Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine

Standing along the Malecón seafront in Havana, this monument commemorates the American sailors killed when the battleship USS Maine exploded in the harbor in 1898, an event that helped trigger the Spanish-American War. Two tall columns once supported an eagle, but the American emblem was removed after the 1959 revolution and never replaced. Cannons and chains recovered from the wreck are displayed at the base. The empty columns and a later inscription blaming imperialist interests give it a layered political meaning.