[OMINOUS MUSIC]

NARRATOR: Because Cuba was just 90 moles South of Florida and its population was largely Catholic and included Americans, the United States took an intense interest in the inner workings of that island. In 1895, as Cuba was fighting for its independence from Spain, the tabloid press in America continuously reported the story, often noting the horrors of Spanish repression against Cuba.

- And these deeply upset Americans, for social reasons, for religious reasons, for political reasons, and also, in part, for economic reasons. Cuba was an important nearby trading partner. People in the US start increasingly calling for intervention into events in Cuba.

NARRATOR: In 1898, President William McKinley decided to send the battleship USS Maine to Cuba to protect Americans and American businesses.

- That ship had been sent by McKinley to Havana in January of 1898 to protect American interests and also to be there in case Americans needed to evacuate the city. A ship explodes and, at the time, everyone thought, and the newspapers reported, that it had been attacked, that it had been bombed by the Spanish. [? A ?] much later investigation, actually in 1976, confirmed what many people in the Navy, even then, some of them actually thought, which was that it was an internal explosion to the [? ship itself. ?]

NARRATOR: The details may have been murky, but the tabloid press call for a war against Spain. The sensational headlines and thinly-reported stories came to be known as "yellow journalism," named for the yellow ink used in a cartoon in one of the newspapers' Joseph Pulitzer's, "New York World." The sensational coverage by the tabloids spread anti-Spain sentiment throughout the United States. At first, President McKinley hesitated to take action. But the pressure to go to war with Spain mounted.

CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZOLA: The combination of events and the rolling pattern toward war maybe were almost inevitable. And immediately after the explosion of the Maine, Congress gives McKinley a unanimous declaration, urging him to respond. And a few weeks later, he goes back and asks for a formal declaration of war. And that passes easily in April 1898.

NARRATOR: Soon, the war with Spain escalated beyond the Caribbean and into the Pacific Ocean. Admiral Dewey was ordered to attack the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines, another of Spain's territories. He accomplished this quite easily, only a few weeks after Congress declared war.

CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZOLA: The initial war with Spain was a war, in many ways, to liberate Cuba. And only later did it become a war to acquire the Spanish Empire. The Philippines is a turning point in that moment. The US Navy, primarily, conquers the Philippines, quite easily, in 1898.

NARRATOR: By the end of the war with Spain, six months later, the United States had control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands.