12,000 years ago, the first people to live on the land were from the Native American tribes of Maliseet and Penobscot. Maine was possibility later discovered by Viking explorer Leif Ericsson. In the 1600s, British and French colonists came. Maine became part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. After the Revolutionary War, the people in Maine wanted to be their own state. Maine became a state on March 15, 1820.