Maine Explodes in Havana: War With Spain Begins

The forward magazines of the USS Maine detonated at 9:40 PM on February 15, 1898, while the battleship sat at anchor in Havana Harbor. The explosion ripped the ship apart, killed 266 of the 354 men aboard, and lit the fuse for a war that would transform the United States from a continental republic into a global empire. Whether the explosion was caused by a Spanish mine or an internal coal fire remains debated more than a century later, but in 1898 the cause mattered far less than the outrage. The Maine had been sent to Havana in January 1898 as a show of force during Cuba’s war of independence against Spain. American newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, had spent two years publishing sensationalized accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. The sinking gave them their greatest headline. "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" became the rallying cry of a nation already primed for conflict. The US Navy’s initial investigation, conducted in March 1898, concluded that an external mine had caused the explosion. Spain’s own inquiry found the opposite: an internal accident, likely a fire in a coal bunker adjacent to the ammunition magazines. A 1976 investigation by Admiral Hyman Rickover concluded that spontaneous coal combustion was the most likely cause. A 1998 National Geographic study suggested a mine could not be ruled out. The truth may never be established with certainty. Congress declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898. The conflict lasted just over three months. American forces defeated Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. The Treaty of Paris gave the United States control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and established de facto authority over Cuba. In a hundred days of fighting, America acquired an overseas empire spanning two oceans. A mysterious explosion in a Cuban harbor propelled the United States onto the world stage — and the country never stepped back.