Why Did The United States Become A World Power

The United States has been seen as one of the strongest forces on Earth for quite some time now. They have become one of the top world powers, alongside Russia, China, India, the UK, and many others. The United States became a world power in the 19th and 20th centuries due to the fact that they seized a great amount of land, grew their navy, constructed more bases, and created many policies with other nations out of wars. The inspiration for the United States to become a world power started with imperialism. Imperialism is the gathering of power for your country by military, economy, and geography. The economic purposes of the United States imperialism helped them to be able to trade with larger nations. They also expanded into the Western
The United States made several pushes towards a better navy. One of those pushes helped with the annexation of Hawaii on Aug 12, 1898. After Liliuokalani had become queen in 1891 and restored power to natives, Businessmen and U.S. Ambassador, John L. Stevens, organized a revolt. The U.S.S. Boston with Marines moved in on Jan 16, 1893 to “protect U.S. lives”. They then threw out queen, put in Sanford B. Dole, who was the number one businessman in Hawaii, as acting President. On August 12, 1898, McKinley annexed Hawaii as a territory. The naval base of Pearl Harbor was planned soon after, which gave the U.S. a strong naval base, and the start of a advanced navy. The United States then scaled their navy even more in Cuba because the Monroe Doctrine allowed them to do so. Their growing navy allowed the US to thrive to the state of a world
A series of events led up to the war, starting with the publishing of the De Lôme Letter, which was from the Spanish minister himself calling President McKinley weak. This, of course, stirred up anger towards the Spanish amongst the American public. However, what really set them off was the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine a few days later. Most of the American public believed that the ship hit a mine, but the 1976 inquiry said that it was an internal explosion. William Randolph Hearst, a popular yellow journalism writer, offered a reward for the Spaniard that blew up the Maine. The explosion was the most drive for the Spanish-American War, even the battle cry that they used was “Remember the Maine!”. Over the next two months, 11,000 Americans forced Spanish surrender, and more than 125,000 troops volunteered for combat. After 16 weeks, the Treaty of Paris was made on August 12, 1898. The Treaty of Paris was an armistice that ended the war and gave both sides different things. Cuba became independent, both the Puerto Rico and Guam territories were given to the United States, and the U.S. paid Spain $20 million for the Philippines. The treaty also made the Platt Amendment, which did not allow Cuba to enter into treaties with other countries, it allowed the U.S. to have naval bases in Cuba, and it allowed U.S. to intervene in Cuban affairs. The Platt Amendment allowed for