1] Events in [Mexico or Cuba or Puerto Rico or Guam} triggered the Spanish-American war?

Question

2] The --------led to congress declaring war on spain [explosion of the Maine or arrest of Jose Marti or Spanish ships in Santiago or capture of San Juan Hill?
3]The country which fought in WW1 but did not ratify the treaty of versilles was?

Answer 1

The Spanish-American War took place in 1898 and resulted in the United States gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific. The US lost 379 troops in combat and over 5,000 to disease. As a result of the war, Cuba would be declared independent in 1902.





By the late nineteenth century Spain was left with only a few scattered possessions in the Pacific, Africa, and the West Indies. Much of the empire had gained its independence and a number of the areas still under Spanish control were clamoring to do so. Guerrilla forces were operating in the Philippines (see Philippine revolution, Philippine revolts against Spain, and Juan Alonso Zayas), and had been present in Cuba since before the 1868-1878 Ten Years' War decades. The Spanish government did not have the financial resources or the personnel to deal with these revolts and resorted to forcibly emptying the countryside and the filling of the cities with concentration camps (in Cuba) to separate the rebels from their rural base of support. Many hundreds of thousands of Cubans died of starvation and disease in these circumstances, 200,000 alone in the more peaceful western Cuba [5]. The Spaniards also carried out many executions of suspected rebels and harshly treated suspected sympathizers. The war saw both Cuban rebels and Spanish troops burning and destroying infrastructure, crops, tools, livestock, and anything else that might aid the enemy. Nevertheless, by 1897 the rebels had mostly defeated the Spanish. They were firmly in control of the eastern countryside and the Spanish could only leave urban centers in columns of considerable strength.

William Randolph Hearst's newspaper in New York documented the atrocities committed in Cuba. The civilian death toll was very high, and a real rebellion was being fought against Spanish rule[6]. Public opinion in Cuba favored American intervention. Joseph Pulitzer was also a key in publicizing the war in New York City. His newspapers, along with Hearst's, exaggerated news of the atrocities in Cuba in an attempt to sway popular opinion in New York City in favor of intervention.

Fueled by the reports of inhumanity of the Spanish, a majority of Americans became convinced that an "intervention" was becoming necessary. Hearst was famously (though probably erroneously) [7] quoted, in a response to a request by his illustrator Frederic Remington to return home from an uneventful and docile stay in Havana, as writing: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."