The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, initially blamed on Spain and used as a catalyst for war, was likely an accidental internal explosion, not an act of sabotage.
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the battleship USS main steamed into
Havana Harbor in late January
1898 while the United States government
claimed the battleship was simply making
a courtesy visit to Cuba the ship had
really come to protect American lives
island Cuban revolutionaries had
struggled for decades against their
Spanish rulers who had controlled the
island for nearly 4 100
years in January of 1898 civilian riots
left Havana Cuba's capital in turmoil
and put American lives and Investments at
risk the appearance of one of America's
Premier battleships bristling with 10-in
Havana the Maine dropped anchor in the
harbor and its crew kept a watchful eye
on the island
but 3 weeks later on February the 15th
the main exploded in a gigantic Fireball
that echoed throughout Havana's
streets 266 men were killed as the
Main's three forward 6 and 10in
ammunition storage magazines blew
up America turned suspicious eyes toward
Spain for years Cuban Exiles in America
and others sympathetic to their cause
had been calling for the United States
to force the Spanish out of
Cuba those calls were fueled by the
Press which often presented Spain's
leaders as evil or less than [Music]
human when word of the main explosion
reached America some people including
the powerful newspaper owner William
Randol Hurst immediately blamed
Spain and most of the public believed
them when a team of investigators sent
by the Navy concluded that the explosion
was the result of a black powder mine
war fever swept across the
country President William McKinley and
the US Congress gave in to the Public's
1898 within 6 months the war was over
and Spain was
defeated and the United States St was on
the road to becoming a world power by
gaining Puerto Rico the Philippines and
the Pacific Islands of Guam and wake from
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Spain but a nagging question
remained no direct evidence linking
Spain to the sinking of the main had been
been
found so why had the ship blown
up in the 1970s the Navy launched a new
investigation into the case
Admiral Heyman rickover concluded that
the explosion aboard the main was not
caused by a mine at
all instead the ship sank because of a terrible
accident using various techniques modern
researchers have confirmed rickover's
conclusion that the blast was probably
indirectly caused by a spontaneous
combustion fire inside the Main's coal
bunker that Coal Fire probably heated
the wall of the nearby ammunition
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explode so it apparently was a simple
accident that destroyed the ship and set
up a chain of events that altered the
[Music] history
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