The Spanish American War started in 1898. The United States won, resulting in the Treaty of Paris, and the handing of ownership of the Spanish colonial empire in Asia to the United States. The Philippines, however, did not agree to the handing of it to the Americans; in which, resulted to the Philippine-American War.
On January 1898, President William McKinley dispatched the USS Maine to Havana Cuba for the safety of Americans in Cuba. However, three weeks later, it mysteriously exploded with no apparent reason