Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

<a href="/facts/RMS_Lusitania/cfIL9RHl">RMS Lusitania</a> was a British-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an <a href="/facts/Imperial_German_Navy/wNhU6Hlo">Imperial German Navy</a> <a href="/facts/U-boat/GgjbMzMT">U-boat</a> during the <a href="/facts/First_World_War/vITTUanQ">First World War</a> on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles (20 kilometres) off the <a href="/facts/Old_Head_of_Kinsale/UJGATyow">Old Head of Kinsale</a>, Ireland. The attack took place in the declared maritime war-zone around the UK, three months after <a href="/facts/Unrestricted_submarine_warfare/hgmfEDfY">unrestricted submarine warfare</a> against the ships of the United Kingdom had been announced by Germany following the Allied powers' implementation of a <a href="/facts/Blockade_of_Germany_(1914%25E2%2580%25931919)/94n3J4Yz">naval blockade</a> against it and the other <a href="/facts/Central_Powers/LokC2msm">Central Powers</a>. 
The passengers had been notified before departing <a href="/facts/New_York_City/YlyvFmVC">New York</a> of the general danger of voyaging into the area in a British ship, but the attack itself came without warning. From a submerged position 700 m (2,300 ft) to starboard, <a href="/facts/SM_U-20_(Germany)/LmWAqJjt">U-20</a> commanded by <a href="/facts/Kapit%25C3%25A4nleutnant/WQjchm7R">Kapitänleutnant</a> <a href="/facts/Walther_Schwieger/6IQqCtaF">Walther Schwieger</a> launched a single <a href="/facts/Torpedo/RLLPpktk">torpedo</a> at the <a href="/facts/Cunard/U3NBlw7Q">Cunard</a> liner. After the torpedo struck, a second explosion occurred inside the ship, which then sank in only 18 minutes.: 429  The U-20's mission was to torpedo warships and liners in the Lusitania’s area. In the end, there were only 763 survivors (39%) out of the 1,960 passengers, crew and stowaways aboard, and about 128 of the dead were American citizens. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against <a href="/facts/German_Empire/lwQutJyN">Germany</a>. It also contributed to the <a href="/facts/American_entry_into_World_War_I/jcf1VWyq">American entry into the War</a> almost two years later, on 6 April 1917; images of the stricken liner were used heavily in US propaganda and military recruiting campaigns.: 497–503 
The contemporary investigations in both the United Kingdom and the United States into the precise causes of the ship's loss were obstructed by the needs of wartime secrecy and a propaganda campaign to ensure all blame fell upon Germany. At time of her sinking the primarily passenger-carrying vessel had in her hold around 173 tons of war supplies, comprising 4.2 million rounds of rifle ammunition, almost 5,000 shrapnel-filled artillery shell casings and 3,240 brass percussion fuses. Debates on the <a href="/facts/War_crime/36qQAugC">legitimacy</a> of the way she was sunk have raged back and forth throughout the war and beyond. Some historians argue that the British government, with <a href="/facts/Winston_Churchill/Wm8LXNzH">Winston Churchill’s</a> involvement, deliberately put the Lusitania at risk to provoke a German attack and draw the United States into the war —pointing to withheld intelligence, a lack of naval escort, and Churchill’s own letter suggesting it was “most important to attract neutral shipping” to British waters to entangle the U.S. with Germany. Although this theory is disputed by others who argue there was no intentional conspiracy to expose the ship.

Sinking of the RMS Lusitania open-in-new

Sinking of the RMS Lusitania