McKinley Calls for Volunteers

Date: April 22, 1898 • Location: Topes de Collantes, Cuba

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1898.

Spanish–American War: President William McKinley calls for 125,000 volunteers to join the National Guard and fight in Cuba, while Congress more than doubles regular Army forces to 65,000.

The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict fought between the United States and Spain in 1898. It began with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, and eventually resulted in the U.S. acquiring Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and establishing a protectorate over Cuba. It represented U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence and Philippine Revolution, with the latter later leading to the Philippine–American War. The Spanish–American War brought an end to almost four centuries of Spanish presence in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific; the United States meanwhile not only became a major world power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism.