American Imperialist Adventures!

The War of 1812 (1812-1815)

US territorial ambitions in Canada provoke a war with Great Britain.

The Mexican War (1846-1848)

President James Polk bullies weak neighbor Mexico into a fighting war it has no hope of winning, resulting in the US acquisition of Texas, California, and New Mexico.

The Opening of Japan (1853)

The Fillmore Administration sends a fleet of gunships under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry to forcibly open Japan to US trade.

The Annexation of Hawaii (1893)

Greedy American sugar growers and pineapple magnate Sanford Dole overthrow Hawaiian queen Liliuokalani with unauthorized aid from US Marines, leading to the US annexation in 1898.

The Spanish American War (1898)

William Randolph Hearst's yellow journalism and a surge in Imperialist demagoguery goad the McKinley administration into the lopsided war with the weak and declining Spanish Empire. The US acquires Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and hegemony over Cuba.

The Philippine American War (1899-1902)

An American army crushes the nacent Philippine Independence Movement it had helped to initiate because the Philippines were deemed too valuable a colony to allow independence.

The China Relief Expedition (1900)

America joins the European imperialist powers against a beleaguered China to brutally suppress the Boxer Rebellion.

American intervention in Siberia (1918)

Woodrow Wilson sends American troops to Russia. Stated goal: rescue Czechoslovakian soldiers. Unstated goal: overthrow the Bolsheviks.

The Bay of Pigs Debacle (1961)

The Kennedy Administration and the CIA secretly back and then betray a disastrous invasion of Cuba by US Cuban Exiles.


See also: Korean War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Iran Contra, Panama, Gulf War, War on Terror, Gulf War II