Why were the United States first actions against Spain in the Spanish-American War different from what most people would have expected?

The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.

the romans were initially interested in expansion via sicily (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), part of which lay under carthaginian control. at the start of the first punic war (264-241 bc), carthage was the dominant power of the western mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire