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Hawaii Sugar Plantation
The first sugar plantation was created in Koloa, Kauai. Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants and was observed by Captain Hegwood upon arrival in the islands in 1841. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a century. The sugar grown and processed in Hawaii was shipped primarily to the United States and, in smaller quantities, globally. -
Alaska
The Purchase of Alaska meant the end of Russian efforts to expand trade, giving the U.S. more power to North America and less competition with one of the largest nations of the time, Russia. -
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon History, which argued that control of the sea was the key to world dominance; it stimulated the naval race among the great powers. -
Hawaii
American settlers aided in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarch, Queen Liliuokalani. -
Annexation of Hawaii
U.S. wanted Hawaii for business, and for Hawaiian sugar to be sold in the U.S. duty free, Queen Liliuokalani opposed, so Sanford B. Dole overthrew her in 1893, William McKinley convinced Congress to annex Hawaii -
Spanish-American War: Remember the Maine
The U.S. battleship Maine sunk off the coast of Cuba on February 15th, killing 260 servicemen. It was believed that a submarine mine caused the explosion and sinking of the ship. This incident helped encourage the U.S. to go to war with the Spanish. -
Spanish-American War: U.S. Support
The United States decided to support Cubans for political, economics, and humanitarian reasons. Americans did not agree with how the Spanish were treating people of Cuba but they also saw Cuba as a rich and profitable country. -
Spanish-American War: Spain Surrenders
After two victories gained by the U.S. army, Spain agreed to surrender to the United States at Santiago. Theodore Roosevelt was the leader of the group known as the Rough Riders and he also led the right wing during the attack on San Juan Hill. After the victory he was assigned as the Governor of New York State. -
Spanish-American War: Treaty of Paris
Due to the Spanish-American war, the Treaty of Paris was signed on the 10th of December, 1898. As a result of the war, Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded by the Spanish to the Americans, Cuba became an independent state and the U.S. bought the Philippines for $20 million. -
Spanish-American War: Media Involvement
As the Spanish American war was the first conflict between nations that involved media, it is considered a turning point when it comes to the history of propaganda and the starting point of the so called yellow journalism. One of the iconic figures of war was William Randolph Hearst, who brought up the military situation of Cuba in the attention of the U.S. population. -
Spanish-American War: Battles
The primary battle fought during the Spanish American war was at Manila Bay, in the Philippines, and ended with the victory of the U.S. Twenty nine battles were fought in the Spanish American war. Eleven victories were assigned to the United States and eleven victories to the Spanish. However, no one knows who actually won in the remaining seven battles. Almost 308,000 American troops fought and 3,000 died. 385 U.S. army men are considered battle casualties, the other ones died of disease. -
Spanish-American War: Cause
After over 400 years of Spanish rule, Cubans were finally able to gain their independence. Struggles to become independent started at the beginning of the 19th century and came as a result of how the Spanish treated Cuba and Cubans and due to the mass executions of whomever tried to fight for Cuban freedom. -
Spanish-American war: Slavery and Cruelty
The Cubans were being treated horribly by the Spanish, which led to Cuba's desire for independence. Most Cubans were forced by the Spanish into rough slavery, having to work day and night on different plantations of tobacco or sugar, alongside African slaves, leading to the death of thousands of Cubans, especially through starvation and disease. -
Big Stick Diplomacy
A way of intimidating countries and making changes to meet national interests abroad. Roosevelt's strong arm approach to foreign affairs "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.", emphasizing diplomacy by force. The phrase was also used later by Roosevelt to explain his relations with domestic political leaders and his approach to such issues as the regulation of monopolies and the demands of trade unions -
Big Stick Diplomacy
Policy popularized and named by Theodore Roosevelt that asserted U.S. domination when such dominance was considered the moral imperative. -
Dollar Diplomacy
Dollar diplomacy of the United States during President William Howard Taft's term was a form of American foreign policy to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign countries. -
Japan
Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 in an alliance with Entente Powers and played an important role in securing the sea lanes in the West Pacific and Indian Oceans against the Imperial German Navy. The leader of Japan during that time was Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu. -
Panama Canal
The military's presence in the Panama area dates back to before the U.S. constructed the canal, when it protected U.S. merchant trade lanes. Even during construction, the military supplied engineers, labor, and security. Fortification of the Canal Zone was only partially completed by 1913. The first Atlantic fort was operational in 1914 and the first on the Pacific side in 1916. By the time the United States entered World War I, there were nine operational forts at each end of the canal. -
China
While the Pacific theater was a major and well-known battleground of World War II, it may come as a surprise that Asian nations played a role in World War I. Both Japan and China actually declared war on Germany in hopes of gaining regional dominance. -
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal officially opened on August 15, 1914, although the planned grand ceremony was downgraded due to the outbreak of WWI. Completed at a cost of more than $350 million, it was the most expensive construction project in U.S. history to that point. Altogether, some 3.4 million cubic meters of concrete went into building the locks, and nearly 240 million cubic yards of rock and dirt were excavated during the American construction phase. 5,600 were reported killed out of 56,000 workers. -
Mexico
The Carranza government was de jure recognized by Germany at the beginning of 1917 and by the U.S. on August 31, 1917, the latter as a direct consequence of the Zimmerman telegram in an effort to ensure Mexican Neutrality in WWI. -
China
From its inception, the Great War was by no means confined to the European continent; in the Far East, two rival nations, Japan and China, sought to find their own role in the great conflict. -
Mexico
It was 100 years ago when Mexico almost invaded the U.S. In January 1917, German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman dispatched a coded telegram to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador to Mexico. With Germany locked in bloody stalemate with the Allies in France, and Britain’s naval blockade strangling the German economy, Kaiser Wilhelm’s government was about to make a fateful decision: declare unrestricted submarine warfare, which would allow U-boats to sink merchant ships on sight. -
Red Scare
Shortly after the end of World War I, the Red Scare took hold in the United States. A nationwide fear of communists, socialists, anarchists, suddenly grabbed the American psyche in 1919 following a series of anarchist bombings. The nation was gripped in fear. Innocent people were jailed for expressing their views, civil liberties were ignored, and many Americans feared that a Bolshevik-style revolution was at hand.
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