The Battleship Maine Vintage Stereoview Postcard

The USS Maine (ACR-1) was the United States second commissioned pre-dreadnought battleship, although she was originally classified as an armoured cruiser. She is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana harbour. Maine had been sent to Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain. On the evening of 15 February 1898, she suddenly exploded, and swiftly sank, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. Though then, as now, the cause and responsibility for her sinking were unclear; popular opinion in the U.S. blamed Spain, and the sinking (popularised in the phrase Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!) was one of the precipitating events of the Spanish–American War. Her sinking remains the subject of speculation, with various authors proposing that she sank due to the results of an undetected fire in one of her coal bunkers ,that she was the victim of a naval mine, and that she was deliberately sunk for the purposes of driving the U.S. into a war with Spain. The cause of the explosion that sank the ship remains a mystery.