Why Did USS Maine Collapse

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USS Maine (ACR-1) was one of the first United States battleships to be constructed and took nearly nine years to complete. USS Maine is best known for its massive explosion in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard, an event that ultimately led to the Spanish-American War. The cause and responsibility of USS Maine’s sinking remained a subject of speculation but it was likely a cause of the explosion, rather than the initial hypothesis of a mine. The explosion of USS Maine was significant because it provided a pretext for a war with Spain which was exactly what the United States wanted. The government used the incident to encourage public to support for

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