Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. So does anybody have any questions, comments, concerns for me? Okay. All right. Things to keep in mind. Remember that Labor Day is this Monday. So obviously, what, the 7th? So we're not going to have class that day. The school is technically off. So use the time to start working on the signature assignments, you know get caught up on your readings, etc, etc So our next class meeting will be on Wednesday at the normal time right 10 a.m. Right on Wednesday So just a brief announcement before we get started. Okay, we're gonna take a look today at Empire and expansion so really finishing up with the Gilded Age and getting you guys Ready to go as far as that is concerned. Alright, so Take a look at the Spanish-American War today. We'll talk about Hawaii. We'll talk about some colonization. And then really pretty much that's what will take us through the rest of the day. So without further ado, let's take a look at the chapter and dig in. All right. So taking a look at what we talked about last time, we had discussed the late Gilded Age. We talked about some definitions of what imperialism is overall, the acceptable definition that we'll be looking for in class. Imperialism is basically when one country forces other countries under its thumb, either through a mixture of economic, political, military pressure, or a combination of all of the above. And that the U.S. was rather unique because we'd already lived under Great Britain, so it's kind of strange that we would do the same to other countries, but we did. And we talked about some of the reasons why, from social Darwinism to binding foreign markets to this idea of manifest destiny, right, etc., etc. We really kind of finished up talking about the rapprochement, right? The idea of the United States and Britain coming back together, something that some political theorists had already guessed even as early as the 1850s and 1860s, and largely because of all of these reasons that the U.S. and Britain start to become closer rather than enemies, as they had been for much of U.S. one. Other aspects that are important to investigate are the U.S. expanding in the foreign policy sector. So first of all, the nation of Hawaii. Now for years the U.S. had used Hawaii and so did many other countries as a refueling stop between the North American continent and Asia. And so for years it had been used in that way, but it still belonged to the Polynesian peoples, the native Hawaiian or Hawaiian islanders who had lived there. And basically they'd been there since Moana had discovered it back in the day, all right, and well not Moana, but... Certainly Polynesian ancestors, right, who had sailed across the ocean, in some cases, thousands of years ago, and that the Hawaiians that lived there, for the most part, you know, had a life that was based on subsistence agriculture and doing their thing. Well, eventually, as European diseases, as Europeans start using Hawaii as a strategic base, then yeah, you're gonna start to see that European diseases begin to spread. And the native population was reduced to one sixth by this point. Americans began to look covetously at Hawaii as something that they themselves would like to possess. This is the story of Hawaii becoming what the 50th state. Hawaii basically presented a lot of advantages for the U.S. First of all it was strategic. It's about the halfway point between Asia and North America so anybody that's going to Asia is gonna have to stop for fuel there. So that's one big reason. Number two Hawaii's climate allowed it to be able to grow a crop which at the time was worth as much as six seven dollars in US markets so they can make a substantial amount of money off of this crop does anybody want to take a guess at what Hawaii was growing that Americans wanted to control? Pineapple? Yeah very good pineapples And it's not that pineapples are exceedingly hard to grow, it's that you have to have the right climate for them. And in this case, Hawaii is perfect. So pineapples were very expensive, in some cases $6-$7 per pineapple. I don't know what they are today because I don't buy a lot of pineapples, but basically you can make pretty good money off of them. So yeah, agricultural reasons are another reason why Hawaii is very attractive. And so the last major reason is ultimately that Americans wanted to expand. that you're not going to be able to expand into Asia unless you take in Hawaii first. So all of these I think are reasons why you know the McKinley administration starts floating around this idea that Hawaii might be a good get and so these are the kinds of things that eventually will take place. All right, so how does the U.S. get Hawaii? Well, basically because the populations have been so reduced by diseases. At that point, now it's about trying to convince the acting queen, Queen Liliuokalani, to play ball with the United States. She is reluctant. She wants the Hawaiian people to maintain their independence, and so she's not going to provide the U.S. with a lot of the things that they want. So what the U.S. decides to do is they raise a revolt. Basically, there is a revolt under some of Liliuokalani's relatives that do not dispute her claim to the throne. And the US decides to back the rebels instead of Liliuokalani. Technically, we're allies with her, but the US knows very quickly that she's not going to give us what we want. So we back the enemy. And in this case, they end up toppling her in a coup. And at this point in 1898, the United States is able to formally annex Hawaii under the McKinley administration. Now at this point Hawaii is not a state. It doesn't become so until the 1950s. All right but basically it will become a territory and we'll talk about especially when we get to the Philippines and the Spanish-American War what a territory is and what what its basic breakdown is. So yeah we have the Pearl Harbor Naval Base established in 1887 and then eventually by 1898 Hawaii is annexed by the United States. That's a I guess a A polite way to say it. Stolen would be another way to say it. Today, Hawaiians are still trying to recover from this. Obviously, the Polynesian peoples that still live there are trying to recover their language, culture. Those are things that are still important to them. And obviously, the U.S. kind of did a number as far as trying to get rid of those and teaching English and all those kinds of things. And so certainly Pearl Harbor is going to have long-term significance, and that's largely because of the attack on Pearl Harbor. on December 7th, 1941. So it's going to get us involved in the World War II. So Hawaii will play a major role in later events, particularly with our relationship in the Far East with Japan. So yeah, these are all the places that Uncle Sam is eyeing under the McKinley administration. Cuba Steak, Puerto Rico Pig, Philippine Floating Islands, Sandwich Islands. Not one you even have to make a pun for because it's already good to go. But the U.S. is contemplating this, right? You know, we had westward expansion and now it's all about trying to expand across the Pacific and into the Atlantic as well. So here's Queen Liliuokalani, who among other things was known as a fantastic singer who composed songs, many of which are still around. But obviously, you know, she's the last reigning queen of Hawaii and ultimately the U.S. is going to, you know, make her fall down so that they can take over the island for themselves. Now, where things really start to get interesting is in Cuba. The U.S. had always potentially wanted to take Cuba. It had always been this kind of itch that we wanted to scratch. And then in 1895, we see an opportunity. Now, it goes all the way back to even the 1840s with the Austin Manifesto, for example. If you go all the way back to U.S. 1, the Franklin Pierce administration had attempted to buy Cuba from Spain, and Spain would not agree. And then there was a manifesto that we were going to try to steal it if we didn't get a good price. And then. it became a public relations disaster. So the U.S. had always been eyeing Cuba. It had always been something that we wanted to take, but we never really had the opportunity to do so. But in 1895, the Cuban people end up revolting against the Spanish. And so this is obviously something that Americans are definitely interested in. Number one, it's going to make sugar prices go up, which Americans don't like. And number two, the rebels are going to put up quite the fight. So The Spanish response is to ultimately put them into what we would call today concentration camps. They basically set up these internment camps where they put the people that have misbehaved and then they basically starve them to death. And so there's all these scenes in the media of starving Cuban children and people being beaten in the streets and the cruelty of the Spanish oppression. So this is basically Spain's attempt to try to force martial law on the Cubans. And of course... It just makes them even more likely to revolt against them. So the U.S. gets involved because this is where the yellow press comes into play, right? This is largely the lead up, right, to the Spanish-American War. Why does the U.S. go to war with Spain in 1898? Well, the media begins printing stories that exclusively focus on the bad parts. Not that there's a lot of good parts about the Spanish revolt, but... Basically what happens is they talk about these kids being murdered and people being beaten in the streets and they tell these stories of American citizens that are on the island that are being You know stripped and beaten and that kind of stuff stuff that Americans is just ain't gonna fly not in 1898 Were these stories true? sometimes 50-50 I would say as far as the truthfulness of a lot of this stuff this is of course yellow press and we talked about this last time right the old press is sensational journalism it's journalism that's designed to sell copies not necessarily tell the truth or make you informed so the rivalry is really between two individuals William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer over who can sell enough who can sell more copy and so Pulitzer is printing some pretty sensational stories. And then you get William Randolph Hearst that wants to beat him. So what he does is he sends the very famous artist, the frontier artist, Frederick Remington, to Cuba. And he basically says, if you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war. A quote that becomes extremely famous even today. And so at this point, you know, Remington paints these pictures and sends them back. And then basically what Hearst's newspaper does is applies the caption. many times not even correct as to what's going on whatsoever. But it doesn't matter because it's fueling this fire in the U.S., this anger at Spain because of what's going on with Cuba. And the Americans, of course, are looking at the Cubans as their friends and as they're being oppressed and that this foreign European nation is coming in, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. So America's ultimate response at this point is to go to the big guns, literally. They're going to take the battleship Maine. McKinley will order it to stand by off the island of Cuba. The ultimate reason for the visit is a friendly visit to Cuba. Well, when is a battleship being sent to your shores not friendly, right? I mean, it's like me holding a gun to your head and saying, I'm your best friend. I love you, right? That's why I'm holding this gun to your head, right? Basically what a battleship is, it's a tool of war. So that's exactly what we see happen is the battleship Maine is sent to Cuba. The actual mission is really to evacuate U.S. citizens in case a war does begin between Spain and the U.S. It's obvious at this point that the U.S. doesn't really like Spain, and Spain is obviously upset at the U.S. media coverage. And of course, the people who are living large are the media people because they can print all these stories, but most of which are just bullshit, and make a ton of money off of it. So the reality is that the U.S. is going to start expanding throughout the 19th century, and you can see through all of these. The overthrow of the monarchy in Hawaii in 1893, Guam in 1898, the Philippines, Cuba for a brief period, Puerto Rico. Many of these are ultimately going to come from the Spanish-American War. Some are going to come from other things. But you see an America that up until this point wasn't active in any of these places. So as we get into the 20th century, that we're dealing with a country that is much more active as far as foreign policy in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. So what happens? On February 15, 1898. What happens to the battleship Maine? Anybody know? It explodes. Very good. Yeah, it explodes for reasons that are relatively unclear. Nobody's really sure what actually happens, right? And so the story the next day basically talks about the fact that the battleship Maine torpedoed, right, off the coast of Cuba. Well, I mean, number one, were there torpedoes? Yes, but they weren't very effective. Number two, all right, when they later did an investigation of the ship in the 1970s, the U.S. Navy, with Cuban assistance, found out that the battleship main, the plates on the inside of the ship, all right, the iron had been blown outwards, all right, indicating that the explosion probably came from inside the ship, yes? More than likely if it was a torpedo or blew up on the outside, it would push the whole ant. It would collapse, not push out. But this was the 1970s, right? So nobody in the 1890s really knew what exactly happened. And the media is going to have a field day with this. What they're going to do is they're going to, you know, American sailors not, you know, explode with mysterious circumstances, which was the reality. Then the newspapers the next day, the story is American sailors murdered. by the Spanish. And at this point, because of the wording, Americans are drove into this fever pitch, right, with slogans like, remember the Maine to hell with Spain. Obviously, songs across the country about how terrible the Spanish are, and that it's time to get, you know, vindication and revenge on these Spanish assholes who killed our American soldiers. Well, the Spanish foreign policy, their foreign policy is that they didn't do it. They don't know who did it. They didn't have anything to do with it. Please don't kill us. We don't want to fight you, et cetera, et cetera. But Americans at that point, it's too late. They go to their congressmen. They go to their senators. They go to President McKinley. And they basically tell him that. If you don't declare war on Spain and if we don't go liberate Cuba, then you're not going to be president very long. So at this point, McKinley's in a tough position, but he decides that it has to be done. And so as a result, that's why he does what he does. He decides to declare war on Spain. Congress, of course, gives him that ability. Right. On April 11th, 1898, he asked for it. And then eventually Congress will pass the Teller Amendment in addition to the war clause. The Teller Amendment is basically stating that the Cubans will receive their independence once the war is ultimately over. So it's not going to be a war of territorial conquest. We're not going to bring the Cubans under our thumb. We're fighting for their liberation. And that's certainly, of course, going to help the Cubans to join our side during the revolt. So April 11, 1898, he's going to ask for war, and the United States will ultimately get their war with Spain as of early 1898. Any questions on the battleship Maine, right? The lead up to the Spanish American war. Everybody good? Okay. All right. So here's a scene, right? This is one of those. sensational journalism is right about the explosion of the battleship main notice how we have to show the american soldiers being flown through the air all right that it has to be like a michael bay like transformer style explosion it can't just be like a minor explosion that blows the ship outward now obviously as we talked about an internal explosion what would cause this there's two theories that the u.s navy developed in 1976 okay the first theory was the idea that more than likely that there was a flaw in the ship's design. As you can see the boilers, the stacks on the ship, were located right in the middle. One was located here and one was located more in this direction, in this area. The problem with that was the powder magazine on this ship was right next to the aft boiler. So you can imagine sitting on tons and tons of gunpowder and here's this super super hot boiler. Now, again, the boilers were insulated, all right, but they were insulated with materials of the lowest quality because you know how the U.S. operates. All right, we're not going to build our ship with the best stuff. We're going to build it with whatever is the cheapest. And in that case, that's exactly what we did in 1898. Maybe one of the boilers, you know, busted a ring or maybe one of the sealant valves broke open and that super hot steaming gas started being piped into the powder room. And, of course, you know what happens when gunpowder and fire combine. right? It probably blew the ship up. So it was probably a design, some kind of issue or damage to the ship. The second possible scenario, and this is the one that I don't even want to contemplate, is the idea that supposedly the officer's quarters was right over here. So it was right next to the powder magazine. So it's potentially possible that they would have some officer or somebody decided they were going to smoke a cigar and they... decided to do it in the powder magazine now i would hope that no is that stupid all right that they're gonna smoke a cigar in a room filled with gunpowder but it's possible i mean weirder things have happened i guess um so maybe the guy was smoking the cigar and they didn't realize it and went like this and oh you know i mean that's possible as well but really the first scenario i think is more plausible more than likely it was a design flaw in the ship and later ships of course didn't have that same problem or at least they were the decks were relegated to different spots uh question is uh was the ship sunk yeah it was it was gone uh pretty much it was blown in half and there wasn't a lot that could salvage it uh now it didn't kill all the sailors only 200 some sailors die there were many that survived that were fished out of the ocean uh but that still was no satisfaction to many of the families of the grieving uh who blamed the spanish for it And even until 1976, the Spanish constantly said, look, we didn't do it. It wasn't our fault. We promise you it wasn't a mine. It wasn't a torpedo. We didn't have any of that stuff. And Americans just didn't listen. You know, when Americans get ready to fight, they want to fight. And in this case, it's exactly what's going to happen to the Spanish-American war. So I hope it wasn't based off of some idiot that threw a cigar in the wrong spot. Right. I would love to believe that it's more based off a design flaw, because that's what's a little bit easier to understand. Up here you can see of course propaganda for the U.S. selling the Spanish-American war. What is considered one of the greatest lasting legacies of that war? Well you can see it right here. We got these two guys shaking hands. Anybody know what the significance is here of these two guys shaking hands? the north and the south i guess going to war together very good yeah the u.s hasn't had a major dust up since 1865 all right the u.s during the gilded age didn't go to war with anybody as you know americans love a good war once in a while right we just want to kick someone's ass once every 30 years or so and so spain's perfect right it's the perfect adversary because they're bad people obviously they're putting all these people in concentration camp number two all right they speak spanish All right, the vast majority of Americans didn't speak Spanish. So the good thing about shooting people that speak Spanish is you can't understand what they're saying. All right, it's not like shooting a Confederate, right, where they're gonna be sitting there saying, please don't shoot me. All right, and you're like, oh, shit, you know, this guy's pleading for his life. All right. The other aspect, of course, is racism, certainly, because at this time, the people who lived in Cuba were brown, and most Americans were white. So obviously, you're going to war, it's real easy to determine who you shoot, you just shoot the brown people. right, who speak the language you don't understand. So, I mean, this is something to keep in mind, that all of these are reasons why the U.S. is willing to get involved in this war as opposed to other ones. There were at least a dozen situations where the U.S. could have potentially gone to war with Britain or France or even Germany over the Samoan Islands, and they just choose not to because the U.S. isn't really that interested in fighting those powers. But Spain, that's a different story, right? Because Spain is weak. Spain obviously wouldn't negotiate with us before, and there's a lot of reasons why the U.S. had to leave for Spain. So, yeah, one of the great legacies, as Jonathan talks about, right, is this idea of North and South being united together again for the first time, right? That even though the Southerners still don't trust Northerners and Northerners don't trust Southerners, right, that the one thing we can agree on is that we can kill some foreigners. And so it's something that really, I think, unites Americans together in 1898. Now one other thing I want you to notice about this picture in particular, look at Cuba. Obviously you see the crown on here, she's got the chains on her, right? Anything you notice in particular here about Cuba that's rather interesting? She doesn't look Cuban. Yeah, she doesn't look Cuban at all, alright? If you look at this picture again, alright, not to say that there isn't light-skinned and light-haired Cubans, because there are, but holy fucking shit, I mean, could you find a less Cuban person? I mean, why would Americans demonstrate a essentially Germanic-looking, pale, white girl with blonde hair as Cuba? So they can get, like, people to fight? Yeah, I mean, it basically boils down to just good old fashioned racism, all right? If you actually put a real Cuban child on there, all right, most Americans would go, I mean, yeah, I mean, they're still cute, but do we really want to fight for brown children? I mean, you know, we don't know about that, right? As far as like, and the same thing is true in a large way, even today. I mean, I would say that Americans are a little bit more progressive than they were in 1898. But think, for example, like you're watching Fox News. Like if a white girl in like California goes missing, it's like the fucking world ends. All right. Everybody that's on the media for like a month straight are talking about what happened to the little girl. We're going to have manhunts immediately within 24 hours. People are going to go out and find her. And yet how many Hispanic children disappear on a regular basis? How many black children disappear? And you see like news channels just like stop the presses. We have to go find this, you know, poor innocent child that's gone. No, not really. Not really. I mean, even look at the Fort Hood that what's going on in Fort Hood, you know, you've got all these Hispanic soldiers that go missing and the news media gives it about five minutes of attention, if that. All right. It's really important to understand that we still as a country have racist tendencies. That there are still people, depending on the color of their skin, that are more valuable or less valuable depending. Based on media attention, based on incomes, based on all those things. And it's something that many of you with Spanish or Mexican ancestry that you're already dealing with actively and will probably have to deal with for the rest of your life. I mean BLM in particular. It blew white people's minds. Alright, I mean I knew people from back home that were like, holy fucking shit, like black people are discriminated against? Like it was like their whole worldview had just like collapsed. Alright, it's like their brains like Mount St. Helens, it just like explodes. So you got to understand that's why they use this kind of imagery, right? Is that in 1898, in 1898, Americans were very racist. And if they're not going to fight a war over Cubans that are brown skinned and very ethnic looking, right? They're going to fight a war, assuming that Cubans just look like they're from northern Germany, right? And that's part of what's going to get them on the path to being able to fight. So yeah, racist tendencies in there combined with a variety of other things as far as... North and South mixing together, fighting a foreign nation with a different culture. All of these are examples of things I think why Americans are motivated to fight. The Spanish-American War is probably one of the shortest and most popular conflicts in American history. And the reason for that is because, like we said, it's short, it's sweet, it's to the point, and it's basically just a connecting series of American curb-stomping. There really aren't a lot of American losses in the war. The Americans win pretty much every battle. And they don't just win. I mean, they win big. So this is something. And there's, of course, the decisive outcome, right? Americans love, you know, fighting wars where at the end we win and we get shit as a result. That's why, you know, the History Channel is known as the World War II Channel, right? Because it's pretty much all they run 24 hours a day most of the time. They're not, you know, showing shows on fucking aliens and shit. So. Basically, when we're taking a look at what's going on in 1898, in May, the American fleet under Admiral George Dewey receives a telegraph to go to war. And basically what happens at this point is the American fleet attacks the Spanish. The Spanish have yet to receive word. They don't have sophisticated telegraphy, so they don't know what the hell is going on. And the Americans attack them while they're still at harbor. And so the entire Spanish fleet is wrecked in the Pacific without even knowing what the hell is going on. So there's 400 Spanish casualties. The Americans don't suffer any losses. Well, I really can't say that. One American admiral officer ends up shooting a gun into the air at the conclusion of the battle to celebrate the victory, and he has a heart attack. So that's the only American loss. The Spanish, of course, are going to lose their entire fleet in a matter of about 15 to 30 minutes. So this is a decisive victory. Now, even though the Spanish fleet is defeated, you still have to defeat the Spanish army, which is in place in the Philippines. So the Filipinos, knowing that Americans are there to liberate them, because that's what we promised them, is we're here to save you from your Spanish overlords. Americans promised the Filipinos that we will give them independence at the conclusion of the conflict, which Filipinos think sounds great. So under Emilio Aguinaldo, the... Filipino rebels actually assist the Americans. When the Americans come ashore, there's no opposition because the insurrectos, these Filipino rebels, have already taken care of most Spanish resistance on the island. And so with American assistance, they're able to defeat the remaining Spanish forts. And ultimately, by July 7, 1898, at this point, the Filipinos have ultimately fought off almost all the Spanish whatsoever. And they now are able to do their own thing. At least for a brief period, and we'll come back to this in just a second. Now, what about Cuba? Well, obviously, Cuba is the central focus of the war, right? So American forces begin moving south, particularly to Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, where they can load up on ships and transports and eventually move towards Cuba. Well, even though Cuba is only 90 miles away, obviously, maritime invasions in the U.S. in the 1890s was not something we were particularly skilled at. Many troops went without support. supplies. Soldiers obviously wore their dress uniforms instead of their fatigues. They basically wore wool uniforms, which are going to be completely useless in Cuba because Cuba is a tropical climate. You had American generals that were fat and useless. So basically, Americans used a lot of techniques they used against Indians. The Spanish aren't going to fight that way. So there's a lot of things that American rifles were largely obsolete. The Americans had largely purchased. A series of rifles for the army which were called the 3040 Krags, also called Krag Jorgensen. So just so that you get an example of what these things look like, because I want you to have the fullest picture of US history possible. Right. This is a rifle that you just have to see because it's one of the most unique rifles in American history. All right. So obviously you can see this one which is from a gun auction, but you get the idea. This was a rifle that was very unique in that it used what was called a loading gate. All right, now what does that mean? Most of the time, rifles in this period, like, usually we're going to use, like, trap doors, like the 1887 Springfield. They were trapdoor rifles, which meant you basically had a little thing in the bottom that you could put your rounds in, and that's how you basically shoot. You could also load in the top. That was always a traditional way of doing it as well. But the Krag was rather unique because these American rifles, they're really Norwegian, but American bottom, they actually had a gate that would slide out. All right, so basically what happens is this thing comes out, it slides like a drawer, and then you have to put the rounds in the top. Well, the problem is if you're running or you're like moving or you're in combat, it's really difficult to get the rounds to actually land in the direction they're supposed to go. So a lot of times there would be misfeeds because the bullets would go in the wrong direction or they would go in at an angle or they don't fit snug into the magazine, right? So you literally just drop them in like a handful and then slide the thing closed. Well, I mean, if you get a perfect drop, but... For those of you, if you just took coins and dropped them on the table, are they always going to land on the right side? No, I mean, it's the same thing with brass. So this is a big problem. Americans would lose a lot of rounds, particularly when they would fight battles. They'd try to reload their weapons and half of the ammunition would end up on the ground. Some of it would jam the rifle because it would go in incorrectly. They wouldn't operate the procedure. It was a really bizarre rifle. But even today, these things are like a really big collector's item. And they sell on Gun Broker anywhere from like a thousand dollars and up. So it's one of those things that Americans just want to have because it's such a curious piece of history. But for the most part, they royally, royally suck. And so because of this, all right, it's obviously going to cause some problems for the U.S. Their rifles aren't as good. The Spanish are largely going to be using extremely good weapons. So to give you an example of some of the things that the Spanish are using. Give me one quick second, I'm gonna go get something for y'all. All right, that was very little deeper than I thought it was. All right, this is an example of the weapon that the Spanish are largely using against the Americans. All right, so you might ask, well what is this? This is a Mauser. It's an 1896 Mauser and this was widely used by the Spanish forces at this time period. All right, so Paul's asleep goes to deep. You better not be asleep. All right, so what you basically got is right here. All right, this is the loading action. All right, it's five rounds. It's very simple to operate, very smooth action. All you really got to do is you take your rounds, you've got what's called a stripper clip, which lines up all your bullets. You put the little piece in here and then you push it down into the rifle and then you've got five rounds that are ready to go. And then basically at that point, one, two, three, four, and then you're fine. And then you reload again. So basically it's a much smoother rifle. You're not going to have rounds all over the ground, all right. It's obviously very accurate. It's got that smooth action, which is what the Mausers are obviously traditionally good for. And so this is largely the weapon that the Spanish are using against the Americans. It is way better than the 30-40 Krag. It shoots a much better round. It has much better muzzle velocity. And so in general, American forces that go to battle in Cuba, for example, they're going to be in some cases outmatched. The advantage, of course, is that the Americans outnumbered them, all right? And that's going to be the big reason why Americans are ultimately going to win the war. Now why is it significant to talk about this rifle in particular? Because the Americans will later come out with the 1903 Springfield, which will be the dominant American weapon in World War I. And that weapon is exclusively a Mauser. It's basically the same thing except Americans just put their markings on it. In fact, the Americans, because they copied the German design, they're actually gonna have to pay patents. to the German government until World War I begins and Americans are just like, well, fuck it, I'm not going to pay somebody I'm at war with. So that's something to keep in mind, like this is the, this is an actual 1896 Mauser. And this is really something that Americans are going to adopt for their own device, just because that's the nature of how good these weapons actually work. Does the gun work? Yeah, this is a real weapon. That's why obviously I make sure that I checked it to make sure that the action is open. But yeah, I take this out, we go shooting with it. You know, hopefully over Labor Day, the whole Labor Day thing, I'll be able to go out and take it out and put some rounds through it. But one of the advantages, of course, of doing this class from my house is that I don't have to go through TSC to get all this authorization and paperwork and shit. Like, I can just show you whatever guns I've got. What's the caliber? The caliber for the Springfield is.30-06. The caliber for the Mauser is what's known as 10-millimeter Mauser. And so that's... pretty standard across the board. Most, if you have, for example, any German guns from World War II, like for example, the, you know, they had bolt action rifles. Most of those are going to be using 10 millimeter Mauser as well. All right. So yeah, this, this is the design that Americans are eventually going to adopt for themselves just because design was so good. That's what it's going to do. Shooting your Templar suit. They're actually, we have a picture somewhere of, I had a friend that has an MP40. And I've got an MP40 and then another guy's got a machine gun and we're dressed in our Roman stuff. And we're basically, it's like, you know, one of the centurions is like pointing at like targets on the hill. We're like riding in a, in a Willie Jeep. What's the cost for 1896 Mauser like this? I, you know, for those of you that were like born in the eighties, like in the eighties, these things were like 50 bucks. I mean, you could get M1 Garands, you could get all of this stuff for very, very cheap. The problem is, is today, because there's not so many left and a lot of people have sporterized them, which is where you take a large part of the stock off, you're looking at probably a thousand bucks. I would say a really good quality mouser that's going to be in shooting condition, probably a thousand bucks. You might be able to find cheaper ones that are in horrible shape. So if you want to put some elbow grease into it, and if you have some knowledge on how to take care of metal and stuff, then... You might be able to find one as a steal for, you know, less than that. But most of the time, yeah, it's, they're going to be expensive just because there aren't as many of them, especially World War II. Once all the Call of Duties and shit came out, then, you know, everybody wanted to buy World War II shit. So it created a market and thus when there's a market, then things are going to become more expensive. Any questions on the Americans preparing for war in 1898? So I have a question regarding the Krag Jorgensen. Yeah. I was watching a video where this guy caught a forgotten weapons. He was going about how the Krag Jorgensen had a special type of bayonets, like a Bowie bayonet and a Bolo knife bayonet. Yes. Were they actually used in the conflict or just like only special units actually got them? Really, as far as the U.S. was concerned, the doctrine had shifted in the 1890s because of the Old West. So because they had fought Indians and because they were used to using repeating weapons, most Americans didn't really train with the bayonet very often. It wasn't looked at as being that important. So in some of these assaults, like, for example, the assault on San Juan Hill that makes Teddy Roosevelt famous, Americans, for the most part, they might maybe have carried one, but they usually were not. fixed and most Americans weren't taught how to use them because their idea was that they have enough firepower they shouldn't have to use hand-to-hand combat. Now as we get into World War I things change all right and so one of the big things that happens in World War I is they start going to bayonets again. In particular one of the big things they shifted to They would go to these. These were basically the kind of knives you're going to see by turn of the century. So these would have been a little bit older than the Spanish-American War by about a few years. This one, of course, is a 1917, but this design was known as the 1903 design because it was designed to fit on the Springfield 03. Now, remember how I told you how the Americans just copied the Mausers? I can show you physical evidence of how that exists. This is your Mauser rifle. This is an American bayonet. Even the fucking barrel is the same. You can take American parts and swap them out for German guns. So the reality is, is that did Americans copy the Germans in this one? You bet your ass they did. All right. So this is why Americans were ultimately paying royalties, because for the most part, they just copied the rifle and they ended up becoming the Springfield 03, which in my opinion is one of the greatest rifles America's ever used. It's still used by drill teams. It's still used by stuff even today. If you watch Saving Private Ryan, the guy snipes with one. So those are all examples of why that rifle is still used on a large scale. All right, so basically what happens is if we go back to the PowerPoint, all right, so the invasion of Cuba takes place. One of the interesting stories about the invasion are these guys, right, the Rough Riders. So when you think of Rough Riders, especially those of you who were like from the, you know, you were like a kid or a teenager in like the 1990s, especially like early 2000s. All right, probably when you think of Rough Riders, probably the first thing you think of is this guy, right? Anybody know who this guy is? Nah, sir. The game? Nobody knows who this is, man. I'm really fucking old, Ben. I was born in 1993, and I don't even know who that guy is. No shit. Well, you probably heard some of his songs, all right? This is, that's what's called, that's DMX, all right? DMX, obviously not as popular today as he was back in 2000, but in 1999, 2000, holy shit. Like, he came out with like three albums in a row, and it's pretty much... Like as far as rap was concerned, like almost everybody was a DMX fan. So yeah, he obviously was part of a group called the Ruff Riders, R-U-F-F Riders, all right? Because supposedly they took characteristics from dogs, all right? That's not to get them confused, right, with the Ruff, R-O-U-G-H Riders, right? So don't picture DMX charging up San Juan Hill, all right? He's gonna be charging up San Juan Hill are these guys. All right, obviously you can see in the front this guy who becomes very famous later in American politics. Who's this guy? Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, very good. That's Teddy Roosevelt. All right, so the interesting story about this guy is Teddy Roosevelt, who at the time was a colonel, he actually was an assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. And when the war broke out, he wanted his opportunity to fight. He'd always been marked by his father's cowardice. His father had a chance to fight in the Civil War, and he found a replacement because he was rich. And Teddy Roosevelt had never respected his father because of that. So he said, you know, this is my only opportunity for glory. I'm going to take it. So he resigned his cush job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and went to lead American soldiers into battle. What is the likelihood that America getting involved in a large war in the next 10 years, that Donald Trump will resign his position? and basically go lead American soldiers into battle or not resign his position as commander-in-chief and actually wear a helmet and go fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anybody see that happening anytime soon? No. Maybe some of our senators, you know, maybe Nancy Pelosi, maybe Ted Cruz, right, might decide, you know, strap a helmet on and go fight abroad. Probably not. Maybe Dan Crenshaw. Possibly, yeah. I mean, certainly in some of the stories you've heard about that. I mean, you know, maybe, but the reality is, is probably for most senators and congressmen, you're probably going to say no. And so for him to do this was rather unique, even in the 20th century. I mean, it wasn't something that you saw very often. So he's going to resign his position. He'll lead this regiment known as the Rough Riders, a cavalry regiment of U.S. troops. You might notice, obviously, if these guys are cavalry soldiers, where the hell are their horses? Well, funny story, during the confusion as Americans were disembarking in Cuba and leaving from Florida, the manifestos all got lost and the horses ended up going to Puerto Rico instead of Cuba. So a bunch of infantry that were attacking Puerto Rico, a ship arrived with their horses and the infantry are like, huh? All right. These are guys that like grew up in like New York and should have never even seen a fucking horse before. And they're like, oh yeah, well, your horses, your war horses are here. And they're like, I don't know anything about horses. I don't want those fucking things. So they ended up having to make the charge without horses. They had to actually charge. So the cavalry had to fight his infantry and the infantry rejected the horses. So it didn't work that way that Americans ultimately fought. But Roosevelt ends up being part of this battle, the Battle of San Juan Hill, which is probably the most substantial in the Cuban campaign. Interestingly, San Juan Hill is not where the charge actually took place. It was Kettle Hill. But Americans had no knowledge of Cuban geography. So they just kind of guessed. as to what the names were for each hill. They got them mixed up because the map was upside down. So the Rough Riders charged the wrong hill and that's part of why they took as many casualties as they did. But basically they're going to charge up this hill and Roosevelt talks about, you know, his blood pumping and how he gets to the top of the hill and when he finally gets there, all right, there's a Spaniard that's wounded that's laying in one of the bushes and the Spaniard has a revolver essentially pointed straight at President Roosevelt, all right. And so you can imagine being President Roosevelt, and you're sitting there, and here's this guy, right, with this gun pointing straight at you, right? And basically, Roosevelt looks at him and thought, oh, my God, you know, I'm going to die, all right, that I'm not going to live, like, you know, his life flashes before his eyes. And basically, the guy sits there with the revolver, right, and you hear click, right? Either the revolver was unloaded, right, or the general principle of the time was. Believe it or not, even though you have a six shooter, most people when they carry a revolver, they only carry five rounds, right? The first chamber is always an empty chamber, so you don't have to worry about blowing your freaking foot off. So that could have been possible. He just forgot to load it. Or the humidity maybe allowed for a misfire. We don't know. But ultimately, the gun doesn't fire. And Roosevelt says, I've never been so happy in my life as to see this individual's gun not go off. He's like, at that point, I took out my 45 revolver. And I proceeded to make him dance like a jackrabbit. So basically Roosevelt started shooting him until he ran out of bullets. And then his friends came in and they started shooting him. All right. And they basically played like volleyball with this guy's corpse. They would just keep shooting him and they had a line and they were basically playing tug of war to see where the body would eventually end up. So they ended up shooting this guy 361 times. So most of you are like, holy freaking shit. What does this say about President Roosevelt? He's got a twisted sense of humor. Yeah, he's got a few bricks short of a load. And so understanding this, I think, helps to understand Roosevelt in general. Roosevelt is excited. Most men in the Rough Riders Regiment were scared. Most men in combat are going to be afraid. Roosevelt was excited, right? He enjoyed it. for him, he had nothing but fond memories, right, from the Spanish-American War, according to most sources. So yeah, that's the nature of San Juan Hill. It makes Roosevelt into a household name because, you know, his memoirs gets published, and people talk about the bravery of these guys that took 50% casualties taking the Spanish Hill. And once it's taken, for the most part, the Cuba campaign is virtually over, because Americans can put artillery on the hill, they can, you know, shell the last of the Spanish forts, and basically at that point, Cuba's liberated. Puerto Rico also takes place in a campaign a few weeks after this. American forces attack the island, they drive off whatever Spanish are left, and basically with the exception of that and the Philippines, at this point Spain's ready to say uncle. So by really as we get into later 1898, after about a couple of months of conflict, Spain is ready for peace. And so the Americans and the Spanish sit down and a peace treaty is hammered out between both of them. Right, and this is ultimately what's going to end the Spanish-American War. So it's a very short war. It ends on August 12, 1898. So it begins in April. So you're looking at what, like four months-ish of combat. And the reality is, is that from a legacy standpoint, most Americans died from tropical diseases. You're looking at yellow fever, typhoid, dysentery, a heat stroke because they're wearing wool uniforms. Only about 400 are going to die from actual combat deaths. So later, the Secretary of State, a guy by the name of John Hay, he will call the Spanish-American War that splendid little war because not many Americans died and there was a decisive outcome. We ended up winning these territories from Spain. So the U.S. promises to pay the Spanish some money, not a lot, but enough to sate their guilty consciences. And as a result, the Spanish end up turning over pretty much most of their empire to the United States. In trust, by 1902, the United States ends up giving Cuba back to the Cubans after we rule it as a protectorate for a while. What about the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico? Do we give those back? No. Yeah, the Philippines goes back after World War II, but the rest of them, no. So the U.S. now has a new problem to deal with. The goal was to win the Spanish-American War. We've done that. So now you've got all these new territories that you have to think about. So for example, what are we going to do with Puerto Rico? What do we do with... Guam? What do we do with any of these places? Because Americans had never really thought about like taking these places over, right? Certainly we have to now because these areas are just wrecked by war and famine. So the U.S. inadvertently, as of August 12, 1898, becomes an empire kind of accidentally. They didn't originally plan for this, but it just kind of happens, right? And that's basically as far as how the U.S. becomes an empire. What we're going to be looking at on Wednesday, all right, make sure that you take a look at the rest of the PowerPoint as far as the Panama Canal and Roosevelt's achievements, because we'll talk about them briefly Wednesday, but we have to move on right with the next chapter. So we're going to move into the progressive era, the 20th century on Wednesday. So just some final thoughts for y'all as far as the Spanish-American War. This is a war that gives America its empire. It's a war that gave us a sense of national destiny. It's a war that tied North and South together. It's a war that people looked on fondly. And lastly, it's a war that launches the career of Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt is now a household name. And so, of course, in 1900, as William McKinley contemplates running for the presidency again, his obvious choice for vice president is going to be Teddy Roosevelt. And so this is what's going to lead eventually to Roosevelt's rise to power as a great American politician. Before we conclude today, any questions on the guns, the uniforms, the fighting, the Spanish-American war, its legacies. Any questions for me? Yes, sir. I have a question. So we took over the places. Why did they never become states? The ultimate answer to your question is that Americans didn't know what to do with it. First of all, these were islands that were populated by brown people, and Americans had never known what to do with brown people. They still don't. all right because obviously we grew up in a society that was white and black and browns in the middle so americans were like are they slaves are they free are they we don't know all right so that's the first problem is that it deals with brown people the second problem is these were places that had come from spain so americans could not understand them they didn't know spanish culture they didn't really know a lot about what their practices were They were just kind of like, we don't know what to do here. Number three, all right, and the last, I would say the last real answer to your question, is these islands didn't have a lot of infrastructure. They had tropical diseases. They were not particularly wealthy. So Americans didn't know what to do about that. So what is the answer to your question? We didn't know. We have no clue what to do with those places. So we don't make them into states because states had a linear progress to become states. With these territories, because they were so different, Americans didn't know what to do with them. So they're still in a state of flux, which is what we call a territory. American territories are part of the United States, but they don't pay federal taxes. They have to follow the Constitution, but they don't have any representation to actually vote on it. And it's because Americans could never solve the question of what to do with these islands and how to administer them. So we just said, territory, right? It's kind of in the middle stage, and that's where they've remained ever since. Now, the most recent polls that I've seen as far as Puerto Rico is concerned, that news media will tell you that Puerto Rico votes to become a state. It's not necessarily true. When they took the actual poll, the poll was, Do you think Puerto Rico should be an independent state? Yes, no, or I don't know. The answer was 64% of Puerto Ricans said, I don't know. So Puerto Ricans don't know what to do. Americans don't know what to do. And so it stays in that kind of limbo stage until eventually somebody decides to push the issue. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Any other questions? Do we know who won Roosevelt's game? Who won Roosevelt's game? Game. Oh, where they're shooting the body? Yeah. I would say in that one, everyone loses because after you've shot a body like 360 times with 30, 40 ammunition, it's probably just going to look like a stake from HEV. I'm going to assume that there probably isn't a lot of body left at that point. You're not going to know what it is. So yeah, we don't know historically who won the game, unfortunately, but I would imagine there wouldn't be a lot of that body left to actually determine a winner. Any other questions? Oh, yes, sorry. Oh, what kind of, sorry, firearms were present? When I say firearms, I mean like revolvers for the U.S. at the time. Most Americans were going to be equipped with.45s like the one that I showed you all. Right, stuff like this, like the 1858 Remington, this is a Civil War gun, but they were still using them. They just converted them over to smokeless powder cartridges. There was a lot of other conversions, you know, shortnodes, stubnodes, Colts, Navy Colts were pretty common. Basically, for the most part, you're going to be seeing stuff that are pretty typical, you know, six-shot revolvers were what most people were going to carry. And so even Civil War stuff was still being carried as long as it was converted over. But yeah, there were still guys carrying 1858s, 1860 versions, the 1866, pattern revolvers, and then a lot of Winchesters as well. There were a ton of Winchesters, especially small arms. And when you say Winchester, are you talking about, well, Winchester rifles, but are you also talking about the lever action Winchesters as well or no? They were looked at as being a waste of bullets, and the federal government wanted to tighten down on finances, so that's why they went to the Craig Jorgensen. So as far as most of the Wild West guns probably would have done a better job than the Krag did. But the Krag had a stronger round. And so basically the Americans decided to go with lower firepower, but with a stronger round. And so, yeah, although people could bring their Winchesters and there were cowboys and stuff that brought, you know, whatever guns that they brought with them. But the standard issue rifle from the government standpoint was the Krag 3040. Okay, well, it was good seeing everybody. Hopefully all of you have an excellent, extended three-day weekend vacation. And we'll be back here on Wednesday. Make sure you obviously take a look at the PowerPoints, take your quizzes. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you later. Have a good weekend, sir. Have a good weekend.

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. So does anybody have any questions, comments, concerns for me? Okay.

All right. Things to keep in mind. Remember that Labor Day is this Monday.

So obviously, what, the 7th? So we're not going to have class that day. The school is technically off.

So use the time to start working on the signature assignments, you know get caught up on your readings, etc, etc So our next class meeting will be on Wednesday at the normal time right 10 a.m. Right on Wednesday So just a brief announcement before we get started. Okay, we're gonna take a look today at Empire and expansion so really finishing up with the Gilded Age and getting you guys Ready to go as far as that is concerned.

Alright, so Take a look at the Spanish-American War today. We'll talk about Hawaii. We'll talk about some colonization.

And then really pretty much that's what will take us through the rest of the day. So without further ado, let's take a look at the chapter and dig in. All right.

So taking a look at what we talked about last time, we had discussed the late Gilded Age. We talked about some definitions of what imperialism is overall, the acceptable definition that we'll be looking for in class. Imperialism is basically when one country forces other countries under its thumb, either through a mixture of economic, political, military pressure, or a combination of all of the above. And that the U.S. was rather unique because we'd already lived under Great Britain, so it's kind of strange that we would do the same to other countries, but we did. And we talked about some of the reasons why, from social Darwinism to binding foreign markets to this idea of manifest destiny, right, etc., etc.

We really kind of finished up talking about the rapprochement, right? The idea of the United States and Britain coming back together, something that some political theorists had already guessed even as early as the 1850s and 1860s, and largely because of all of these reasons that the U.S. and Britain start to become closer rather than enemies, as they had been for much of U.S. one. Other aspects that are important to investigate are the U.S. expanding in the foreign policy sector.

So first of all, the nation of Hawaii. Now for years the U.S. had used Hawaii and so did many other countries as a refueling stop between the North American continent and Asia. And so for years it had been used in that way, but it still belonged to the Polynesian peoples, the native Hawaiian or Hawaiian islanders who had lived there. And basically they'd been there since Moana had discovered it back in the day, all right, and well not Moana, but...

Certainly Polynesian ancestors, right, who had sailed across the ocean, in some cases, thousands of years ago, and that the Hawaiians that lived there, for the most part, you know, had a life that was based on subsistence agriculture and doing their thing. Well, eventually, as European diseases, as Europeans start using Hawaii as a strategic base, then yeah, you're gonna start to see that European diseases begin to spread. And the native population was reduced to one sixth by this point.

Americans began to look covetously at Hawaii as something that they themselves would like to possess. This is the story of Hawaii becoming what the 50th state. Hawaii basically presented a lot of advantages for the U.S.

First of all it was strategic. It's about the halfway point between Asia and North America so anybody that's going to Asia is gonna have to stop for fuel there. So that's one big reason.

Number two Hawaii's climate allowed it to be able to grow a crop which at the time was worth as much as six seven dollars in US markets so they can make a substantial amount of money off of this crop does anybody want to take a guess at what Hawaii was growing that Americans wanted to control? Pineapple? Yeah very good pineapples And it's not that pineapples are exceedingly hard to grow, it's that you have to have the right climate for them.

And in this case, Hawaii is perfect. So pineapples were very expensive, in some cases $6-$7 per pineapple. I don't know what they are today because I don't buy a lot of pineapples, but basically you can make pretty good money off of them.

So yeah, agricultural reasons are another reason why Hawaii is very attractive. And so the last major reason is ultimately that Americans wanted to expand. that you're not going to be able to expand into Asia unless you take in Hawaii first. So all of these I think are reasons why you know the McKinley administration starts floating around this idea that Hawaii might be a good get and so these are the kinds of things that eventually will take place. All right, so how does the U.S. get Hawaii?

Well, basically because the populations have been so reduced by diseases. At that point, now it's about trying to convince the acting queen, Queen Liliuokalani, to play ball with the United States. She is reluctant. She wants the Hawaiian people to maintain their independence, and so she's not going to provide the U.S. with a lot of the things that they want.

So what the U.S. decides to do is they raise a revolt. Basically, there is a revolt under some of Liliuokalani's relatives that do not dispute her claim to the throne. And the US decides to back the rebels instead of Liliuokalani.

Technically, we're allies with her, but the US knows very quickly that she's not going to give us what we want. So we back the enemy. And in this case, they end up toppling her in a coup. And at this point in 1898, the United States is able to formally annex Hawaii under the McKinley administration. Now at this point Hawaii is not a state.

It doesn't become so until the 1950s. All right but basically it will become a territory and we'll talk about especially when we get to the Philippines and the Spanish-American War what a territory is and what what its basic breakdown is. So yeah we have the Pearl Harbor Naval Base established in 1887 and then eventually by 1898 Hawaii is annexed by the United States. That's a I guess a A polite way to say it.

Stolen would be another way to say it. Today, Hawaiians are still trying to recover from this. Obviously, the Polynesian peoples that still live there are trying to recover their language, culture.

Those are things that are still important to them. And obviously, the U.S. kind of did a number as far as trying to get rid of those and teaching English and all those kinds of things. And so certainly Pearl Harbor is going to have long-term significance, and that's largely because of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

on December 7th, 1941. So it's going to get us involved in the World War II. So Hawaii will play a major role in later events, particularly with our relationship in the Far East with Japan. So yeah, these are all the places that Uncle Sam is eyeing under the McKinley administration. Cuba Steak, Puerto Rico Pig, Philippine Floating Islands, Sandwich Islands. Not one you even have to make a pun for because it's already good to go.

But the U.S. is contemplating this, right? You know, we had westward expansion and now it's all about trying to expand across the Pacific and into the Atlantic as well. So here's Queen Liliuokalani, who among other things was known as a fantastic singer who composed songs, many of which are still around.

But obviously, you know, she's the last reigning queen of Hawaii and ultimately the U.S. is going to, you know, make her fall down so that they can take over the island for themselves. Now, where things really start to get interesting is in Cuba. The U.S. had always potentially wanted to take Cuba. It had always been this kind of itch that we wanted to scratch.

And then in 1895, we see an opportunity. Now, it goes all the way back to even the 1840s with the Austin Manifesto, for example. If you go all the way back to U.S. 1, the Franklin Pierce administration had attempted to buy Cuba from Spain, and Spain would not agree.

And then there was a manifesto that we were going to try to steal it if we didn't get a good price. And then. it became a public relations disaster. So the U.S. had always been eyeing Cuba.

It had always been something that we wanted to take, but we never really had the opportunity to do so. But in 1895, the Cuban people end up revolting against the Spanish. And so this is obviously something that Americans are definitely interested in.

Number one, it's going to make sugar prices go up, which Americans don't like. And number two, the rebels are going to put up quite the fight. So The Spanish response is to ultimately put them into what we would call today concentration camps. They basically set up these internment camps where they put the people that have misbehaved and then they basically starve them to death. And so there's all these scenes in the media of starving Cuban children and people being beaten in the streets and the cruelty of the Spanish oppression.

So this is basically Spain's attempt to try to force martial law on the Cubans. And of course... It just makes them even more likely to revolt against them.

So the U.S. gets involved because this is where the yellow press comes into play, right? This is largely the lead up, right, to the Spanish-American War. Why does the U.S. go to war with Spain in 1898? Well, the media begins printing stories that exclusively focus on the bad parts.

Not that there's a lot of good parts about the Spanish revolt, but... Basically what happens is they talk about these kids being murdered and people being beaten in the streets and they tell these stories of American citizens that are on the island that are being You know stripped and beaten and that kind of stuff stuff that Americans is just ain't gonna fly not in 1898 Were these stories true? sometimes 50-50 I would say as far as the truthfulness of a lot of this stuff this is of course yellow press and we talked about this last time right the old press is sensational journalism it's journalism that's designed to sell copies not necessarily tell the truth or make you informed so the rivalry is really between two individuals William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer over who can sell enough who can sell more copy and so Pulitzer is printing some pretty sensational stories.

And then you get William Randolph Hearst that wants to beat him. So what he does is he sends the very famous artist, the frontier artist, Frederick Remington, to Cuba. And he basically says, if you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war.

A quote that becomes extremely famous even today. And so at this point, you know, Remington paints these pictures and sends them back. And then basically what Hearst's newspaper does is applies the caption. many times not even correct as to what's going on whatsoever. But it doesn't matter because it's fueling this fire in the U.S., this anger at Spain because of what's going on with Cuba.

And the Americans, of course, are looking at the Cubans as their friends and as they're being oppressed and that this foreign European nation is coming in, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. So America's ultimate response at this point is to go to the big guns, literally. They're going to take the battleship Maine.

McKinley will order it to stand by off the island of Cuba. The ultimate reason for the visit is a friendly visit to Cuba. Well, when is a battleship being sent to your shores not friendly, right? I mean, it's like me holding a gun to your head and saying, I'm your best friend. I love you, right?

That's why I'm holding this gun to your head, right? Basically what a battleship is, it's a tool of war. So that's exactly what we see happen is the battleship Maine is sent to Cuba. The actual mission is really to evacuate U.S. citizens in case a war does begin between Spain and the U.S.

It's obvious at this point that the U.S. doesn't really like Spain, and Spain is obviously upset at the U.S. media coverage. And of course, the people who are living large are the media people because they can print all these stories, but most of which are just bullshit, and make a ton of money off of it. So the reality is that the U.S. is going to start expanding throughout the 19th century, and you can see through all of these. The overthrow of the monarchy in Hawaii in 1893, Guam in 1898, the Philippines, Cuba for a brief period, Puerto Rico. Many of these are ultimately going to come from the Spanish-American War.

Some are going to come from other things. But you see an America that up until this point wasn't active in any of these places. So as we get into the 20th century, that we're dealing with a country that is much more active as far as foreign policy in both the Pacific and the Atlantic.

So what happens? On February 15, 1898. What happens to the battleship Maine? Anybody know? It explodes.

Very good. Yeah, it explodes for reasons that are relatively unclear. Nobody's really sure what actually happens, right? And so the story the next day basically talks about the fact that the battleship Maine torpedoed, right, off the coast of Cuba. Well, I mean, number one, were there torpedoes?

Yes, but they weren't very effective. Number two, all right, when they later did an investigation of the ship in the 1970s, the U.S. Navy, with Cuban assistance, found out that the battleship main, the plates on the inside of the ship, all right, the iron had been blown outwards, all right, indicating that the explosion probably came from inside the ship, yes?

More than likely if it was a torpedo or blew up on the outside, it would push the whole ant. It would collapse, not push out. But this was the 1970s, right?

So nobody in the 1890s really knew what exactly happened. And the media is going to have a field day with this. What they're going to do is they're going to, you know, American sailors not, you know, explode with mysterious circumstances, which was the reality. Then the newspapers the next day, the story is American sailors murdered.

by the Spanish. And at this point, because of the wording, Americans are drove into this fever pitch, right, with slogans like, remember the Maine to hell with Spain. Obviously, songs across the country about how terrible the Spanish are, and that it's time to get, you know, vindication and revenge on these Spanish assholes who killed our American soldiers.

Well, the Spanish foreign policy, their foreign policy is that they didn't do it. They don't know who did it. They didn't have anything to do with it.

Please don't kill us. We don't want to fight you, et cetera, et cetera. But Americans at that point, it's too late.

They go to their congressmen. They go to their senators. They go to President McKinley. And they basically tell him that. If you don't declare war on Spain and if we don't go liberate Cuba, then you're not going to be president very long.

So at this point, McKinley's in a tough position, but he decides that it has to be done. And so as a result, that's why he does what he does. He decides to declare war on Spain.

Congress, of course, gives him that ability. Right. On April 11th, 1898, he asked for it.

And then eventually Congress will pass the Teller Amendment in addition to the war clause. The Teller Amendment is basically stating that the Cubans will receive their independence once the war is ultimately over. So it's not going to be a war of territorial conquest. We're not going to bring the Cubans under our thumb. We're fighting for their liberation.

And that's certainly, of course, going to help the Cubans to join our side during the revolt. So April 11, 1898, he's going to ask for war, and the United States will ultimately get their war with Spain as of early 1898. Any questions on the battleship Maine, right? The lead up to the Spanish American war.

Everybody good? Okay. All right.

So here's a scene, right? This is one of those. sensational journalism is right about the explosion of the battleship main notice how we have to show the american soldiers being flown through the air all right that it has to be like a michael bay like transformer style explosion it can't just be like a minor explosion that blows the ship outward now obviously as we talked about an internal explosion what would cause this there's two theories that the u.s navy developed in 1976 okay the first theory was the idea that more than likely that there was a flaw in the ship's design.

As you can see the boilers, the stacks on the ship, were located right in the middle. One was located here and one was located more in this direction, in this area. The problem with that was the powder magazine on this ship was right next to the aft boiler.

So you can imagine sitting on tons and tons of gunpowder and here's this super super hot boiler. Now, again, the boilers were insulated, all right, but they were insulated with materials of the lowest quality because you know how the U.S. operates. All right, we're not going to build our ship with the best stuff.

We're going to build it with whatever is the cheapest. And in that case, that's exactly what we did in 1898. Maybe one of the boilers, you know, busted a ring or maybe one of the sealant valves broke open and that super hot steaming gas started being piped into the powder room. And, of course, you know what happens when gunpowder and fire combine. right?

It probably blew the ship up. So it was probably a design, some kind of issue or damage to the ship. The second possible scenario, and this is the one that I don't even want to contemplate, is the idea that supposedly the officer's quarters was right over here.

So it was right next to the powder magazine. So it's potentially possible that they would have some officer or somebody decided they were going to smoke a cigar and they... decided to do it in the powder magazine now i would hope that no is that stupid all right that they're gonna smoke a cigar in a room filled with gunpowder but it's possible i mean weirder things have happened i guess um so maybe the guy was smoking the cigar and they didn't realize it and went like this and oh you know i mean that's possible as well but really the first scenario i think is more plausible more than likely it was a design flaw in the ship and later ships of course didn't have that same problem or at least they were the decks were relegated to different spots uh question is uh was the ship sunk yeah it was it was gone uh pretty much it was blown in half and there wasn't a lot that could salvage it uh now it didn't kill all the sailors only 200 some sailors die there were many that survived that were fished out of the ocean uh but that still was no satisfaction to many of the families of the grieving uh who blamed the spanish for it And even until 1976, the Spanish constantly said, look, we didn't do it. It wasn't our fault. We promise you it wasn't a mine.

It wasn't a torpedo. We didn't have any of that stuff. And Americans just didn't listen.

You know, when Americans get ready to fight, they want to fight. And in this case, it's exactly what's going to happen to the Spanish-American war. So I hope it wasn't based off of some idiot that threw a cigar in the wrong spot. Right.

I would love to believe that it's more based off a design flaw, because that's what's a little bit easier to understand. Up here you can see of course propaganda for the U.S. selling the Spanish-American war. What is considered one of the greatest lasting legacies of that war?

Well you can see it right here. We got these two guys shaking hands. Anybody know what the significance is here of these two guys shaking hands? the north and the south i guess going to war together very good yeah the u.s hasn't had a major dust up since 1865 all right the u.s during the gilded age didn't go to war with anybody as you know americans love a good war once in a while right we just want to kick someone's ass once every 30 years or so and so spain's perfect right it's the perfect adversary because they're bad people obviously they're putting all these people in concentration camp number two all right they speak spanish All right, the vast majority of Americans didn't speak Spanish. So the good thing about shooting people that speak Spanish is you can't understand what they're saying.

All right, it's not like shooting a Confederate, right, where they're gonna be sitting there saying, please don't shoot me. All right, and you're like, oh, shit, you know, this guy's pleading for his life. All right. The other aspect, of course, is racism, certainly, because at this time, the people who lived in Cuba were brown, and most Americans were white. So obviously, you're going to war, it's real easy to determine who you shoot, you just shoot the brown people.

right, who speak the language you don't understand. So, I mean, this is something to keep in mind, that all of these are reasons why the U.S. is willing to get involved in this war as opposed to other ones. There were at least a dozen situations where the U.S. could have potentially gone to war with Britain or France or even Germany over the Samoan Islands, and they just choose not to because the U.S. isn't really that interested in fighting those powers.

But Spain, that's a different story, right? Because Spain is weak. Spain obviously wouldn't negotiate with us before, and there's a lot of reasons why the U.S. had to leave for Spain. So, yeah, one of the great legacies, as Jonathan talks about, right, is this idea of North and South being united together again for the first time, right?

That even though the Southerners still don't trust Northerners and Northerners don't trust Southerners, right, that the one thing we can agree on is that we can kill some foreigners. And so it's something that really, I think, unites Americans together in 1898. Now one other thing I want you to notice about this picture in particular, look at Cuba. Obviously you see the crown on here, she's got the chains on her, right?

Anything you notice in particular here about Cuba that's rather interesting? She doesn't look Cuban. Yeah, she doesn't look Cuban at all, alright? If you look at this picture again, alright, not to say that there isn't light-skinned and light-haired Cubans, because there are, but holy fucking shit, I mean, could you find a less Cuban person?

I mean, why would Americans demonstrate a essentially Germanic-looking, pale, white girl with blonde hair as Cuba? So they can get, like, people to fight? Yeah, I mean, it basically boils down to just good old fashioned racism, all right? If you actually put a real Cuban child on there, all right, most Americans would go, I mean, yeah, I mean, they're still cute, but do we really want to fight for brown children?

I mean, you know, we don't know about that, right? As far as like, and the same thing is true in a large way, even today. I mean, I would say that Americans are a little bit more progressive than they were in 1898. But think, for example, like you're watching Fox News. Like if a white girl in like California goes missing, it's like the fucking world ends. All right.

Everybody that's on the media for like a month straight are talking about what happened to the little girl. We're going to have manhunts immediately within 24 hours. People are going to go out and find her.

And yet how many Hispanic children disappear on a regular basis? How many black children disappear? And you see like news channels just like stop the presses.

We have to go find this, you know, poor innocent child that's gone. No, not really. Not really. I mean, even look at the Fort Hood that what's going on in Fort Hood, you know, you've got all these Hispanic soldiers that go missing and the news media gives it about five minutes of attention, if that. All right.

It's really important to understand that we still as a country have racist tendencies. That there are still people, depending on the color of their skin, that are more valuable or less valuable depending. Based on media attention, based on incomes, based on all those things.

And it's something that many of you with Spanish or Mexican ancestry that you're already dealing with actively and will probably have to deal with for the rest of your life. I mean BLM in particular. It blew white people's minds. Alright, I mean I knew people from back home that were like, holy fucking shit, like black people are discriminated against?

Like it was like their whole worldview had just like collapsed. Alright, it's like their brains like Mount St. Helens, it just like explodes. So you got to understand that's why they use this kind of imagery, right?

Is that in 1898, in 1898, Americans were very racist. And if they're not going to fight a war over Cubans that are brown skinned and very ethnic looking, right? They're going to fight a war, assuming that Cubans just look like they're from northern Germany, right?

And that's part of what's going to get them on the path to being able to fight. So yeah, racist tendencies in there combined with a variety of other things as far as... North and South mixing together, fighting a foreign nation with a different culture.

All of these are examples of things I think why Americans are motivated to fight. The Spanish-American War is probably one of the shortest and most popular conflicts in American history. And the reason for that is because, like we said, it's short, it's sweet, it's to the point, and it's basically just a connecting series of American curb-stomping.

There really aren't a lot of American losses in the war. The Americans win pretty much every battle. And they don't just win. I mean, they win big.

So this is something. And there's, of course, the decisive outcome, right? Americans love, you know, fighting wars where at the end we win and we get shit as a result.

That's why, you know, the History Channel is known as the World War II Channel, right? Because it's pretty much all they run 24 hours a day most of the time. They're not, you know, showing shows on fucking aliens and shit. So. Basically, when we're taking a look at what's going on in 1898, in May, the American fleet under Admiral George Dewey receives a telegraph to go to war.

And basically what happens at this point is the American fleet attacks the Spanish. The Spanish have yet to receive word. They don't have sophisticated telegraphy, so they don't know what the hell is going on.

And the Americans attack them while they're still at harbor. And so the entire Spanish fleet is wrecked in the Pacific without even knowing what the hell is going on. So there's 400 Spanish casualties. The Americans don't suffer any losses.

Well, I really can't say that. One American admiral officer ends up shooting a gun into the air at the conclusion of the battle to celebrate the victory, and he has a heart attack. So that's the only American loss.

The Spanish, of course, are going to lose their entire fleet in a matter of about 15 to 30 minutes. So this is a decisive victory. Now, even though the Spanish fleet is defeated, you still have to defeat the Spanish army, which is in place in the Philippines.

So the Filipinos, knowing that Americans are there to liberate them, because that's what we promised them, is we're here to save you from your Spanish overlords. Americans promised the Filipinos that we will give them independence at the conclusion of the conflict, which Filipinos think sounds great. So under Emilio Aguinaldo, the...

Filipino rebels actually assist the Americans. When the Americans come ashore, there's no opposition because the insurrectos, these Filipino rebels, have already taken care of most Spanish resistance on the island. And so with American assistance, they're able to defeat the remaining Spanish forts.

And ultimately, by July 7, 1898, at this point, the Filipinos have ultimately fought off almost all the Spanish whatsoever. And they now are able to do their own thing. At least for a brief period, and we'll come back to this in just a second. Now, what about Cuba?

Well, obviously, Cuba is the central focus of the war, right? So American forces begin moving south, particularly to Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, where they can load up on ships and transports and eventually move towards Cuba. Well, even though Cuba is only 90 miles away, obviously, maritime invasions in the U.S. in the 1890s was not something we were particularly skilled at.

Many troops went without support. supplies. Soldiers obviously wore their dress uniforms instead of their fatigues.

They basically wore wool uniforms, which are going to be completely useless in Cuba because Cuba is a tropical climate. You had American generals that were fat and useless. So basically, Americans used a lot of techniques they used against Indians.

The Spanish aren't going to fight that way. So there's a lot of things that American rifles were largely obsolete. The Americans had largely purchased.

A series of rifles for the army which were called the 3040 Krags, also called Krag Jorgensen. So just so that you get an example of what these things look like, because I want you to have the fullest picture of US history possible. Right.

This is a rifle that you just have to see because it's one of the most unique rifles in American history. All right. So obviously you can see this one which is from a gun auction, but you get the idea.

This was a rifle that was very unique in that it used what was called a loading gate. All right, now what does that mean? Most of the time, rifles in this period, like, usually we're going to use, like, trap doors, like the 1887 Springfield. They were trapdoor rifles, which meant you basically had a little thing in the bottom that you could put your rounds in, and that's how you basically shoot. You could also load in the top.

That was always a traditional way of doing it as well. But the Krag was rather unique because these American rifles, they're really Norwegian, but American bottom, they actually had a gate that would slide out. All right, so basically what happens is this thing comes out, it slides like a drawer, and then you have to put the rounds in the top.

Well, the problem is if you're running or you're like moving or you're in combat, it's really difficult to get the rounds to actually land in the direction they're supposed to go. So a lot of times there would be misfeeds because the bullets would go in the wrong direction or they would go in at an angle or they don't fit snug into the magazine, right? So you literally just drop them in like a handful and then slide the thing closed. Well, I mean, if you get a perfect drop, but...

For those of you, if you just took coins and dropped them on the table, are they always going to land on the right side? No, I mean, it's the same thing with brass. So this is a big problem. Americans would lose a lot of rounds, particularly when they would fight battles.

They'd try to reload their weapons and half of the ammunition would end up on the ground. Some of it would jam the rifle because it would go in incorrectly. They wouldn't operate the procedure.

It was a really bizarre rifle. But even today, these things are like a really big collector's item. And they sell on Gun Broker anywhere from like a thousand dollars and up.

So it's one of those things that Americans just want to have because it's such a curious piece of history. But for the most part, they royally, royally suck. And so because of this, all right, it's obviously going to cause some problems for the U.S.

Their rifles aren't as good. The Spanish are largely going to be using extremely good weapons. So to give you an example of some of the things that the Spanish are using.

Give me one quick second, I'm gonna go get something for y'all. All right, that was very little deeper than I thought it was. All right, this is an example of the weapon that the Spanish are largely using against the Americans.

All right, so you might ask, well what is this? This is a Mauser. It's an 1896 Mauser and this was widely used by the Spanish forces at this time period.

All right, so Paul's asleep goes to deep. You better not be asleep. All right, so what you basically got is right here.

All right, this is the loading action. All right, it's five rounds. It's very simple to operate, very smooth action.

All you really got to do is you take your rounds, you've got what's called a stripper clip, which lines up all your bullets. You put the little piece in here and then you push it down into the rifle and then you've got five rounds that are ready to go. And then basically at that point, one, two, three, four, and then you're fine.

And then you reload again. So basically it's a much smoother rifle. You're not going to have rounds all over the ground, all right. It's obviously very accurate. It's got that smooth action, which is what the Mausers are obviously traditionally good for.

And so this is largely the weapon that the Spanish are using against the Americans. It is way better than the 30-40 Krag. It shoots a much better round. It has much better muzzle velocity. And so in general, American forces that go to battle in Cuba, for example, they're going to be in some cases outmatched.

The advantage, of course, is that the Americans outnumbered them, all right? And that's going to be the big reason why Americans are ultimately going to win the war. Now why is it significant to talk about this rifle in particular? Because the Americans will later come out with the 1903 Springfield, which will be the dominant American weapon in World War I. And that weapon is exclusively a Mauser.

It's basically the same thing except Americans just put their markings on it. In fact, the Americans, because they copied the German design, they're actually gonna have to pay patents. to the German government until World War I begins and Americans are just like, well, fuck it, I'm not going to pay somebody I'm at war with. So that's something to keep in mind, like this is the, this is an actual 1896 Mauser.

And this is really something that Americans are going to adopt for their own device, just because that's the nature of how good these weapons actually work. Does the gun work? Yeah, this is a real weapon. That's why obviously I make sure that I checked it to make sure that the action is open.

But yeah, I take this out, we go shooting with it. You know, hopefully over Labor Day, the whole Labor Day thing, I'll be able to go out and take it out and put some rounds through it. But one of the advantages, of course, of doing this class from my house is that I don't have to go through TSC to get all this authorization and paperwork and shit. Like, I can just show you whatever guns I've got.

What's the caliber? The caliber for the Springfield is.30-06. The caliber for the Mauser is what's known as 10-millimeter Mauser. And so that's...

pretty standard across the board. Most, if you have, for example, any German guns from World War II, like for example, the, you know, they had bolt action rifles. Most of those are going to be using 10 millimeter Mauser as well. All right.

So yeah, this, this is the design that Americans are eventually going to adopt for themselves just because design was so good. That's what it's going to do. Shooting your Templar suit.

They're actually, we have a picture somewhere of, I had a friend that has an MP40. And I've got an MP40 and then another guy's got a machine gun and we're dressed in our Roman stuff. And we're basically, it's like, you know, one of the centurions is like pointing at like targets on the hill. We're like riding in a, in a Willie Jeep. What's the cost for 1896 Mauser like this?

I, you know, for those of you that were like born in the eighties, like in the eighties, these things were like 50 bucks. I mean, you could get M1 Garands, you could get all of this stuff for very, very cheap. The problem is, is today, because there's not so many left and a lot of people have sporterized them, which is where you take a large part of the stock off, you're looking at probably a thousand bucks. I would say a really good quality mouser that's going to be in shooting condition, probably a thousand bucks.

You might be able to find cheaper ones that are in horrible shape. So if you want to put some elbow grease into it, and if you have some knowledge on how to take care of metal and stuff, then... You might be able to find one as a steal for, you know, less than that.

But most of the time, yeah, it's, they're going to be expensive just because there aren't as many of them, especially World War II. Once all the Call of Duties and shit came out, then, you know, everybody wanted to buy World War II shit. So it created a market and thus when there's a market, then things are going to become more expensive. Any questions on the Americans preparing for war in 1898?

So I have a question regarding the Krag Jorgensen. Yeah. I was watching a video where this guy caught a forgotten weapons.

He was going about how the Krag Jorgensen had a special type of bayonets, like a Bowie bayonet and a Bolo knife bayonet. Yes. Were they actually used in the conflict or just like only special units actually got them?

Really, as far as the U.S. was concerned, the doctrine had shifted in the 1890s because of the Old West. So because they had fought Indians and because they were used to using repeating weapons, most Americans didn't really train with the bayonet very often. It wasn't looked at as being that important. So in some of these assaults, like, for example, the assault on San Juan Hill that makes Teddy Roosevelt famous, Americans, for the most part, they might maybe have carried one, but they usually were not. fixed and most Americans weren't taught how to use them because their idea was that they have enough firepower they shouldn't have to use hand-to-hand combat.

Now as we get into World War I things change all right and so one of the big things that happens in World War I is they start going to bayonets again. In particular one of the big things they shifted to They would go to these. These were basically the kind of knives you're going to see by turn of the century.

So these would have been a little bit older than the Spanish-American War by about a few years. This one, of course, is a 1917, but this design was known as the 1903 design because it was designed to fit on the Springfield 03. Now, remember how I told you how the Americans just copied the Mausers? I can show you physical evidence of how that exists.

This is your Mauser rifle. This is an American bayonet. Even the fucking barrel is the same.

You can take American parts and swap them out for German guns. So the reality is, is that did Americans copy the Germans in this one? You bet your ass they did. All right. So this is why Americans were ultimately paying royalties, because for the most part, they just copied the rifle and they ended up becoming the Springfield 03, which in my opinion is one of the greatest rifles America's ever used.

It's still used by drill teams. It's still used by stuff even today. If you watch Saving Private Ryan, the guy snipes with one. So those are all examples of why that rifle is still used on a large scale. All right, so basically what happens is if we go back to the PowerPoint, all right, so the invasion of Cuba takes place.

One of the interesting stories about the invasion are these guys, right, the Rough Riders. So when you think of Rough Riders, especially those of you who were like from the, you know, you were like a kid or a teenager in like the 1990s, especially like early 2000s. All right, probably when you think of Rough Riders, probably the first thing you think of is this guy, right?

Anybody know who this guy is? Nah, sir. The game? Nobody knows who this is, man. I'm really fucking old, Ben.

I was born in 1993, and I don't even know who that guy is. No shit. Well, you probably heard some of his songs, all right? This is, that's what's called, that's DMX, all right?

DMX, obviously not as popular today as he was back in 2000, but in 1999, 2000, holy shit. Like, he came out with like three albums in a row, and it's pretty much... Like as far as rap was concerned, like almost everybody was a DMX fan. So yeah, he obviously was part of a group called the Ruff Riders, R-U-F-F Riders, all right? Because supposedly they took characteristics from dogs, all right?

That's not to get them confused, right, with the Ruff, R-O-U-G-H Riders, right? So don't picture DMX charging up San Juan Hill, all right? He's gonna be charging up San Juan Hill are these guys. All right, obviously you can see in the front this guy who becomes very famous later in American politics.

Who's this guy? Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, very good.

That's Teddy Roosevelt. All right, so the interesting story about this guy is Teddy Roosevelt, who at the time was a colonel, he actually was an assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. And when the war broke out, he wanted his opportunity to fight.

He'd always been marked by his father's cowardice. His father had a chance to fight in the Civil War, and he found a replacement because he was rich. And Teddy Roosevelt had never respected his father because of that.

So he said, you know, this is my only opportunity for glory. I'm going to take it. So he resigned his cush job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and went to lead American soldiers into battle. What is the likelihood that America getting involved in a large war in the next 10 years, that Donald Trump will resign his position?

and basically go lead American soldiers into battle or not resign his position as commander-in-chief and actually wear a helmet and go fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anybody see that happening anytime soon? No.

Maybe some of our senators, you know, maybe Nancy Pelosi, maybe Ted Cruz, right, might decide, you know, strap a helmet on and go fight abroad. Probably not. Maybe Dan Crenshaw. Possibly, yeah. I mean, certainly in some of the stories you've heard about that.

I mean, you know, maybe, but the reality is, is probably for most senators and congressmen, you're probably going to say no. And so for him to do this was rather unique, even in the 20th century. I mean, it wasn't something that you saw very often.

So he's going to resign his position. He'll lead this regiment known as the Rough Riders, a cavalry regiment of U.S. troops. You might notice, obviously, if these guys are cavalry soldiers, where the hell are their horses? Well, funny story, during the confusion as Americans were disembarking in Cuba and leaving from Florida, the manifestos all got lost and the horses ended up going to Puerto Rico instead of Cuba. So a bunch of infantry that were attacking Puerto Rico, a ship arrived with their horses and the infantry are like, huh?

All right. These are guys that like grew up in like New York and should have never even seen a fucking horse before. And they're like, oh yeah, well, your horses, your war horses are here.

And they're like, I don't know anything about horses. I don't want those fucking things. So they ended up having to make the charge without horses.

They had to actually charge. So the cavalry had to fight his infantry and the infantry rejected the horses. So it didn't work that way that Americans ultimately fought.

But Roosevelt ends up being part of this battle, the Battle of San Juan Hill, which is probably the most substantial in the Cuban campaign. Interestingly, San Juan Hill is not where the charge actually took place. It was Kettle Hill.

But Americans had no knowledge of Cuban geography. So they just kind of guessed. as to what the names were for each hill. They got them mixed up because the map was upside down.

So the Rough Riders charged the wrong hill and that's part of why they took as many casualties as they did. But basically they're going to charge up this hill and Roosevelt talks about, you know, his blood pumping and how he gets to the top of the hill and when he finally gets there, all right, there's a Spaniard that's wounded that's laying in one of the bushes and the Spaniard has a revolver essentially pointed straight at President Roosevelt, all right. And so you can imagine being President Roosevelt, and you're sitting there, and here's this guy, right, with this gun pointing straight at you, right?

And basically, Roosevelt looks at him and thought, oh, my God, you know, I'm going to die, all right, that I'm not going to live, like, you know, his life flashes before his eyes. And basically, the guy sits there with the revolver, right, and you hear click, right? Either the revolver was unloaded, right, or the general principle of the time was. Believe it or not, even though you have a six shooter, most people when they carry a revolver, they only carry five rounds, right? The first chamber is always an empty chamber, so you don't have to worry about blowing your freaking foot off.

So that could have been possible. He just forgot to load it. Or the humidity maybe allowed for a misfire.

We don't know. But ultimately, the gun doesn't fire. And Roosevelt says, I've never been so happy in my life as to see this individual's gun not go off.

He's like, at that point, I took out my 45 revolver. And I proceeded to make him dance like a jackrabbit. So basically Roosevelt started shooting him until he ran out of bullets. And then his friends came in and they started shooting him. All right.

And they basically played like volleyball with this guy's corpse. They would just keep shooting him and they had a line and they were basically playing tug of war to see where the body would eventually end up. So they ended up shooting this guy 361 times. So most of you are like, holy freaking shit.

What does this say about President Roosevelt? He's got a twisted sense of humor. Yeah, he's got a few bricks short of a load. And so understanding this, I think, helps to understand Roosevelt in general. Roosevelt is excited.

Most men in the Rough Riders Regiment were scared. Most men in combat are going to be afraid. Roosevelt was excited, right? He enjoyed it. for him, he had nothing but fond memories, right, from the Spanish-American War, according to most sources.

So yeah, that's the nature of San Juan Hill. It makes Roosevelt into a household name because, you know, his memoirs gets published, and people talk about the bravery of these guys that took 50% casualties taking the Spanish Hill. And once it's taken, for the most part, the Cuba campaign is virtually over, because Americans can put artillery on the hill, they can, you know, shell the last of the Spanish forts, and basically at that point, Cuba's liberated.

Puerto Rico also takes place in a campaign a few weeks after this. American forces attack the island, they drive off whatever Spanish are left, and basically with the exception of that and the Philippines, at this point Spain's ready to say uncle. So by really as we get into later 1898, after about a couple of months of conflict, Spain is ready for peace.

And so the Americans and the Spanish sit down and a peace treaty is hammered out between both of them. Right, and this is ultimately what's going to end the Spanish-American War. So it's a very short war. It ends on August 12, 1898. So it begins in April.

So you're looking at what, like four months-ish of combat. And the reality is, is that from a legacy standpoint, most Americans died from tropical diseases. You're looking at yellow fever, typhoid, dysentery, a heat stroke because they're wearing wool uniforms.

Only about 400 are going to die from actual combat deaths. So later, the Secretary of State, a guy by the name of John Hay, he will call the Spanish-American War that splendid little war because not many Americans died and there was a decisive outcome. We ended up winning these territories from Spain. So the U.S. promises to pay the Spanish some money, not a lot, but enough to sate their guilty consciences.

And as a result, the Spanish end up turning over pretty much most of their empire to the United States. In trust, by 1902, the United States ends up giving Cuba back to the Cubans after we rule it as a protectorate for a while. What about the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico?

Do we give those back? No. Yeah, the Philippines goes back after World War II, but the rest of them, no.

So the U.S. now has a new problem to deal with. The goal was to win the Spanish-American War. We've done that.

So now you've got all these new territories that you have to think about. So for example, what are we going to do with Puerto Rico? What do we do with... Guam? What do we do with any of these places?

Because Americans had never really thought about like taking these places over, right? Certainly we have to now because these areas are just wrecked by war and famine. So the U.S. inadvertently, as of August 12, 1898, becomes an empire kind of accidentally.

They didn't originally plan for this, but it just kind of happens, right? And that's basically as far as how the U.S. becomes an empire. What we're going to be looking at on Wednesday, all right, make sure that you take a look at the rest of the PowerPoint as far as the Panama Canal and Roosevelt's achievements, because we'll talk about them briefly Wednesday, but we have to move on right with the next chapter. So we're going to move into the progressive era, the 20th century on Wednesday.

So just some final thoughts for y'all as far as the Spanish-American War. This is a war that gives America its empire. It's a war that gave us a sense of national destiny. It's a war that tied North and South together. It's a war that people looked on fondly.

And lastly, it's a war that launches the career of Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt is now a household name. And so, of course, in 1900, as William McKinley contemplates running for the presidency again, his obvious choice for vice president is going to be Teddy Roosevelt.

And so this is what's going to lead eventually to Roosevelt's rise to power as a great American politician. Before we conclude today, any questions on the guns, the uniforms, the fighting, the Spanish-American war, its legacies. Any questions for me? Yes, sir.

I have a question. So we took over the places. Why did they never become states? The ultimate answer to your question is that Americans didn't know what to do with it.

First of all, these were islands that were populated by brown people, and Americans had never known what to do with brown people. They still don't. all right because obviously we grew up in a society that was white and black and browns in the middle so americans were like are they slaves are they free are they we don't know all right so that's the first problem is that it deals with brown people the second problem is these were places that had come from spain so americans could not understand them they didn't know spanish culture they didn't really know a lot about what their practices were They were just kind of like, we don't know what to do here. Number three, all right, and the last, I would say the last real answer to your question, is these islands didn't have a lot of infrastructure. They had tropical diseases.

They were not particularly wealthy. So Americans didn't know what to do about that. So what is the answer to your question? We didn't know.

We have no clue what to do with those places. So we don't make them into states because states had a linear progress to become states. With these territories, because they were so different, Americans didn't know what to do with them.

So they're still in a state of flux, which is what we call a territory. American territories are part of the United States, but they don't pay federal taxes. They have to follow the Constitution, but they don't have any representation to actually vote on it.

And it's because Americans could never solve the question of what to do with these islands and how to administer them. So we just said, territory, right? It's kind of in the middle stage, and that's where they've remained ever since.

Now, the most recent polls that I've seen as far as Puerto Rico is concerned, that news media will tell you that Puerto Rico votes to become a state. It's not necessarily true. When they took the actual poll, the poll was, Do you think Puerto Rico should be an independent state? Yes, no, or I don't know.

The answer was 64% of Puerto Ricans said, I don't know. So Puerto Ricans don't know what to do. Americans don't know what to do. And so it stays in that kind of limbo stage until eventually somebody decides to push the issue.

Thank you, sir. Yeah. Any other questions? Do we know who won Roosevelt's game?

Who won Roosevelt's game? Game. Oh, where they're shooting the body?

Yeah. I would say in that one, everyone loses because after you've shot a body like 360 times with 30, 40 ammunition, it's probably just going to look like a stake from HEV. I'm going to assume that there probably isn't a lot of body left at that point.

You're not going to know what it is. So yeah, we don't know historically who won the game, unfortunately, but I would imagine there wouldn't be a lot of that body left to actually determine a winner. Any other questions? Oh, yes, sorry. Oh, what kind of, sorry, firearms were present?

When I say firearms, I mean like revolvers for the U.S. at the time. Most Americans were going to be equipped with.45s like the one that I showed you all. Right, stuff like this, like the 1858 Remington, this is a Civil War gun, but they were still using them. They just converted them over to smokeless powder cartridges. There was a lot of other conversions, you know, shortnodes, stubnodes, Colts, Navy Colts were pretty common.

Basically, for the most part, you're going to be seeing stuff that are pretty typical, you know, six-shot revolvers were what most people were going to carry. And so even Civil War stuff was still being carried as long as it was converted over. But yeah, there were still guys carrying 1858s, 1860 versions, the 1866, pattern revolvers, and then a lot of Winchesters as well.

There were a ton of Winchesters, especially small arms. And when you say Winchester, are you talking about, well, Winchester rifles, but are you also talking about the lever action Winchesters as well or no? They were looked at as being a waste of bullets, and the federal government wanted to tighten down on finances, so that's why they went to the Craig Jorgensen. So as far as most of the Wild West guns probably would have done a better job than the Krag did. But the Krag had a stronger round.

And so basically the Americans decided to go with lower firepower, but with a stronger round. And so, yeah, although people could bring their Winchesters and there were cowboys and stuff that brought, you know, whatever guns that they brought with them. But the standard issue rifle from the government standpoint was the Krag 3040. Okay, well, it was good seeing everybody. Hopefully all of you have an excellent, extended three-day weekend vacation. And we'll be back here on Wednesday.

Make sure you obviously take a look at the PowerPoints, take your quizzes. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you later. Have a good weekend, sir. Have a good weekend.

Transcript for:Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

Transcript for:
Imperialism and the Spanish-American War