The United States entered the Spanish American War almost three years after the war's beginning. Ultimately, the war liberated Cuba from Spain and the US proved its newly found war-fighting capabilities. Historians have given several accounts on why the US entered the war. America's "Manifest Destiny" was one of the reasons. This destiny described the US's desire to have ownership of land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. (Whitman-Manifest Destiny). The country's hopes of expansionism had been growing for decades (Baker 2). There were several rumors of the US secretly trying to buy Cuba from Spain however they were turned down on the offer. Yellow journalism, autocratic Spanish rule and the unexplained destruction of the USS Maine were also important variables in the United State's entry into the war.

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