Spanish-American War Begins (1898)

Thu Apr 21, 1898

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On this day in 1898, the Spanish-American War began, greatly expanding the scope of American imperialism, granting the U.S. sovereignty over the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, as well as de facto control of the Cuban economy.

The war began with an American naval blockade of Cuba, which was fighting a war for independence from Spain, and only lasted three months. The U.S. intervened in the Cuban War of Independence after the internal explosion of the U.S.S. Maine, despite there being no evidence of Spanish involvement in the explosion.

The outcome of the war resulted in U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, and signaled a new era of American expansionism and colonialism in the 20th century.

From 1899-1901, the U.S. had to brutally suppress the Filipino movement for independence, killing between 200,000 and 1,000,000 civilians in the Philippine-American War. In 1901, the American government also refused to withdraw troops from Cuba unless their Constitutional Convention signed the Platt Amendment, which gave the U.S. government and capitalists de facto hegemony over the newly “independent” Cuba.