The industrial expansion of the US after the Civil War also established the US as a world power. The US took over several islands in the Pacific, including Hawaii. In 1898 the USS Maine battleship exploded in Havana Harbor. US newspapers immediately blamed the Spanish and the US entered the Spanish-American War. Not all Americans supported military campaigns abroad. Anti imperialists called for the US to stay out of the Philippines, however the US defeated the Filipiinos, making the islands a colony. Theodore Roosevelt built up the US Navy, gained the land in Panama to build a canal, and set the pattern of US intervention into Latin American nations. In 1917 the US entered World War 1, helping to defeat the Axis powers.
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