An exploded battleship's cause was never settled, but it put America at war anyway
On 15 February 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbour, killing roughly 260 of its crew. A hastily convened US Navy board blamed an external mine, newspapers ran with 'Remember the Maine,' and Congress declared war on Spain within weeks. A century on, later naval investigations still can't rule out an internal accident — likely a coal-bunker fire igniting an adjacent ammunition magazine — as the real cause.