William McKinley

William McKinley (29th January 1843 - 14th September 1901) was the 25th president of the United States from 1897 - 1901, when he was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz.

Villainy

 * When Spain was in control of Cuba, McKinley claimed he wanted it to be independent, and so he provided support to Cuban rebels. While this was arguably morally justifiable, in 1898 McKinley sent a battleship, the USS Maine, to Cuba, where it mysteriously exploded, allowing McKinley to declare war on Spain and invade Cuba. In modern times, investigations into the disaster have concluded that McKinley's government was probably responsible for the Maine 's destruction in order to give them an excuse to invade Cuba.
 * To make matters worse, although claiming to want independence for the Cuban people, after McKinley defeated the Spanish in Cuba, he essentially annexed it, leaving it under the control of the army instead of granting the independence he promised.
 * After the successful takeover of Cuba, McKinley sent troops to Hawaii in order to assist in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government, allowing him to unlawfully annex Hawaii which, unlike Cuba, remains a US territory to this day.
 * McKinley's most infamous act is the invasion of the Philippines which, like Spain, were under Spanish rule. Due to McKinley's obsession with making America a leading player on the world stage, he ordered troops to attack the Philippines and take it away from Spain in order to make it a US territory. In the initial takeover, 200,000 Filipino civilians were killed by US troops, and McKinley subsequently ordered the establishment of Concentration Camps and the destruction of crops when the Filipinos resisted. He also displayed cultural bigotry towards the Filipinos, as he imposed the assimilation of the Philippines into US culture, meaning that local culture was repressed in favour of the US.
 * After assisting in the defeat of the Boxer Rebellion in China, McKinley and the other leaders responsible for the Boxer's defeat imposed legislation allowing suspected rebels to be executed without trial.