YEAR: 1898Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War marked the brutal expansion of the U.S. empire overseas, under the facade of anti-colonial liberation. Claiming it was “freeing” Spanish colonies, the U.S. hijacked indigenous independence movements and seized Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, while subjugating Cuba as a client state via the Platt Amendment. In the Philippines in particular, the U.S. occupation killed thousands of Filipinos fighting for their independence from Spain, and then from the United States.
The Spanish-American war was just the beginning — between 1898 and World War II, the U.S. invaded and occupied Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Panama.
