Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War was a brief but consequential conflict fought from April to August 1898 between the United States and the Kingdom of Spain. It originated in long-standing Cuban independence struggles against Spanish rule, amplified in the U.S. by sensationalist "yellow journalism" coverage in papers owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. The immediate trigger was the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898, which killed about 260 American sailors and was widely (though inconclusively) blamed on Spain.

Following a U.S. ultimatum demanding Spanish withdrawal from Cuba, Congress passed a joint resolution recognizing Cuban independence, to which it appended the Teller Amendment disclaiming any U.S. intention to annex Cuba. Spain declared war on 23 April 1898; the U.S. followed on 25 April, dating its declaration retroactively.

Major engagements included Commodore George Dewey's destruction of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay (1 May 1898), the land campaign in Cuba featuring the Battle of San Juan Hill (1 July 1898) involving Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, and the naval Battle of Santiago de Cuba (3 July 1898).

The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed 10 December 1898 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in February 1899. Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States; the U.S. paid Spain $20 million for the Philippines.

The war is widely treated as the moment the United States emerged as an overseas imperial power and a Pacific actor. It also precipitated the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), the Platt Amendment (1901) regulating U.S.-Cuban relations, and the Insular Cases (beginning 1901) in which the Supreme Court defined the constitutional status of the new territories. Spain's defeat, known domestically as el Desastre del 98, triggered a period of national introspection associated with the literary Generation of '98.