(A) ** Spain’s refusal to discus terms for peace in Guam
(B) Yellow Journalism that built up public pressure for war
(C) Americans tended to compare the Cuban insurrection with their own American Revolution
(D) Blame for the explosion of the USS Maine
EXPLANATIONS BELOW
Concept note-1: -The reasons for war were many, but there were two immediate ones: America’s support the ongoing struggle by Cubans and Filipinos against Spanish rule, and the mysterious explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor.
Concept note-2: -Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico became territories of the United States as part of the terms of the Treaty of Paris that officially ended the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Concept note-3: -The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895. Spain’s brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by several sensational newspapers engaging in yellow journalism, and American sympathy for the Cuban rebels rose.