Editing Casus belli (section)

=== Spanish–American War ===
[[File:Independence Seaport Museum 226.JPG|thumb|Cartoon of belligerent [[Uncle Sam]] placing Spain on notice, c. 1898]]
The ''[[USS Maine (ACR-1)|Maine]]'' was a United States Navy ship that sank in [[Havana Harbor]], [[Captaincy General of Cuba|Spanish Cuba]] on February 15, 1898. While the destruction of the ''Maine'' did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain, it did create an atmosphere that precluded a peaceful solution.<ref>{{cite book |last=Musicant |first=Ivan |year=1998 |pages=151–152 |title=Empire by Default: The Spanish–American War and the Dawn of the American Century |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8050-3500-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/empirebydefaults00musi}}</ref> The Spanish investigation found that the explosion had been caused by spontaneous combustion of the coal bunkers, but the US Sampson Board's Court of Inquiry ruled that the explosion had been caused by an external explosion from a torpedo. The [[William McKinley|McKinley]] administration did not cite the explosion as a ''casus belli'', but others were already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reilly |first1=John C. |last2=Scheina |first2=Robert L. |year=1980 |page=30 |title=American Battleships 1886–1923: Predreadnought Design and Construction |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=978-0-87021-524-7}}</ref> Advocates of war used the rallying cry, "Remember the ''Maine!'' To hell with Spain!"<ref>{{cite book |last=Edgerton |first=Robert B. |year=2005 |title=Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain |location=[[Lewiston, New York]] |publisher=[[Edwin Mellen Press]] |isbn=978-0-7734-6266-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5VhnQgAACAAJ |access-date=15 February 2010 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |last=Jons |first=O. P. |date=March 2005 |title=Remember the "MAINE" |publisher=WIT Press |pages=133–142 |conference=Maritime Heritage and Modern Ports. Second International Conference on Maritime Heritage and the Fourth International Conference on Maritime Engineering, Ports and Waterways |url=http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/record/tris/01001349.html |access-date=11 February 2008 |via=U.S. Department of Transportation: National Transportation Library |url-status=dead<!--could not find this under https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov which is supposed to be the successor database for ntlsearch.bts.gov--> |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090512062237/http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/record/tris/01001349.html |archive-date=12 May 2009}}</ref>