greenberg, Alamy Images

The cities of Birmingham, Huntsville (site of the 1819 Alabama Constitutional Convention), and Montgomery (the capital) hosted special art and history exhibitions, concerts, and dances. A traveling exhibit, “The Cases and Faces that Changed a Nation,” detailed landmark civil rights court cases that originated in Alabama and profiled the three United States Supreme Court justices from the state.

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Alabama. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The Alabama region was the home of Native Americans for thousands of years before Spanish explorers arrived in the first half of the 1500’s. Spain, France, and Great Britain alternately controlled the area before it became part of the United States in 1795.

The Alabama state quarter features an image of Helen Keller, an untiring supporter of people with disabilities. The banner “Spirit of Courage” lies beneath her portrait. The coin includes Keller’s name in the Braille alphabet, a writing system that can be read by touch. The coin also contains borders of magnolias and branches of the longleaf pine, the state tree. Alabama became the nation’s 22nd state 200 years ago on Dec. 14, 1819. Credit: U.S. Mint

Alabama, a state that allowed slavery, seceded from the Union in 1861 and fought with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Alabama reentered the Union in 1870, but racial strife in the state continued for another 100 years. Many important events of the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s took place in Alabama.

The State Capitol of Alabama is in Montgomery, which has been the capital of the state since 1846. Credit: WORLD BOOK illustration

November 20, 2019

Yesterday, on November 19, the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, marked the 200th anniversary of its founding in 1819. Originally called the Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures, the museum later became the Museo Nacional del Prado (National Museum of the Prado), and grew into one of the world’s most celebrated art museums. The word prado means meadow in Spanish. Both the museum and Madrid’s Paseo del Prado boulevard are built on land that was once a meadow. The museum’s exhibits of Spanish paintings include many works by El Greco and Francisco Goya. The museum also displays paintings by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, including his masterpiece Las Meninas.

The Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, opened 200 years ago in November 1819. Credit: © Anibal Trejo, Shutterstock

To mark the Prado’s 200th anniversary, the museum ran a special exhibition called “A Place of Memory” in the first 10 months of 2019. The exhibition showed how the museum changed but survived the often turbulent events of Spanish history, including the fall of Spain’s colonial empire, the Spanish Civil War, the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and the country’s ultimate transition to democracy. The traveling exhibit “De gira por España” (On Tour in Spain) took many of the Prado’s precious works to museums throughout the country as part of the bicentenary celebration in 2019. At the same time, the exhibition “El Prado en las calles” (The Prado in the Streets) displayed the museum’s works in public spaces in the Philippines and in several cities in the Americas.

Las Meninas, a portrait of the Spanish royal family by Diego Velázquez, is one of the Prado’s most famous works. The artist united real and pictorial space by having the young princess look casually out of the composition, presumably toward her parents, who stand in the same position as the viewer. The painter shown at left is Velázquez himself. Credit: The Prado, Madrid, Spain (Erich Lessing, Art Resource)

Construction on the building that houses the Prado began in 1785. It was originally a museum of natural sciences. King Ferdinand VII of Spain converted it into the Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures. The museum’s initial collection contained more than 300 works by Spanish artists. The museum has been known as the Prado since 1868. The Prado’s collection has grown in size and variety over time, particularly after taking in works from the closure of two other museums—the Museo de la Trinidad, in 1872, and the Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art), in 1971. Extensions and renovations have greatly expanded and improved the Prado Museum’s space.

The Prado’s collection centers on European masterworks of the 1500’s through the 1800’s, but it also includes many ancient and modern works. In addition to paintings, the collection includes decorative arts, drawings, photographs, prints, and sculptures, as well as a large archive and library. Together with the nearby Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums, the Prado forms Madrid’s “Golden Triangle of Art.”

December 3, 2018

Today, December 3, is the bicentenary of the Midwestern state of Illinois. Throughout 2018, bicentennial celebrations and events commemorated Illinois’s entrance to the Union as the 21st state in 1818.

The official Illinois state flag was adopted in 1915. Credit: © Lickomicko/Shutterstock

A special Illinois bicentennial flag flew throughout the state in the later months of 2018. On August 26, the state’s Constitution Day, a new Bicentennial Plaza was dedicated in Springfield, the state capital, and a bicentennial motorcycle ride took participants to Illinois sites along the famous Route 66 highway, which begins in Chicago. Today, December 3, the Illinois Bicentennial Commission is hosting an official 200th birthday party at Chicago’s United Center. 

The skyscrapers of downtown Chicago form a spectacular reflection in Lake Michigan. Chicago is the largest city in Illinois and the third largest city in the United States. © Shutterstock

The Illinois region was the home of Native Americans for thousands of years before French explorers first arrived in the late 1600’s. In 1717, Illinois became part of the French colony of Louisiana. In 1763, the British  won control of Illinois along with the rest of France’s North American empire. The United States gained control of Illinois during the American Revolution (1775-1783), and in 1787 the region became part of the Northwest Territory. In 1800, Illinois became part of the Indiana Territory. In 1809, the Illinois Territory was created from what is now Illinois and the state of Wisconsin. After statehood in 1818, Illinois voters elected Shadrach Bond, a downstate landowner, as the state’s first governor. The south-central town of Vandalia served as the capital of Illinois until Springfield, just a short distance north, was designated the state capital in 1837.

The Illinois quarter includes images of farmland, Abraham Lincoln, and Chicago. Illinois became the nation’s 21st state 200 years ago on Dec. 3, 1818. Credit: U.S. Mint

December 8, 2017

Mississippi’s bicentenary takes place this Sunday, on Dec. 10, 2017. Throughout the year, bicentennial celebrations and local events commemorated Mississippi’s entrance to the Union as the 20th state in 1817. To mark the anniversary weekend in December 2017, two new museums opened to much fanfare in Jackson, the state capital: the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

Jackson is Mississippi’s capital and largest city. Known as the Crossroads of the South, it serves as a center of commerce, industry, and transportation. Credit: © John Elk III, Alamy Images

Mississippi has a long and sometimes troubled history. In the 1500’s and 1600’s, Spanish and French explorers encountered the Native Americans of the region—often with tragic results. The Mississippi area came under British control in 1763, Spanish control in 1781, and eventually American control in the mid-1780’s and early 1790’s. The Congress of the United States organized the Mississippi Territory in 1798, with Natchez as the capital. Winthrop Sargent became the first governor of the new territory. Adding bits of land at a time, the Mississippi Territory extended over all present-day Alabama and Mississippi by 1812.

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Mississippi. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

In 1817, Congress carved Alabama from the Mississippi Territory, and on December 10, Mississippi became the 20th state. The first Mississippi state governor, David Holmes, had been territorial governor since 1809. The state capital bounced between Columbia, Natchez, and Washington until landing for good at Jackson in 1822.

Mississippi, a state that allowed slavery, seceded from the Union in 1861 and fought with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Mississippi reentered the Union in 1870, but racial strife in the state continued for another 100 years.