Which British ocean liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915?

The British ocean liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915 was RMS Lusitania. A German submarine attacked the Cunard liner on 7 May 1915 off the Old Head of Kinsale on Ireland's southern coast during World War I.

Lusitania had been launched in 1906 and was famous for its speed, winning the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1907. Although designed with the possibility of wartime conversion, it was operating as a passenger liner when it sailed from New York toward Liverpool.

The sinking became an international controversy because Germany had declared the waters around Britain a war zone and warned that Allied ships could be attacked. Lusitania sank in about 18 minutes, killing 1,197 people, including 128 U.S. citizens. The disaster intensified anti-German feeling in the United States, although the United States did not enter the war until 1917.

A common mix-up is with Titanic, which sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912. Britannic, another famous British liner, was sunk by a mine in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship.