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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: Sinking the Lusitania 119 Views
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Description:
The U.S. sure seems to make a habit out of doing things they're not supposed to...like trading war munitions with the U.K. despite claiming that they were "neutral." Well, guilty or not, they were none too happy when their trading ships started getting shot down. Grab the popcorn and we'll check out the drama that came next.
Transcript
- 00:04
Ok Lusitania it's time for your close-up we know your
- 00:08
destruction was a big part of why America dove into World War one how [Lusitania appears]
- 00:12
exactly did it all go down well Germany wasn't super thrilled that
- 00:15
supposedly neutral America kept on trying to help out the British America [US and British flags shaking hands]
- 00:20
batted its eyes innocently claiming they were just selling Britain the regular
Full Transcript
- 00:24
old innocent things they'd always sold Britain you know teddy bears and [Woman stood beside Tower Bridge]
- 00:28
cupcakes and the machine guns and stuff like that
- 00:31
well Germany however was not convinced and kept on blowing up American trade
- 00:35
ships headed for the British Isles this didn't go over too well with the
- 00:38
American people they were totally on board with President Woodrow Wilson's
- 00:42
plan for neutrality in World War one but the idea of Germans blowing up innocent
- 00:46
trading ships and got their goat and nobody messes with America's goat in
- 00:51
February 1915 Germany finally got sick and tired of America's shady trading and [Germany flag angry over British land]
- 00:56
declared unrestricted submarine warfare on all ships in the waters near Britain
- 00:59
this meant that no matter who you were if you sailed near Britain the Germans [German canon blows up ships]
- 01:03
were going to blow you up well this again seemed incredibly unfair
- 01:07
to Americans they were like hey Germany don't you know what neutral mean
- 01:11
meanwhile Germany was like yah phenol but perhaps you don't know well American
- 01:18
ships were warned not to sail near Britain or if they did to at least use a
- 01:21
very sophisticated defensive strategy of sailing around in zigzags to confuse the
- 01:26
German u-boats but in May 1915 the captain of the ship called the Lusitania [Lusitania ship appears]
- 01:33
decided to ignore this advice and sail straight to Britain any guesses as to
- 01:38
what happened yep the ship was hit by a torpedo and sunk within 20 minutes
- 01:42
killing 120 Americans and nearly a thousand others interestingly when the
- 01:47
Lusitania was hit there were two explosions the first was a torpedo [Torpedo explodes on lusitania ship]
- 01:51
hitting the boat and the second was yet the hundred seventy-three tons of war
- 01:57
munitions the boat had been carrying to Britain hmm looks like those innocent
- 02:01
teddy bears and cupcakes were wroth full of something a little less than flour [Teddy bear and cup cakes floating in the ocean]
- 02:05
regardless of the fact that they were discovered transporting munitions
- 02:09
Americans were outraged that Germany had killed innocent
- 02:12
Germany actually apologized even going so far as to end their policy of [Germany flag with an apology cake]
- 02:16
unrestricted submarine warfare of course they promptly broke that from
- 02:19
a six months later when they bombed an Italian boat killing two hundred seventy
- 02:22
people including 25 Americans yep guess they had their fingers crossed on that [Man with fingers crossed behind his back]
- 02:26
promise anyway in January 1917 Germany Rida glared unrestricted submarine
- 02:30
warfare and within days torpedoed another American ship called the
- 02:34
Housatonic just about two months later America officially declared war on [Judge bangs gavel]
- 02:38
Germany in total it took America almost two years after the sinking of the
- 02:42
Lusitania to officially enter world war one but it was the Lusitania that
- 02:47
finally turned American public opinion against Germany think of the Lusitania
- 02:50
as a social game changer rather than a political one in the political climate
- 02:55
at the time the attack wasn't quite terrible enough to declare war but for
- 02:59
the first time it put the majority of Americans in a fighting mood soon German [American people expressing want for war]
- 03:03
was a bad word in America and suddenly dog owners everywhere own freedom
- 03:08
Shepherds instead of you know the German ones
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