Answer:
Causes
The immediate cause of the Spanish-American War was Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain.
Newspapers in the United States printed sensationalized accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba, fueling humanitarian concerns.
There was widespread U.S. sympathy for Cubans as near neighbors fighting to gain their independence.
Effects
The war ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. Spain subsequently turned its focus inward and experienced a cultural renaissance and two decades of significant progress in agriculture, industry, transportation, and other areas.
The United States emerged from the war as a world power, with control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam.
In 1902 the United States withdrew its troops from Cuba, and Cuba became a republic. However, the articles of the Platt Amendment, a rider appended to the U.S. Army appropriations bill of March 1901, were incorporated into the Cuban constitution. It gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba in the interests of a stable government. Cubans generally considered the amendment an infringement of their sovereignty, and most of its provisions were repealed by 1934.
The war made certain that a U.S.-built canal would cut through the Isthmus of Panama. The Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was completed in 1914.
