Maine whose sinking by an explosion on February 15, 1898 precipitated the Spanish–American War. To the south and east is the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and northeast is New Brunswick, a province of Canada. The Canadian province of Quebec is to the northwest. Maine is both the northernmost state in New England and the largest, accounting for almost half the region's entire land area. Maine is the only state to border exactly one other state (New Hampshire to the west). Maine is the easternmost state in the United States in both its extreme points and its geographic center. The
Protected cruiser Protected cruiser The protected cruiser is a type of naval cruiser of the late 19th century, so known because its armoured deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from fragments caused by exploding shells above. Protected cruisers are similar to armoured cruisers, which also had a belt of armour along the sides. From the late 1850s, navies began to replace their fleets of wooden ships-of-the-line with armoured ironclad warships. However, the frigates and sloops which performed the missions of scouting, commerce raiding and trade protection remained unarmoured. For several decades, it proved difficult to design a ship which had a