February 15, 1898 · Cuba Theater
February 15, 1898
The USS Maine, an American battleship anchored in Havana Harbor to protect American interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, was destroyed by a massive explosion on the evening of February 15, 1898. Two hundred and sixty-six sailors and officers were killed. The cause of the explosion has never been definitively established — naval investigations at the time blamed an external mine, while later studies suggest an internal magazine accident — but the disaster was immediately seized upon by the American press, particularly William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, as evidence of Spanish treachery.
Commanders