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The event of the most supreme importance during the year was the outbreak of war between America and Spain. Spain had been given till October, 1897, by America to pacificate Cuba in her own way; but the effete Spaniards failed to do so. At last, after six months of parleying, and while the two nations were yet at peace, the American warship Maine was blown up in Havana harbour, evidently with Spanish connivance, if not actually by Spain's instructions. There was enormous loss of life, and the incident set the war-spirit of the Americans ablaze. Little option was left to President McKinley, and almost to the moment of the expiration of the time allowed by the ultimatum for Spain to evacuate Cuba the Americans fired the first shot of the war, against El Morro fort of Havana.
Thereafter the result was a foregone conclusion. Havana was blockaded; Manila, the capital of the Philippines, was taken after a brilliant battle; and Santiago, in Cuba, fell after a fierce conflict. Simultaneously the American troops made a triumphal march through Puerto Rico, and bleeding and humbled Spain had to sue for peace. After four months of war, there followed almost four other months of parleying by the Peace Commission, and peace has now been signed on conditions which deprive Spain of all her colonial possessions.
These conditions mainly are: -- The absolute cession of all islands in the West Indies except Cuba, and the evacuation of Cuba in order to permit the Cubans to govern freely under the tutelage of America; the relinquishment of Spanish sovereignty over Cuba, America exercising control till the establishment of a stable government by the people; the cession of a coaling station at the Ladrones; the non-assumption of the Cuban and Puerto Rican debts by America. The question of the cession of the Philippines was left to arbitration, and America is virtually in possession of those islands, confronted with the prospects of a war with the people, known as the Filipinos. Meantime, Spain has more troubles to harass her. She is threatened with a Carlist rising, while she is hopelessly bankrupt, and a famine has also been raging.
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World Disasters: Air, Sea and Space
Tragedy in Klondyke
World Disasters Report 2002
World Disasters
World Disasters timeline
