USS Maine

USS Maine was an armored cruiser of the US Navy. The ship was ordered in 1886, and due to various construction delays it took 9 years before the ship was commissioned, by which time she was obsolete. In 1898 she was sent to Havana Harbor to protect American interests in Spanish Cuba, where she suddenly exploded in the middle of the night. This was almost certainly caused by an ammunition fire or powder explosion, but the media immediately began claiming it was a Spanish torpedo or naval mine or saboteur. Through wild exaggerations, and often completely fabricated information, they whipped up a storm of anti-Spanish war-lust. They turned the USS Maine’s explosion into a catalyst for the Spanish American War, which began two months later.