The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

On this day in 1783, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin (books by this author) wrote to a friend: "In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace."

Franklin had just helped to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, which brought the Revolutionary War to an end. The treaty could not please everyone on both sides, of course, and there were British Loyalists and American revolutionaries alike who were complaining about the terms of the treaty, which included 10 articles that addressed things like land boundaries, fishing rights, debts, what to do with Loyalist property and prisoners of war, and access to the Mississippi River.

But now, in 2010, only the first article of this treaty remains valid. It's the one that says that the British king acknowledges that the 13 colonies of the United States are "free sovereign and independent states," that he shall treat them accordingly, and that he and his heirs and successors relinquish "all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights" of the United States.

Exactly 115 years later — on this day in 1898 — Secretary of State John Hay remarked to Secretary of the Navy Teddy Roosevelt: "It has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried out with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave."

He was talking about the Spanish-American War, which was originally Cuba's War of Independence from Spain. The U.S. was paying close attention to the fighting, and many Americans were cheering for the Cuban revolutionaries, led by poet José Martí, who were fighting for independence from their European colonizer. It was, after all, what America had been doing a century before.

The U.S. stood ready to intervene, to help fight against the Spanish, and even sent a big ship full of sailors, the USS Maine, down to dock in Havana's port in January 1898. Three weeks later, in mid-February, the ship mysteriously exploded, killing 261 American sailors on board. To this day, nobody agrees what caused the explosion. Spain says it was an internal combustion. The U.S. said that Spain blew up the ship with a mine.

At any rate, in April 1898 the U.S. entered the war, and Cuba's war of independence became the Spanish-American War. The U.S. sent in 15,000 troops to eastern Cuba in early July and scored smashing land victories against Spain — then had to leave in August because yellow fever was destroying the U.S. Army. The U.S. also triumphed in naval battles all around the Caribbean and Pacific, where there were other Spanish colonies. In 10 weeks, the U.S. had won the war.

Soon after, the United States sat down to sign another treaty called the Treaty of Paris (both were called this because they were signed in Paris, considered neutral ground). The 1898 Treaty of Paris was between Spain and the U.S., and Cuba was allowed only to observe, not to take part in negotiations. With the treaty, Spain turned over its colonies to the United States, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Spain gave up the colony of Cuba, and Cuba was supposed to become an independent republic, but in effect it became an American colony.