On This Date in Minnesota History: May 7

May 7, 1915 - This afternoon, the British ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.¹

 

Sinking of the Lusitania² 

 One of the passengers that drown was Millie Baker, 27, an American opera singer from Duluth, Minn. She had been training her voice in France and Spain since 1909, and was hoping to make her stage debut with the Opera Comique. Millie was traveling aboard Lusitania with her fiancé Charles Williamson, in cabins facing each other. Her ticket was 46059 and she stayed in cabin B-38. Williamson, on the same ticket, was in B-34. Both she and Williamson were lost in sinking of the Lusitania.³

Opera singer Millie Baker4

¹http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lusitania-sinks

²http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/05/150505_HIST_Lusitania_sinking.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

³http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/saloon/millie-baker/

⁴https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/b0/a5/43b0a56aea197ed2d0d5bffe1e16cd47.jpg

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