Who's Responsible for the Destruction of the Main?
America was trying to expand as a new world power, which meant we were on an Imperialist mission in 1898. Our country was looking for a reason (basically an excuse), to declare war on Spain, because Spain owned territory that the U.S. wanted. You could say that many people had motive to sink the ship. Anyone or any group that wanted war between these two countries would be targets of speculation. There were the "yellow-journalists" of America, who thought that they could generate news rather than report it. Then there were the Spanish military officers who resented American interference in Spanish-Cuban business. There were others that could be blamed as well, but weren't as prominent of a threat. Most American's immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was Spain who was responsible...due to the reason I wrote about above.
The modern 1976 belief disagrees with the initial belief that the Spanish sunk the Main. The sinking was re-investigated by the official Navy. The inquiry concluded that the sinking was due to a boiler explosion; that it wasn't the Spanish but simply fate. To date, this is the overall consensus when it comes to what happened on that fateful day. Although I guess it really doesn't matter what caused the accident. Whether Spain was behind it or not, the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor ended up being the catalyst that led America into the one-sided Spanish-American War in 1898.
Online sources:
1) http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_sinking_of_the_uss_maine.html
2) http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-1.htm
3) http://beyondthebubble.stanford.edu/assessments/explosion-uss-maine
Book page: pg. 308
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