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Jeremiah O'Brien
Captain Jeremiah O'Brien (1744–1818) was an Irish-American captain in the Massachusetts State Navy. Prior to its existence (or that of the Continental Navy), he commanded the sloop ''Unity'' when he captured the Royal Navy, British armed schooner in the Battle of Machias, the first naval battle of the American Revolutionary War. He also led the first American attack on Nova Scotia in the Raid on St. John (1775). Six United States ships were named in his honor. Early life Jeremiah was the eldest son of Irish immigrants Morris and Mary O'Brien. He was born in Kittery, Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1744. His family moved to Scarborough, Maine and settled in Machias, Maine in the 1760s to engage in lumbering. Maine was a part of Massachusetts at the time.Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Historical and Technical Society ''The BAR Newsletter'' June 1976 volume III, issue 2, pages 2&3 American Revolution Reports of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached Machias in early Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kittery, Maine
Kittery is a town in York County, Maine, United States. Home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Seavey's Island, Kittery includes Badger's Island, the seaside district of Kittery Point, and part of the Isles of Shoals. The southernmost town in the state, it is a tourist destination known for its many outlet stores. Kittery is part of the Portland– South Portland– Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. The town's population was 10,070 at the 2020 census. History English settlement around the natural harbor of the Piscataqua River estuary began about 1623. By 1632 the community was protected by Fort William and Mary on today's New Hampshire side of the river; in 1689 defensive works that later became Fort McClary in Kittery Point were added on today's Maine side to the north. Kittery was incorporated in 1647, staking a claim as the "oldest incorporated town in Maine." It was named after the birthplace of a founder, Alexander Shapleigh, from his manor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battles Of Lexington And Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America. In late 1774, Colonial leaders adopted the Suffolk Resolves in resistance to the alterations made to the Massachusetts colonial government by the British parliament following the Boston Tea Party. The colonial assembly responded by forming a Patriot provisional government known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and calling for local militias to train for possible hostilities. The Colonial government effectively controlled the colony outside of British-controlled Boston. In response, the British government in February 1775 declared Massachusetts to be in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1818 Deaths
Events January–March * January 1 ** Battle of Koregaon: Troops of the British East India Company score a decisive victory over the Maratha Empire. ** Mary Shelley's ''Frankenstein'' is published anonymously in London. * January 2 – The British Institution of Civil Engineers is founded. * January 3 (21:52 UTC) – Venus occults Jupiter. It is the last occultation of one planet by another before November 22, 2065. * January 6 – The Treaty of Mandeswar brings an end to the Third Anglo-Maratha War, ending the dominance of Marathas, and enhancing the power of the British East India Company, which controls territory occupied by 180 million Indians. * January 11 – Percy Bysshe Shelley's '' Ozymandias'' is published pseudonymously in London. * January 12 – The Dandy horse (''Laufmaschine'' bicycle) is invented by Karl Drais in Mannheim. * February 3 – Jeremiah Chubb is granted a British patent for the Chubb detector lock. * February 5 – Upon his death, Kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1744 Births
Events January–March * January 6 – The Royal Navy ship ''Bacchus'' engages the Spanish Navy privateer ''Begona'', and sinks it; 90 of the 120 Spanish sailors die, but 30 of the crew are rescued. * January 24 – The Dagohoy rebellion in the Philippines begins, with the killing of Father Giuseppe Lamberti. * February – Violent storms frustrate a planned French invasion of Britain. * February 22– 23 – Battle of Toulon: The British fleet is defeated by a joint Franco-Spanish fleet. * March 1 (approximately) – The Great Comet of 1744, one of the brightest ever seen, reaches perihelion. * March 13 – The British ship ''Betty'' capsizes and sinks off of the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) near Anomabu. More than 200 people on board die, although there are a few survivors. * March 15 – France declares war on Great Britain. April–June * April – '' The Female Spectator'' (a monthly) is founded by Eliza Haywood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Military Diaspora
The Irish military diaspora refers to the many people of either Irish birth or extraction (see Irish diaspora) who have served in overseas military forces, regardless of rank, duration of service, or success. Many overseas military units were primarily made up of Irishmen (or members of the Irish military diaspora) and had the word 'Irish', an Irish place name or an Irish person in the unit's name. 'Irish' named military units took part in numerous conflicts throughout world history. The first military unit of this kind was in the Spanish Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch. A notable example is that of Owen Roe O'Neill. Australia and New Zealand The British colonies of Australia and New Zealand suffered a series of 'war scares' during the 19th century from perceived threats from France and Russia. In 1870, when the last British troops left, defence became the responsibility of locally raised colonial forces. New Zealand Among the British fencib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Bicentennial
The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States of America as an independent republic. It was a central event in the memory of the American Revolution. The Bicentennial culminated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, with the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Father delegates of the Second Continental Congress. Background The nation had always commemorated the Founding as a gesture of patriotism and sometimes as an argument in political battles. Historian Jonathan Crider points out that in the 1850s, editors and orators both North and South claimed their region was the true custodian of the legacy of 1776, as they used the Revolution symbolically in their rhetoric. The plans for the Bicentennial began when Congress created the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission on July 4, 1966. Initially, the Bice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bangor And Aroostook Railroad
The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad was a United States railroad company that brought rail service to Aroostook County in northern Maine. Brightly-painted BAR boxcars attracted national attention in the 1950s. First-generation diesel locomotives operated on BAR until they were museum pieces. The economic downturn of the 1980s, coupled with the departure of heavy industry from northern Maine, forced the railroad to seek a buyer and end operations in 2003. It was succeeded by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. History The company was incorporated in 1891 to combine the lines of the former Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad and the Bangor and Katahdin Iron Works Railway. It was based in Bangor and lines extended from there to Oakfield and Houlton in 1894. The line was extended from Houlton to Fort Fairfield and Caribou in 1895. A parallel branch line was extended from Oakfield to Ashland in 1896. A branch was built from Caribou to Limestone in 1897, and the main line ext ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage (4,635,628 tonnes as of 2019) and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft . The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Madison
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Madison was born into a prominent slave-owning planter family in Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War. Unsatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation, he helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution. Madison's Virginia Plan was the basis for the Convention's deliberations, and he was an influential voice at the convention. He became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution, and joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Merchant Marine
United States Merchant Marines are United States civilian mariners and U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels. Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of the government and private sectors, and engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine primarily transports domestic and international cargo and passengers during peacetime, and operate and maintain deep-sea merchant ships, tugboats, towboats, ferries, dredges, excursion vessels, charter boats and other waterborne craft on the oceans, the Great Lakes, rivers, canals, harbors, and other waterways. In times of war, the Merchant Marine can be an auxiliary to the United States Navy, and can be called upon to deliver military personnel and materiel for the military. In the 19th and 20th centuries, various laws fundamentally changed the course of American merchant shipping. These laws put an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Striking The Colors
Striking the colors—meaning lowering the flag (the " colors") that signifies a ship's or garrison's allegiance—is a universally recognized indication of surrender, particularly for ships at sea. For a ship, surrender is dated from the time the ensign is struck. In international law "Colours. A national flag (or a battle ensign). The colours . . . are hauled down as a token of submission." International law absolutely requires a ship of war to fly its ensign at the commencement of any hostile acts, i.e., before firing on the enemy. During battle there is no purpose in striking the colors other than to indicate surrender. It was and is an offense to continue to fight after striking one's colors, and an offense to continue to fire on an enemy after she has struck her colors, unless she indicates by some other action, such as continuing to fire or seeking to escape, that she has not truly surrendered. For this reason, striking the colors is conclusive evidence of a surrender ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge ("filler"), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, and a safety lever secured by a cotter pin. The user removes the safety pin before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the safety lever gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze (sometimes called the delay element), which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge. Grenades work by dispersing fragments ( fragmentation grenades), shockwaves ( high-explosive, anti-tank and stun grenades), chemical aerosols ( smoke and gas grenades) or fire ( incendiary grenades). Fragmentation grenades ("frags") are probably the most common in modern armies, and when the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
