One big, honking reason that the Platt Amendment isn't as famous or as quoted as other U.S. historical texts (besides the fact that its name tells us exactly nothing about what it was) is because it only lasted thirty years.

It was an act of U.S. bullying (or protecting, depending on how you look at it) against a newly independent Cuba in 1901, and although Cubans probably didn't like it very much, it didn't cause a huge stir in American society at the time.

(That's probably mostly thanks to the fact that anti-imperialists in America had moved their focus to the Philippines, where America was doing some pretty bad stuff to keep the islands in line. They rebelled and broke away from U.S. control. Little Cuba slipped under the radar through all of this chaos.)

Either in spite of, or because of, the Platt Amendment, newly independent Cuba got itself moving as a country in the early 1900s. There were a few arguments and controversies about the amendment's rules (such as the Supreme Court case Pearcy v. Stranahan), and America did take part in installing mining operations on the island for profit, as well as military bases.

That is…until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came on the scene in the 1930s.

As part of his effort to make better friends with all of Latin America (Economics 101: friends = trading partners), he squashed the Platt Amendment and removed all of the requirements the U.S. had put on Cuba (you can read our discussion of his "Good Neighbor Policy" here).

The result was that Cuba became fully independent, with no strings attached. (Or, well, one string attached, which we'll get to in a second.) Future Cuban leaders, especially Fidel Castro, would go on to call the early 1900s Cuban leadership weak and spineless because they let the Platt Amendment happen. As if they really had a choice…

So what was that one string that stayed attached between Cuba and the U.S.? It's called Guantanamo Bay. Sometimes referred to as "Gitmo," this U.S. military base has stayed in Cuba since 1903, and Cuba has argued over and over again that it is there illegally, since the Platt Amendment no longer exists.

There's been no change, and as you can imagine, this situation has caused some serious tension between the two countries, especially because of the controversial actions taken at Guantanamo over the last few decades. (Source)

As America's closest neighbor that's not Mexico or Canada, Cuba's been in a tough spot for its entire history. The Platt Amendment restricted Cuba, FDR helped Cuba, and Fidel Castro hated the U.S.

It's been a rocky road…and we don't mean the delicious ice cream flavor.