The 8th Infantry Regiment of the United States, also known as the "Fighting Eagles," ready to embark for Cuba. The Spanish-American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, the result of US intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. In the late 1890s, US public opinion was agitated by anti-Spanish propaganda led by journalists Joseph Pulitzer and William Hearst which used yellow journalism to criticize Spanish administration of Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the US Navy battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid. Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. US naval power proved decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already brought to its knees by nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever. The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the US, which allowed it temporary control of Cuba, and ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine islands. Cropped stereograph by Underwood & Underwood, 1898.