The Stomach-Churning Events Of The Manila Incident

Today, the Philippine capital, Manila, is a sprawling city of about 2 million people. Known as "The Pearl of the Orient" for its beauty before WWII, Manila, a bustling city and the center of politics and business in the Philippines, has not captured its pre-war beauty since 1945. The reason is simple: Manila was destroyed at the end of WWII.

Following their 1946 independence from the United States, Filipinos and their government relied on the US and its money to rebuild a war-torn economy. For the US, rebuilding quickly was one of the keys to getting the Philippines back on its feet and preventing a potential communist revolution in the country, which was a distinct possibility.

We are about to tell you about the Battle of Manila, which took place in February 1945 and sadly included one of the more tragic episodes of that tragic war. 


Most of the islands of the Philippines were conquered by Spain in the 16th century. In 1521, Spain claimed the islands, and in 1571, Manila was founded.

The location of the Philippines is strategically important. So they are today, and they have been since the 1500s. The Spanish used them as a jumping-off point for trading, exploration, and military missions in the Pacific, and they were used by ships heading to China and Japan as a resupply point. On the way home, Spanish and Portuguese ships used the islands to resupply before the long journey home or to South America, where both nations had colonies. The islands were given their name modern name in 1543, named for the then prince, but future King of Spain, Phillip II (1527-98), of Spanish Armada (1588) fame.

By the time the Spanish-American War began in 1898, the Philippines had been Spanish for over 375 years. By 1898, many, if not most, Filipinos were Catholic, one of the Roman Catholic Church’s “success stories” in Asia. To a large degree, the Philippines looked towards Europe and, after 1898, America, rather than Asia, for its economic and political future. Filipino culture today, at least in most major cities, especially Manila, is a hybrid between the many indigenous cultures and people and that of the West, making it quite unique.

In 1898, the Spanish-American War began over the status of Cuba and the infamous incident in which the US battleship Maine sank in Havana Harbor. We now know that the USS Maine did sink because of an internal accident, as the Spanish claimed. But at the time, American imperial designs, primitive investigation work, and the emergence of a country-wide mass media in the USA caused many Americans to jump to the same conclusion: Spain had attacked the United States.

The two countries went to war in April 1898. By July, the war was over. Spain had been shown to be the declining power that many thought it was, and the United States the rising world power. The most important battle of the war was the Battle of Manila Bay, in which the modern US Navy defeated the antiquated Spanish Pacific Fleet. One of the results of the conflict was that the United States would take possession of the Philippines. The Philippines provided an excellent location for the growing United States Navy. The islands could be used as a base and resupply point for US ships in the Pacific, and put China and Japan, to name just two nations, within easy range of the US fleet.

#history #manila #ww2 #imperialjapan #japannanking

Scriptwriter: Natasha Martell - Matthew Gaskill

Video Editor & Motion Graphics: Aditya Gautam

Voice-over Artist: Lain Heringman

Music: Epidemic Music

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