USS Maine (ACR-1) known for her loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry investigated. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "yellow press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, "Remember the "Maine!" To hell with Spain!", became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War
Protected cruiser and replaced with a single military mast with machine guns. The next class of small cruisers in the Royal Navy, the , were protected cruisers, but the Royal Navy returned to the armoured cruiser with the , begun in 1885 and completed in 1889. However, in 1887 an assessment of the "Orlando" type judged them inferior to the protected cruisers and thereafter the Royal Navy only built protected cruisers, even for very large first-class cruiser designs, returning to armoured cruisers only in the late 1890s with the , laid down in 1898. The sole major naval power to retain a