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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: editor Candice Skison, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, though, Candice,

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Speaker 1: so today we have an email reply from a listener,

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Speaker 1: and this one is from Andy Hartman, and he wanted

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Speaker 1: to know something about the Spanish American War, which I

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Speaker 1: thought was a really good excuse because it's always been

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Speaker 1: one of those, you know, mysterious corners of American history

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Speaker 1: that you know, you sort of skipped over in history class,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to know more about it. So he

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Speaker 1: asked about the dates regarding the Spanish American War, because

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Speaker 1: there's a monument in Sacramento, California that he's seen that

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Speaker 1: gives the dates as eight to nine two. But if

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Speaker 1: you look at the dates in history book, you'll notice

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Speaker 1: that the Spanish surrendered in so it's just four months long. Exactly,

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Speaker 1: it was, It's quick. John Hayes said, it was a

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Speaker 1: splendid little war. Short. Yeah, and there are a couple

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Speaker 1: different answers. But before we go into that, we should

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Speaker 1: we should talk a little about the war itself and

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Speaker 1: things that led up to it. Exactly give you guys

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Speaker 1: awesome background. So what's significant about the Spanish American War

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Speaker 1: is that it was based on the United States response

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Speaker 1: to rebels in Cuba who had been oppressed under Spanish

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Speaker 1: colonial rule for a long time. And there had been

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Speaker 1: some uprisings before, but finally there was enough guerilla action

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Speaker 1: going under their leadership of um well of many people, really,

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Speaker 1: but Jose Martie was really incindiarian and really got the

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Speaker 1: forces fired up. And what else is significant is that

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Speaker 1: the United States didn't just learn a helping hand to Cuba,

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Speaker 1: but by doing so really established itself as one of

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Speaker 1: the great imperial powers of the world. And in the

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Speaker 1: United States that were anti imperialists, so we're pretty ticked

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Speaker 1: off about this. So we see that it leads to controversy,

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Speaker 1: just not not just on the battlefield, but also in

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Speaker 1: ideology and politics too. That's right, knew back on the

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Speaker 1: age of exploration, which is really like when Spain gottled

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Speaker 1: these territories in the first place, it was before the

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Speaker 1: United States emerged. Obviously, the United States was kind of

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Speaker 1: result of this age of exploration, so Spain had gotten

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Speaker 1: it was really one of the first and most powerful

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Speaker 1: countries to start colonizing places in the Americas in particular,

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Speaker 1: so they they got all these powers, but by UM

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, they had lost a lot of these lands. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Cuba was one of those places they still held on

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Speaker 1: to um, although there was lots of unrest there. As

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Speaker 1: CANDUs was saying, there's the ten Years War between eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight and eighteen seventy eight UM ten years long, obviously,

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Speaker 1: where the Cuba fought for independence and basically lost. And

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Speaker 1: on the treaty, Spanish tried to promise, so we'll give

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Speaker 1: you more powers and we'll give you more autonomy, but

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Speaker 1: it didn't really work out the way they wanted, and

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Speaker 1: by eight there was still violence breaking out and Sarah

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Speaker 1: Spain had control over Cuba, and they also had control

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Speaker 1: over Perrica, the Philippines and Guam, and something interesting was

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Speaker 1: happening at this time. And if you think about these

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Speaker 1: different island nations, you'll note that they're not all in

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Speaker 1: the same corner of the sea. They're they're pretty disparate.

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Speaker 1: And President McKinley actually had a military advisory named Alfred

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Speaker 1: Tiamahan who was saying that your nation is only as

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Speaker 1: strong as its navy is, and so it was important

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Speaker 1: to have different naval stations throughout the Caribbean and other

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Speaker 1: parts of the oceans around the world. And um he

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Speaker 1: even advocated for building a canal across the Isthmus of Panama,

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Speaker 1: which eventually happened, but not quite yet. And so the

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Speaker 1: United States thought, huh, this is a pretty good idea

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Speaker 1: and sort of an auspicious turn of events. Cuba was

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Speaker 1: asking for the United States help and throwing off Spain's power,

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Speaker 1: and the United States was thinking, how can we throw

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Speaker 1: ourselves at island nations and increase our our naval strength,

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Speaker 1: And so all of this came together in a perfect

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Speaker 1: storm of the Spanish American War, that's right, And so

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Speaker 1: public sentiment was was very geared towards getting Cuba free

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Speaker 1: and so um a lot of people were arguing, we

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Speaker 1: should get involved, we should get involved, and nothing actually happened,

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Speaker 1: um for real, until the explosion of the main Now,

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Speaker 1: the USS Maine was was a American ship that was

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Speaker 1: sorry used to say United States ship that was sent

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Speaker 1: uh towards Cuba to help look after American interests, their

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Speaker 1: US interests. So it mysteriously exploded one day February and

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Speaker 1: it killed all the members on board about more than

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Speaker 1: U S soldiers. I believe no one really knows what happened.

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Speaker 1: To this day, no one is exactly sure what happened

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Speaker 1: with the explosion. At the time, it was kind of

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Speaker 1: assumed that Spain was responsible and not everybody believed this. UM.

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Speaker 1: President McKinley launched uh UM an inquiry into what happened,

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Speaker 1: and nothing was very conclusive, and by the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: actually they looked back on it in forensic evidence showed

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Speaker 1: that it was probably a result of a believe the

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Speaker 1: coal bunker UM there was a mistake there and something

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Speaker 1: went wrong and exploded. But again, that's one of those

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Speaker 1: cases of you get a big and tall and balden

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Speaker 1: headline on a newspaper and you're going to get a

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Speaker 1: lot of rallying support from the public, and the public

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Speaker 1: screens loudly enough. Typically the president has to respond in

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Speaker 1: some way. And what's interesting about press generated during the

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Speaker 1: Spanish American War, or actually right before the Spanish American War,

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Speaker 1: is that there were two competing newspapers at this time,

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Speaker 1: and the men behind them, William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer,

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Speaker 1: they wanted to get their copies sold, and so you've

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Speaker 1: probably heard of yellow journalism, and this comes from the

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Speaker 1: idea of embellishing stories and creating untruths about what was

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Speaker 1: going on in the world at that time, and in

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Speaker 1: Cuba is a perfect place to make splashing news like this,

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Speaker 1: and so supposedly Hurst even told one of his reporters,

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Speaker 1: you furnish the pictures, and I will furnish the war,

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Speaker 1: because the newspapers were receiving pictures of Cubans who had

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Speaker 1: been put into concentration camps and and other outlets, and

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Speaker 1: they were being tortured supposedly about Spanish and they were

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Speaker 1: awful images. But when he sent reporters over there, there

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Speaker 1: wasn't actually a whole lot going on, So there wasn't

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Speaker 1: much of a story to write. We knew that there

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Speaker 1: were injustices, but we couldn't exactly, you know, put our

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Speaker 1: hands on what was happening and how the United States

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Speaker 1: should help because it was still unclear. And so the

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Speaker 1: newspapers were able to create the story themselves and get

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Speaker 1: people involved. And shortly after the main and this cry,

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Speaker 1: remember the main US Congress drafted a declaration of war

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Speaker 1: against Spain. That's right, and Hurst is really interesting also

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Speaker 1: because he not only sort of made up these stories,

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Speaker 1: he capitalized on this um yeah, imminent war as much

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Speaker 1: as he could. And Hurst actually made a card game

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Speaker 1: called War with Spain, and he started a fund to

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Speaker 1: build a main memorial um dedicated to the USS Main

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Speaker 1: and he actually offered a fifty thou dollar reward for

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Speaker 1: anyone who could solve the mystery of the explosion exactly.

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Speaker 1: And um, when war was all out called, like you said,

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Speaker 1: Candice Um, he actually referred to it as the Journal's war,

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Speaker 1: as if he he started it himself. Here briss I'll Italia.

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Speaker 1: But it worked. It worked. It got a reluctant United

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Speaker 1: States into war with Spain. And you know, I quitted

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Speaker 1: John Hay earlier saying it was a splendid little war

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Speaker 1: was just four months long and and really that's how

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Speaker 1: it went. I mean, there were these U. S. Troops

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Speaker 1: who started getting shuffled out the different island nations that

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Speaker 1: Spain still owned. And the Cuban campaign was one of

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Speaker 1: the dirtiest and most awful because the troops that got

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Speaker 1: sent were so it equipped to deal with the conditions there. Um.

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Speaker 1: They sent one of the first black uh infantries to

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Speaker 1: Cuba to fight. This was shortly after the military had

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Speaker 1: been somewhat desegregated. They were moving towards desegregation, and they

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Speaker 1: found there was not adequate food. They were given really

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Speaker 1: heavy roolen uniforms and obviously it's way too hot in

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Speaker 1: Cuba for that, and the fighting was just pretty bloody,

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Speaker 1: and the troops were outnumbered against the Spanish troops, and

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Speaker 1: so victory for them really came on the seas because

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Speaker 1: the Spanish navy was very, very poor compared to the

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Speaker 1: state of the art ships that the American troops had. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and adding to the food problem, um, there was also

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Speaker 1: problems with the actual food. Soldiers were complaining about it

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Speaker 1: and they said the beef tasted horrible. And there was

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Speaker 1: this scandal that broke out in the US at the

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Speaker 1: time that they were eating in balmed beef and somebody

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Speaker 1: said this word and it caught fire and people are like,

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Speaker 1: what the heck is that um? And that turned out

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Speaker 1: to be a rumor, I believe, But basically the they

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Speaker 1: think the heat of like the Cuban summer um made

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Speaker 1: it so the the meat did not last very well

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Speaker 1: and they were not eating very well over there in

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Speaker 1: Cuba anyway, So and a lot of them contracted yellow

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Speaker 1: fever and other diseases from being in Cuba and being

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Speaker 1: exposed to these conditions. And numbers that I've heard range,

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Speaker 1: but they approximate that fifty four hundred died in the

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Speaker 1: Cuban campaign, and of that only about three d eighty

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Speaker 1: if these deaths were actually due to battle and combat

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Speaker 1: with the Spanish forces. So if you can imagine, that's

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Speaker 1: what was going on. And one of the more interesting

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Speaker 1: parts to me at least, and some people say they're

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Speaker 1: sort of overrated, but it's fun to imagine, you know,

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Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt on a horse, you know, as a rough rider.

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Speaker 1: The rose Riders came in and this was a very um,

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Speaker 1: very sort of appropri of men, everyone from artists to

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Speaker 1: very wealthy men to politicians. And Roosevelt at that time

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Speaker 1: I felt that he had to do something to help

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Speaker 1: out with the Cuban campaign. And so they all got

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Speaker 1: together and they rode on their horses, and the African

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Speaker 1: American soldiers from the ninth Cavalry were very instrumental in

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Speaker 1: helping them to take the battle at Kettle Hill, and

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Speaker 1: they were able to outmaneuver the Spanish again, even if

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Speaker 1: they were outnumbered. That's right, and that's probably what made

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Speaker 1: this war so quick. Um. One of the major battles

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Speaker 1: we should mention, uh, the first battle that happened in

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Speaker 1: the war was happened actually not in Cuba or near it.

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Speaker 1: It happened all the way over the Philippines, uh, in

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Speaker 1: Manila Bay and Admiral George Dewey basically it was Teddy Roosevelt.

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Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, he was involved with the rough writers,

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Speaker 1: but before that he was actually giving out orders um

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Speaker 1: uh too for Admiral George Dewey to bring his squadron

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Speaker 1: over to Hong Kong to get ready to go to

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Speaker 1: the Philippines. And when do we actually got to the Philippines,

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Speaker 1: it was it was basically hands down victory for the

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Speaker 1: United States, and that really set the tone for the war.

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Speaker 1: I think it did. It did because there was that

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Speaker 1: chain of success, you know, once the United States had

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Speaker 1: won enough victories in Cuba, and then once they started

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Speaker 1: winning more victories and the Philippines, everyone was was happy

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Speaker 1: because they could see, you know, at the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the end. And a really key figure from the Philippines

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Speaker 1: was Emilio Aguinaldo and Um. He was very very excited

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Speaker 1: about the prospect of the Philippines gaining independence from Spain.

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Speaker 1: And along with the Filipinos, there were about eleven thousand

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Speaker 1: US troops that came along to help about Aguinaldo and

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Speaker 1: he actually declared independence from Spain on behalf of the

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Speaker 1: Philippines and Um he was able to commission the U.

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Speaker 1: S troops to help him out and whence they were

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Speaker 1: to declare victory there. The United States moved on to Guam,

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Speaker 1: but then things got kind of messy when when Spain

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Speaker 1: eventually surrendered, they were like, okay, you've got us. You

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Speaker 1: know you're Guam. Now we can we can easily see

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Speaker 1: you know, Puerto Rico is next and we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: losing all of our territories. So they agreed to sign

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Speaker 1: a peace treaty. But then a Glenado got upset because

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Speaker 1: now the United States was in a position where it

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Speaker 1: could have control of the Philippines, and he thought, well,

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Speaker 1: who are these men I was fighting alongside, and even

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Speaker 1: the Antio period anti imperialists getting too excited and speaking

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Speaker 1: too fast. Even the anti imperialists in America were saying,

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Speaker 1: who is America anymore. Our nation had been founded on

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Speaker 1: the precept of freedom from tyranny and freedom from imperial powers,

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Speaker 1: and now we've become one of them ourselves. So it

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Speaker 1: was a really big struggle that went up to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court about how to disseminate these lands the US

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Speaker 1: had gained. Yeah, and uh, it's a controversial issue even

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Speaker 1: to this day because, um, you could make the argument

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Speaker 1: and they did at the time as well, that uh,

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Speaker 1: the countries that they is liberated from Spanish rule, uh,

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Speaker 1: needed to get on their feet now and are we

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Speaker 1: gonna just let them be? And like what would happen

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Speaker 1: if anarchy ensues or whatever? Like, they don't have a

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Speaker 1: very stable transition, and maybe we should stick around and

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Speaker 1: try to make that work. Sounds like a pretty familiar story,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it a lot of connections to the day today,

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Speaker 1: of course, And so that was the ultimate question, what

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Speaker 1: do we do with these territories? So the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court ultimately made a couple of decisions. Uh, perto

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Speaker 1: Rico I was incorporated, the Philippines remained unincorporated, and the

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Speaker 1: Cubans were allowed to write their own concerts here shen

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Speaker 1: but the United States was still allowed to send troops there,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately Cuba became a protectorate of the United States.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And this was principally because of something called

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Speaker 1: the Teller Amendment, which was attached on to the permission

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Speaker 1: that Congress gave McKinley. When they originally said yes, go

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Speaker 1: ahead and use whatever you can to go protect Cuba

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Speaker 1: and liberate them from the Spanish. Uh, they attacked on

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Speaker 1: the Teller Amendment to say, when you're done liberating the Cubans,

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Speaker 1: you need to leave them alone. And there were of

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Speaker 1: course like provisions that like, okay, you can make sure

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Speaker 1: it's stable there. But but by nineteen o two, the

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Speaker 1: US mostly had left there and they had relinquished their

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Speaker 1: military government control over Cuba by that time. I said,

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Speaker 1: this brings us back to the question of the monument.

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Speaker 1: I found one book called Lies Across America by James W. Loewen,

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Speaker 1: and he points to this idea to where some monuments say,

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Speaker 1: like like Andy Hartman, our listener said that they give

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Speaker 1: the dates of the war from eighteen ninety eight to

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Speaker 1: nineteen o two, And he claims this is because it's

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Speaker 1: actually looping in the War of the Philippine American War

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Speaker 1: American War where the Filipinos wanted to ask the Americans

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Speaker 1: after the Americans else did the Spanish, and that didn't

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Speaker 1: settle or stabilize until nineteen o two. And so I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I if I agree with Lowen

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Speaker 1: on this point, because you could also say that the

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Speaker 1: monuments are looping in the idea that Cuba wasn't exactly

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Speaker 1: left alone until nineteen o two. But at least it's

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Speaker 1: an attempt at nswering that question. It's true, it's true,

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Speaker 1: But either way, I think the monument is wrong. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe we'll take about collection and gout there and fix it. Anybody,

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Speaker 1: anybody at all? I'd like to go to California. I

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Speaker 1: know I could use it right now. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: cloudy and gray in Atlanta these days. But I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad that Andy wrote and asked that question because it

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Speaker 1: gave us an opportunity to talk about and oft forgotten more.

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Speaker 1: And I didn't know that much about it, so it

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Speaker 1: was really fun to explore. So if anyone else has

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Speaker 1: any fun ideas or questions that they would like answered,

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Speaker 1: be sure to email us at History Podcast at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and in the intim You can

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Speaker 1: quench your thirst for history knowledge by visiting the website

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com