Date With History: 1915

May 7th, 2.10 pm: The Cunard liner, RMS Lusitania, was torpedoed by the German

 U-Boat U20, and sank in only 18 minutes, just 11 miles from the Irish coast. 

Of the 1,959  passengers and crew on board, only 761 survived.

Although the sinking was universally condemned (and widely exploited in

 propaganda and recruiting campaigns), America didn't enter World War I for

another two years.