But by 1898 we got their back. We send the USS Maine into the Havana Harbor where on February 15, 1898 BOOM! It explodes. You can go watch another video about the controversy of whether that was our own doing or if it was the Spaniards doing. But what this is going to mean is the Spanish-American War. Yellow journalism, jingoism, nationalism is running through the course of the veins of the American empire and we want ourselves some Cuba. Not that there weren't anti-imperialists and I think this is an important point to make.