The Spanish-American War was fought between Spain and the United States over the independence of Cuba. The war lasted from April to August of 1898.

Before the Civil War, American expansionists wanted to acquire Cuba, but after the Civil War interest waned. In the 1870s, conditions in Cuba weren't good and people began to rebel.
During the 1880s the country was in a depression and conditions worsened. A revolution broke out between Spanish forces and Cuban rebels. Neither side was strong enough to win. The fighting threatened to go on for years. Meanwhile, newspapers in the U.S. sensationalized stories about Spanish oppression and exaggerated the number of Cubans who had been killed. This type of reporting was called "yellow journalism", and it was practiced by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in an effort to sell more newspapers. Many people in the U.S. thought conditions in Cuba were intolerable and wanted the U.S. to intervene.