11 APRIL

1899 - The Treaty of Paris by which Spain supposedly 'cedes' its former colony, the Philippines, to the imperialist United States is ratified by the US Senate two months after the Philippines-American War (1899-1914) was deliberately precipitated by the American military; historians would later learn that the United States Congress decided to go to war based on a fraudulent claim that Filipinos began attacking American soldiers in Manila as part of the vile “prearranged plan” by the U.S. military to instigate a war by implementing the secret orders made by regimental commanders to bring about conflict by firing the first shots at native soldiers trying to cross Sta. Ana bridge in the bid to trick the U.S. Senate into approving the Treaty and, thus, secure funding for military operations to annex the Southeast Asian country; less than a year earlier, the combination of Filipino revolutionary forces and, to an extent, the resulting Manila blockade (following the Spanish-American War), had effectively wrested control of the archipelago from the Spain; most unfortunately, the Republican administration of William McKinley has begun steering the US towards an imperialist course of overseas expansion that would victimize not only the Philippines but, as well, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and, for a time, Cuba, during the early part of the 20th century.


Photo credit: http://www.revolutionintheair.com/histstrategy/forbidbk.html