American Imperialism

By Ana Jara

  • Explosion of the USS Maine

    At 9:40pm on February 15, 1898, the battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 268 men and shocking the American populace. Of the two-thirds of the crew who perished, only 200 bodies were recovered and 76 identified.

  • Teller Amendment

    The Teller Amendment was an amendment to a joint resolution of the United States Congress, enacted on April 20, 1898, in reply to President William McKinley's War Message.
  • Period: to

    Spanish American War

    The Spanish-American War was an 1898 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.

  • Battle of San Juan Hill

    The Battle of San Juan Hill, also known as the battle for the San Juan Heights, was a decisive battle of the Spanish–American War.

  • Annexation of Hawaii

    In 1897, William McKinley succeeded Cleveland as United States president. A year later he signed the Newlands Resolution, which provided for the annexation of Hawaii on July 7, 1898. The formal ceremony marking the annexation was held at Iolani Palace on August 12, 1898.
  • Period: to

    Annexation of the Philippines

    After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. On February 4, 1899, just two days before the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists.
  • Period: to

    Boxer Rebellion

    Boxer Rebellion (or the Boxer Uprising), a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there.

  • Roosevelt Corollary

    President Theodore Roosevelt’s assertive approach to Latin America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the “Big Stick,” and his policy came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

  • Opening of The Panama Canal

    On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was opened to traffic. Panama later pushed to revoke the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, and in 1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos signed a treaty to turn over the canal to Panama by the end of the century.