Amerika

The American government sent a ship full of civilians to carry weapons to the Germans, knowing they’d sink the ship, knowing it carried munitions:

The British passenger ship Lusitania was carrying small-arms ammunition in its hold when it was sunk by a German torpedo in 1915.

An Irish dive team Tuesday recovered a sample of Remington .303s, which had been listed on the cargo manifest but were never proven to have been on board.

The wreck of the Lusitania lies about 300 feet below the surface in Irish territorial waters approximately 12 miles off the coast of County Cork.

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The cartridges are in the hands of Irish authorities, awaiting further study. The .303 British was the official military rifle cartridge of England and the British Empire from its adoption in 1888 until the 1950s.

“The size of the shipment was significant and therefore resulted in a valid charge that the ship was carrying war material and as such qualified her as a legitimate target for the German submarine,” said Gregg Bemis, a Santa Fe venture capitalist and sometime Republican candidate for Congress and the state Legislature. He has been sole owner of the wreck since 1982.

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At the time, many people speculated that Winston Churchill, then first lord of the admiralty, conspired to have the Lusitania sunk to draw the U.S. into World War I. The American president, Woodrow Wilson, sent a formal protest to the Germans, but the U.S. didn’t enter the war for two more years.

SFNM

Dirty, dirty Winston Churchill. Wonder what else he may have been lying and scheming about?