In May of 1915, a British passenger ship called the Lusitania carrying 1,962 people was torpedoed by a German submarines as a covert act of war. In a matter of minutes, the huge ship began to come apart. Within the next few hours, 1,201 passengers and crew died. One of those who went down with the ship was American millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt. Survivors of the Lusitania report that Vanderbilt spent his last moments helping others to safety. He rounded up as many children as he could and got them into lifeboats. Just before the ship went down, Vanderbilt handed his life jacket to a young mother with a baby in her arms.
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“Torpedoed!” by Diana Preston, SMITHSONIAN, May 2002, pp. 64-65.