On March 15, 1820, Maine officially became the 23rd U.S. state, breaking away from Massachusetts after being part of it for nearly 200 years. The mountain-and-coastline territory had wanted independence for decades. People in the rocky northern region felt ignored by the Massachusetts government way down in Boston, especially after the War of 1812, when the British occupied parts of Maine and Massachusetts barely helped defend it.
Maine's path to statehood was tangled up with a tense political deal called the Missouri Compromise. Northern and Southern states were arguing fiercely about whether new states would allow slavery. To keep the balance, Congress agreed that Maine would enter as a free state and Missouri as a slave state - admitted as a pair. The compromise held the country together for another 30 years until the Civil War finally erupted, but Maine's statehood would always be linked to one of the biggest debates in American history.
Today, Maine is famous for lighthouses (over 60 of them dotting its rocky coast), wild blueberries, moose, and lobster - about 90 percent of the lobsters caught in the United States come from Maine. Acadia National Park draws millions of visitors who climb Cadillac Mountain to be among the first people in America to see the sunrise each morning. The state's nickname is "The Pine Tree State" because of its endless evergreen forests, and its motto, Dirigo, is Latin for "I lead" - fitting for a place that struck out on its own to chart its own course back in 1820.
