Key Events

Monroe Doctrine (1823): a U.S foreign policy regarding domination of the Americas in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with stats in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring the U.S to intervene.

Spanish American War: This was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S acquisition of territories in the Western Pacific and Latin America. Originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. Spain announced an armistice on April 9 and speeded up its new program to grant Cuba limited powers of self-government, but the U.S. Congress soon afterward issued resolutions that declared Cuba’s right to independence, demanded the withdrawal of Spain’s armed forces from the island, and authorized the President’s use of force to secure that withdrawal while renouncing any U.S. design for annexing Cuba. Spain declared war on the United States on April 24, followed by a U.S. declaration of war on the 25th, which was made retroactive to April 21. The ensuing war was pathetically one-sided, since Spain had readied neither its army nor its navy for a distant war with the formidable power of the United States. Commo. George Dewey led a U.S. naval squadron into Manila Bay in the Philippines on May 1, 1898, and destroyed the anchored Spanish fleet in a leisurely morning engagement that cost only seven American seamen wounded. Manila itself was occupied by U.S. troops by August. (Have to put into own words )