The Spanish-American War of 1898One hundred years ago, in 1898, the United States fought the Spanish-American War. Victory over Spain made the United States a colonial power. The Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, as well as the previously independent nation of Hawaii, became American possessions. The excuse for entering the war was the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule and the outbreak of an American revolt. battleship USS Maine. Spanish colonies in mainland North and South America became independent in the early 1800s, but Cuba and Puerto Rico remained Spanish. Many Americans in the United States sympathized with Cuba, an initiative that began in 1895, and, perhaps more importantly, U.S. citizens owned $50 million worth of real estate and industry in Cuba. William McKinley became president in 1897, and in the same year the Spanish prime minister was assassinated. After a brutal rule that included concentration camps, Spain granted Cuba limited autonomy on January 1, 1898, but it was too little, too late. On January 12 there was a revolt in Cuba against the Spanish. On January 25, the US government, concerned about this problem in Cuba, sent the battleship USS Maine to Havana. On February 15, the ship exploded, killing 266 crew members. This caused quite a stir in the United States. On March 28, the Naval Court of Inquiry reported that Maine had been destroyed by a mine and placed no blame on anyone. Many newspapers, however, aroused indignation and called for war. On April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked Congress to declare war. On April 22, the United States went to war with Spain. Spain was now a weak and decaying empire, and no match for a vigorous and muscular America... middle of paper... its ships, one crewman killed and one wounded. On June 6, the U.S. Army landed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By July 3, the Spanish fleet in Cuba was destroyed. On July 25, the U.S. Army invaded Puerto Rico. On August 13, American troops captured Manila in the Philippines. On December 10, 1898 the war ended. The United States was now a global colonial power, with territories in Latin America, the Pacific Ocean, and East Asia. To demonstrate the imperialist mentality of the time, Cubans, who had helped defeat Spain, were not invited to the surrender ceremonies and the Treaty of Paris that ended the war. The Spanish-American War also led to the annexation of Hawaii. There had been annexation proposals during that decade, and on July 7, 1898, under the guise that Hawaii was needed as a naval military base for the war against Spain, the United States annexed Hawaii..