Guantánamo Bay is usually discussed as a prison.
In reality, it is something far older — and far more revealing.

In this episode of History Declassified, we trace how the United States came to control Guantánamo Bay in the first place, and why that control has never ended. The story begins not with the War on Terror, but with the Spanish–American War of 1898, the US military occupation of Cuba, and a treaty signed under conditions that permanently reshaped Cuban sovereignty.

We examine the 1903 lease agreement, the Platt Amendment, and the legal framework that allowed the United States to retain “complete jurisdiction and control” over Cuban land without formally annexing it. We then follow Guantánamo through the twentieth century — from a quiet naval outpost, to a Cold War flashpoint, to a legal anomaly whose ambiguity would later be exploited in moments of crisis.

This episode is not an argument for or against Guantánamo Bay.
It is an investigation into how power embeds itself through law, how treaties outlive the circumstances that created them, and why some outcomes of empire never resolve — they simply persist.

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