The United States Navy battleship was mysteriously sunk in
Havana harbor on 15 February 1898; political pressures from the
Democratic Party pushed the administration of
Republican President
William McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid. Spain promised multiple times that it would reform the government of Cuba, but never delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to
Spain demanding that it surrender control of Cuba on 20 April. After the ultimatum was sent,
Madrid declared war on 23 April and Washington responded with its own declaration two days later. The main issue was
Cuban independence; the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. After the declaration of war, the U.S. Navy blockaded ports such as
Havana and
Cardenas. The Spanish attempted to lift the blockades on
Cardenas and Matanzas, The U.S. installed a
military government in Cuba immediately after the Treaty of Paris, and eventually let it become an
independent republic in 1902. The
Philippines also rebelled against U.S. control, which led to the
Philippine–American War lasting from 1899 to 1902. The Spanish also sold the rest of their Pacific islands to
Germany under the
German–Spanish Treaty. ==Caribbean Theater==