The Spanish-American War: What it Meant for Cuba and America Over 100 years ago, 1898, Cubans fought for independence from Spain and Americans sought to gain greater world power, wealth and to become a more prominent nation. Both Cuba and the Americas could gain from this war if they played it right, and that's exactly what they did.
It all started on the night of when a US battleship, On February 23, 1895, mounting discontent culminated in a resumption of the Cuban revolution, under the leadership of the writer and patriot José Martàand General Máximo Gómez y Báez. The U.S. government intervened on behalf of the revolutionists in April 1898, precipitating the Spanish-American War. Intervention was spurred by the sinking of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana of February 15, 1898, for which Spain was blamed. By the terms of the treaty signed December 10, 1898, terminating the conflict, Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba.
English: Santiago de Cuba and Vicinity during the ...
USS Maine
English: Male Spanish officials strip search an Am...the USS Maine was destroyed by an explosion. The explosion killed two-thirds of the Maine's crew. The fact was, nobody knew for sure what had caused the explosion, but the United States press saw this as a great opportunity to make some money; so they, with their Yellow-Journalism tactics, which is a method of reporting "fact" based on inference and exaggeration, conjured up a story which had a great impact on the public as well as the already weak relations between the United States and Spain. They reported that the Maine had been sunk by a torpedo from a Spanish ship. This was the final straw for the United States, and also a reason for them to engage with the Spanish. And so it was, the short war which was to only last for a couple of months had begun, the Spanish-American War.