The Spanish–American War (Spanish: Guerra hispano-estadounidense or Guerra hispano-americana) was a conflict fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor leading to American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War.[4]
Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish rule which the U.S. later backed upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. In the late 1890s, US public opinion was agitated by anti-Spanish propaganda led by journalists such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst which used yellow journalism to call for war. However, the Hearst and Pulitzer papers were circulated among the working class in New York City and did not reach a national audience. Historians of the 1930s blamed them for stirring up a war frenzy, but more recent scholars have not accepted that theory.