There was a US battleship name USS Maine of visiting Port Havana in Cuba, then Spanish colonial in the name of so called protecting US nationals and assets there!
The Americans had been occupied many Spanish-Mexican lands in nowadays: California,Texas,New Mexico,Arizona,Neveda,Florida...these Spanish named state which US taken by force!
The Americans anna a "One for all" settle down their conflict with Spain, they sen a battleship USS Maine there and blowup the magazine under turet and blaming the Spanish for abotaging! With USnews mediaadvocating wars andthe naiveAmericans were deployed to Cuba,Porto Rico,Guam andthe Philipines! Dirty trick kick started dirt wars!