April 20, 1898

President McKinley Declares War Against Spain

Charge of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill

On this day in 1898, President McKinley asked Congress to declare war against Spain in what many historians now characterize as a war of American Imperialism.  The purpose of the war declaration was to side with the Cubans in their fight for independence from Spain.  McKinley asked for the war declaration after the USS Maine was sunk in Havana harbor and 254 men were lost.  Teddy Roosevelt and his Roughriders defeated Spain in a series of battles which resulted four months later in the Treaty of Paris, which ceded Puerto Rico, Guan and the Philippine Islands to the United States.