In 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine blew up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, sparking the Spanish-American War, a short, often forgotten, conflict which shifted the U.S. from just being that yellow country on the map above Mexico to a global imperialist power. The cause of the Spanish-American War has long been debated, with some claiming shadowy plots by evil businessmen, but in actuality, like most wars, it was all just a bunch of bullshit.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Cuba was the last remnant of the glorious Spanish Empire which had once ruled over nearly the entirety of the western hemisphere. Though Spain had once been the center of the western world, nobody really gave a shit about it anymore, with the exception of maybe bullfighting aficionados. Though Cuba was owned by Spain, it did most of its trading with the United States. American businessmen made a lot of money growing sugar in Cuba and shipping it back home to sate the burgeoning American sweet tooth. However, all of this sweet money making came under threat in 1895 when Cuban exiles, staging from the U.S., invaded the island and started a revolt. The Spanish military moved in to quell the rebellion, but being kind of bumbling idiots, they decidedly failed to do so. As the war dragged on, it began to cut into the profits of many American companies, prompting them to push for the U.S. Congress to force Spain to find a peaceful end to conflict. The instability of war was decidedly bad for business.
Enter two prominent newspapermen. Hearst and Pulitzer were the two most powerful newspaper magnates of their era. Kings of their industry, the pair were in the middle of a knock down drag out brawl for readership, both constantly on the hunt for sensational stories to drag American eyes onto their periodicals. The revolt in Cuba certainly fit the bill. As the conflict dragged on, the desperate Spanish began herding large groups of people into internment camps and using other such less than popular strategies. The American newspapermen latched onto the stories, and then embellished the fuck out of them until they were pretty much works of fiction, you know, to really make them pop. Both newspapers were filled with stories of atrocities, massacres, and rape carried out by the Spanish authorities, and even the occasional strip search of a comely American tourist or two to spice things up a bit. The made up stories enraged the American public, who increasingly demanded that something be done. Now of course with so much public outcry, the U.S. government couldn’t be seen just sitting on their hands like some kind of dull witted dullard, so in the spring of 1898 they quickly dispatched a battleship, the U.S.S. Maine, to Havana to protect American interests. However, soon after arriving the ship blew up because some idiot was smoking in the coal bunker. Guess which half of the last sentence was included in the newspaper headlines.
Enter Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was a brash squeaky voiced man who dreamed of glory and future political power. He was also Assistant Secretary of the Navy. With the U.S. and Spain on the edge of war over the whole Maine blowing up thing, Teddy decided that it was time to be the calm head in the room. However, for Teddy this meant waiting until his boss was out of the office, and then sending out several orders, which he most certainly did not have the power to send, putting the U.S. Navy at full combat readiness and ordering a fleet to start sailing toward the Philippines, which were also owned by Spain. Such a dick wagging provocative move sank any change of diplomacy, and soon after war was declared between the U.S. and Spain. Not wanting to get left out of the action, Teddy resigned from his cushy government post so he could form his own volunteer cavalry regiment, which was something you could just do back then. Teddy’s new regiment, dubbed the Rough Riders, was made up of high bred east coast athletes, drunken cowboys, snooty polo players, and Native Americans.
The invasion of Cuba went about as well as can be expected. Commanding the U.S. forces was a general who was noted for being kind of brilliant, but also extremely fat, and an aged senile former Confederate general who was convinced he was still fighting the Yankees in the Civil War. Though Cuba was in the tropics, the soldiers were still wearing their winter coats because nobody had bothered to issue them any summer clothing. Things were further hindered by Teddy, who was so desperate to see his name in the newspaper that he kept leading his Rough Riders on suicidal attacks against hills that really didn’t need to be captured. Despite all this, the Spanish army was somehow even more inept, and the U.S. won the war after less than four months. Spain was forced to give Cuba its freedom and to give the U.S. the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and a bunch of tiny islands nobody gave a fuck about. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. troops returned home suffering from Yellow Fever, Teddy was catapulted into a public figure who would become president in less than three years, and sugar shipments from Cuba continued unabated until old Fidel Castro hit the scene in the 1950’s.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charge_of_the_Rough_Riders_at_San_Juan_Hill.JPG