Remember the Maine, and the City of Brooklyn

On Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, where it had been sent to protect U.S. interests in Cuba. Yellow journalism in the Hearst and Pulitzer papers fanned the flames of what became the Spanish-American War, with cries of "Remember the Maine, the hell with Spain."  That is how we got our "lease" of Guantanamo Bay for an American naval station, a sordid history from start to finish.

On January 1, 1898 the City of Brooklyn was consolidated with the City of New York.  For generations after in Brooklyn this event was referred to as "The great mistake of 1898."

The battleship Maine was not built in Bath, Maine but in the City of Brooklyn!