title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The stadium hosted the K-1 Dynamite!! USA mixed martial arts event. The promoters claimed that 54,000 people attended the event, which would have set a new attendance record for a mixed martial arts event in the United States; however, other officials estimated the crowd between 20,000 and 30,000.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In May 1959, the Dodgers had hosted an exhibition game against the reigning World Series champion New York Yankees at the Coliseum, a game which drew over 93,000 people. The Yankees won that game 6–2. As part of their West Coast 50th anniversary celebration in 2008, the Dodgers again hosted an exhibition game against the reigning World Series champions, the Boston Red Sox. On March 29, 2008, the middle game of a three-game set in Los Angeles was also won by the visitors by the relatively low score of 7–4, given the layout of the field; Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek had joked that he expected scores in the 80s.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: As previously mentioned in the 1950s–1960s section, during 1958–1961, the distance from home plate to the left field foul pole was with a screen running across the close part of left field. Due to the intervening addition of another section of seating rimming the field, the 2008 grounds crew had much less space to work with, and the result was a left field foul line only , with a screen, which one Boston writer dubbed the "Screen Monster". Even at that distance, is also short of the minimum legal home-run distance. This being an exhibition game, balls hit over the temporary screen were still counted as home runs. There were only a couple of home runs over the screen, as pitchers adjusted (and Manny Ramirez did not play).


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: A sellout crowd of 115,300 was announced, which set a Guinness World Record for attendance at a baseball game, breaking the record set at a 1956 Summer Olympics baseball demonstration game between teams from the US and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The Coliseum formerly hosted the major U.S. electronic dance music festival, the Electric Daisy Carnival. It last hosted the event in 2010; following the drug-related death of an underage attendee at EDC that year, the festival's organizer Insomniac Events was blacklisted from hosting future events at the venue, and it subsequently moved to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2011.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In 2003, select events of the X Games IX action sports event were held at the Coliseum. In 2010, the X Games XVI were held at the venue.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In 2006, the Coliseum Commission focused on signing a long-term lease with USC, who offered to purchase the facility from the state but was turned down. After some at-time contentious negotiations, with the university threatening to move to the Rose Bowl in late 2007, the two sides signed a 25-year lease in May 2008, giving the Coliseum Commission 8% of USC's ticket sales, approximately $1.5 million a year, but committing the agency to a list of renovations.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In 2006, Mexican band RBD held a concert during their U.S. tour before 70,000 people, with tickets sold out in less than 30 minutes. It was the highest attended event by a Mexican act since Los Bukis' 1993 and 1996 concerts.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On June 23, 2008, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission announced that they were putting the naming rights of the Coliseum on the market, predicting a deal valued at $6 million to $8 million a year. The funds would go towards financing over $100 million in renovations over the next decade, including a new video board, bathrooms, concession areas, and locker rooms. Additional seating was included in the renovation plans which increased the Coliseum's seating capacity to 93,607 in September 2008.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On June 17, 2009, the Coliseum was the terminus for the Los Angeles Lakers' 2009 NBA championship victory parade. A crowd of over 90,000 attended the festivities, in addition to the throngs of supporters who lined the parade route. The Coliseum peristyle was redesigned in purple and gold regalia to commemorate the team, and the Lakers' court was transported from Staples Center to the Coliseum field to act as the stage. Past parades had ended at Staples Center, but due to the newly constructed L.A. Live complex, space was limited around the arena.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On July 30, 2011, the LA Rising festival with Rage Against the Machine, Muse, Rise Against, Lauryn Hill, Immortal Technique, and El Gran Silencio was hosted at the Coliseum.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On September 13, 2014, the Coliseum hosted the fifth-place game, third-place game and final of the 2014 Copa Centroamericana in front of 41,969 spectators.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In August 2015, the Coliseum hosted the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On September 14, 2021, the NASCAR Cup Series announced that the annual Busch Clash would take place at the Coliseum, at a purpose-made quarter-mile track.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On December 9, 2021, Kanye West performed a benefit concert for the long-imprisoned Larry Hoover with special guest Drake at the Coliseum.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On September 23rd and 24th, 2022 German band Rammstein performed two shows as part of the North American leg of their Rammstein Stadium Tour


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On January 12, 2016, the NFL gave permission for the St. Louis Rams to relocate back to Los Angeles. The Rams resumed play at the Coliseum while awaiting completion of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On August 13, 2016, the Coliseum hosted its first NFL game at the stadium since 1994, as the Rams hosted Dallas Cowboys at a preseason game in front of 89,140 people. On September 18, 2016, the Coliseum hosted the first Rams regular season home game since 1979, against the Seattle Seahawks following an impromptu pregame concert from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Rams would boast a 9-3 victory over Seattle in front of a crowd of 91,046 in attendance.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On January 6, 2018, the Coliseum hosted its first Rams playoff game since the 1978 NFC Championship game, a 26-13 wild card round loss to the defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On November 19, 2018, the Coliseum hosted its first "Monday Night Football" game since 1985, and the first Monday night game the Rams hosted at the Coliseum, exact date 40 years later, with the Rams taking on the Kansas City Chiefs. That game, which was originally scheduled to be played at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City that night, was moved to the Coliseum due to poor field conditions at the former. The Rams won the game, 54–51 in the highest-scoring game in "Monday Night Football" history.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On January 12, 2019, the Coliseum hosted its final NFL playoff game, where the Rams defeated the Dallas Cowboys 30-22 in an NFC Divisional Playoff.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On December 8, 2019, the final Sunday Night Football game would be played at the Coliseum in which the Rams defeated the rival Seattle Seahawks 28-12 in front of a crowd of over 77,000 people.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On December 29, 2019, the Rams played their final game at the Coliseum, beating the Arizona Cardinals 31-24 before moving to SoFi Stadium in time for the 2020 NFL season. The Rams finished with a record of 16-14 playing their home games at the Coliseum in their second stint as tenants from 2016 through 2019.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On February 16, 2022, three days after winning Super Bowl LVI, the Rams hosted their victory celebration before thousands of fans in front of the Coliseum's peristyle end.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics in 2028. During the 131st IOC Session, the International Olympic Committee officially awarded the 2028 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles on July 31, 2017. The Coliseum will be the first stadium to host events for three different Olympic games.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: On February 6, 2022, NASCAR hosted a pre-season NASCAR Cup Series exhibition event. The temporary quarter-mile track marked the series' first race of any kind on a quarter-mile since 1971 and was won by Joey Logano.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The largest gathering in the Coliseum's history was a Billy Graham crusade which took place on September 8, 1963 with 134,254 in attendance, noted by the Coliseum's website as an all-time record. With the renovations of 1964, the capacity of the Coliseum was reduced to roughly 93,000 for future events.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: Records differ between the 2006 USC football media guide and 2006 UCLA football media guide. (This may be due to only keeping records for "home" games until the 1950s.) The USC Media guide lists the top five record crowds as:


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The UCLA Media guide does not list the 1939 game against USC, and only lists attendance for the second game in 1945 for Coliseum attendance records. These are the top three listed UCLA record Coliseum crowds:


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The largest crowd to attend a USC football game against an opponent other than UCLA or Notre Dame was 96,130 for a November 10, 1951 contest


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: with Stanford University. The largest attendance for a UCLA contest against a school other than USC was 92,962 for the November 1, 1946 game with Saint Mary's College of California.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The Los Angeles Rams played the San Francisco 49ers before an NFL record attendance of 102,368 on November 10, 1957. This was a record paid attendance that stood until September 2009 at Cowboys Stadium, though the overall NFL regular season record was broken in a 2005 regular season game between the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Both records were broken on September 20, 2009 at the first regular season game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In 1958 the Rams averaged 83,680 for their six home games, including 100,470 for the Chicago Bears and 100,202 for the Baltimore Colts.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: In their 13 seasons in Los Angeles the Raiders on several occasions drew near-capacity crowds to the Coliseum. The largest were 91,505 for an October 25, 1992 game with the Dallas Cowboys, 91,494 for a September 29, 1991 contest with the San Francisco 49ers, and 90,380 on January 1, 1984 for a playoff game with the Pittsburgh Steelers.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The Coliseum hosted the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later called the Super Bowl. The January 15, 1967 game, pitting the Green Bay Packers against the Kansas City Chiefs, attracted 61,946 fans—a lower-than anticipated crowd (by comparison, a regular-season game between the Packers and Rams a month earlier drew 72,418). For Super Bowl VII in 1973, which matched the Miami Dolphins against the Washington Redskins, the attendance was a near-capacity 90,182, a record that would stand until Super Bowl XI at the Rose Bowl. The 1975 NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys had an attendance of 88,919, still the largest crowd for a conference championship game since the conference-title format began with the 1970 season. The 1983 AFC Championship Game between the Raiders and Seattle Seahawks attracted 88,734.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The Rams' first NFL game at the Coliseum since 1979, after spending fifteen years at Anaheim Stadium and then twenty-one seasons in St. Louis, a pre-season contest against the Cowboys on August 13, 2016, drew a crowd of 89,140. The team's first regular-season home game, on September 18 against the Seattle Seahawks, attracted 91,046—the largest attendance for a Rams game at the Coliseum since 1959.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: Contemporary baseball guides listed the theoretical baseball seating capacity as 92,500. Thousands of east-end seats were very far from home plate, and were not sold unless needed. The largest regular season attendance was 78,672, the Dodgers' home debut in the Coliseum, against the San Francisco Giants on April 18, 1958.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The May 7, 1959, exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the 1958 World Series Champion New York Yankees, in honor of disabled former Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella, drew 93,103, which was a Major League Baseball record prior to 2008.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: All three Dodgers home games in the 1959 World Series with the Chicago White Sox exceeded 90,000 attendance. Game 5 drew 92,706 fans, a major league record for a non-exhibition game.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The attendance for the exhibition game on March 29, 2008, between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers, was 115,300, setting a new Guinness World Record for attendance at a baseball game. The previous record of an estimated 114,000 was in the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne Cricket Ground for an exhibition game between teams from branches of American Military Forces and Australia.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The first official soccer match at the Coliseum was an international fixture between the United States and Mexico that took place on March 7, 1965, as part of regional World Cup qualification. The teams drew 2–2 in front of 22,570 spectators.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: Although the stadium represents the second most active venue in the history of the US national team (after Robert F. Kennedy), it has only played 22 matches in it, the last of them in 2000. Of these, eleven were of official competition (three from World Cup qualifiers, seven from the CONCACAF Gold Cup and one from the North American Nations Cup) and eleven friendlies, all category "A". In this scenario, the team won their first absolute title by finishing as champion of the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup, defeating their counterpart from Honduras on penalties.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: However, the most active national team at the Memorial Coliseum is Mexico, which has played 86 matches in the building: 14 in official competition (3 in the World Cup qualifying round, 9 in the Gold Cup and two from the North American Nations Cup), including the Gold Cup finals from 1996 and 1998, in which they won 2-0 against Brasil and 1-0 against United States respectively; and 72 friendlies (50 of - against other senior teams -, 6 of the so-called "B" selection and 16 against both Mexican and foreign clubs. Los Angeles is the second stadium where the Mexican representative has played the most matches, only after its official headquarters, the Azteca Stadium, surpassing any other venue both in his country and in the United States.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The stadium hosted the Los Angeles Wolves during the inaugural season of the United Soccer Association in 1967, which culminated in the final championship at the Coliseum. The Los Angeles Toros of the National Professional Soccer League also played at the Coliseum in 1967, but were moved to San Diego the following season before folding. The Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League played at the Coliseum in 1977 and 1981 between stints at the Rose Bowl.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: A pair of life-sized bronze nude statues of male and female athletes atop a 20,000 pound (9,000 kg) post-and-lintel frame formed the "Olympic Gateway" created by Robert Graham for the 1984 games. The statues, modeled on water polo player Terry Schroeder and long jumper from Guyana, Jennifer Inniss, who participated in the games, were noted for their anatomical accuracy. A decorative facade bearing the Olympic rings was erected in front of the peristyle for the 1984 games, and the structure remained in place through that year's football season. The stadium rim and tunnels were repainted in alternating pastel colors that were part of architect Jon Jerde's graphic design for the games; these colors remained until 1987.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: "Commemorating outstanding persons or events, athletic or otherwise, that have had a definite impact upon the history, glory, and growth of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum"


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The Coliseum Cauldron was built for the 1932 Summer Olympics and was also reused during the 1984 Summer Olympics.


title: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

text: The cauldron is a main sight on stadium and is still present in the Stadium and is lit during special events (such as the period when an edition of the Olympic Games are being held in another city or in mourning for some personality related to the city). As the stadium was the main venue on the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games the cauldron was relit by Rafer Johnson during the opening ceremonies and being extinguished again during the closing ceremony.


title: Time management

text: Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to work, social life, family, hobbies, personal interests, and commitments with the finite nature of time. Using time effectively gives the person "choice" on spending or managing activities at their own time and expediency. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects, and goals complying with a due date. Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually, the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Time management is usually a necessity in any project management as it determines the project completion time and scope.


title: Time management

text: The major themes arising from the literature on time management include creating an environment conducive to effectiveness (in terms of cost-benefit, quality of results, and time to complete tasks or project), setting of priorities, the related process of reduction of time spent on non-priorities, and implementation of goals.


title: Time management

text: Differences in the way a culture views time can affect the way their time is managed. For example, a "linear time" view is a way of conceiving time as flowing from one moment to the next in a linear fashion. This linear perception of time is predominant in America along with most Northern European countries, such as Germany, Switzerland, and England. People in these cultures tend to place a large value on productive time management, and tend to avoid decisions or actions that would result in wasted time. This linear view of time correlates to these cultures being more “monochronic”, or preferring to do only one thing at a time. Generally speaking, this cultural view leads to a better focus on accomplishing a singular task and hence, more productive time management.


title: Time management

text: Another cultural time view is "multi-active time" view. In multi-active cultures, most people feel that the more activities or tasks being done at once the better. This creates a sense of happiness. Multi-active cultures are “polychronic” or prefer to do multiple tasks at once. This multi-active time view is prominent in most Southern European countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In these cultures, the people often tend to spend time on things they deem to be more important such as placing a high importance on finishing social conversations. In business environments, they often pay little attention to how long meetings last, rather the focus is on having high quality meetings. In general, the cultural focus tends to be on synergy and creativity over efficiency.


title: Time management

text: A final cultural time view is a "cyclical time" view. In cyclical cultures, time is considered neither linear nor event related. Because days, months, years, seasons, and events happen in regular repetitive occurrences, time is viewed as cyclical. In this view, time is not seen as wasted because it will always come back later, hence there is an unlimited amount of it. This cyclical time view is prevalent throughout most countries in Asia, including Japan and China. It is more important in cultures with cyclical concepts of time to complete tasks correctly, therefore most people will spend more time thinking about decisions and the impact they will have, before acting on their plans. Most people in cyclical cultures tend to understand that other cultures have different perspectives of time and are cognizant of this when acting on a global stage.


title: Time management

text: Some time-management literature stresses tasks related to creating an environment conducive to "real" effectiveness. These strategies include principles such as:


title: Time management

text: Also, the timing of tackling tasks is important. As tasks requiring high levels of concentration and mental energy are often done at the beginning of the day when a person is more refreshed. Literature also focuses on overcoming chronic psychological issues such as procrastination.


title: Time management

text: Excessive and chronic inability to manage time effectively may result from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Diagnostic criteria include a sense of underachievement, difficulty getting organized, trouble getting started, trouble managing many simultaneous projects, and trouble with follow-through. Daniel Amen focuses on the prefrontal cortex which is the most recently evolved part of the brain. It manages the functions of attention span, impulse management, organization, learning from experience, and self-monitoring, among others. Some authors argue that changing the way the prefrontal cortex works is possible and offer a solution.


title: Time management

text: Time management strategies are often associated with the recommendation to set personal goals. The literature stresses themes such as:


title: Time management

text: These goals are recorded and may be broken down into a project, an action plan, or a simple task list. For individual tasks or for goals, an importance rating may be established, deadlines may be set, and priorities assigned. This process results in a plan with a task list, schedule, or calendar of activities. Authors may recommend a daily, weekly, monthly, or other planning periods, associated with different scope of planning or review. This is done in various ways, as follows:


title: Time management

text: A technique that has been used in business management for a long time is the categorization of large data into groups. These groups are often marked A, B, C and D—hence the name. Activities are ranked by these general criteria:


title: Time management

text: Each group is then rank-ordered by priority - to further refine the prioritization, some individuals choose to then force-rank all "B" items as either "A" or "C". ABC analysis can incorporate more than three groups.


title: Time management

text: The Pareto principle is the idea that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Applied to productivity, it means that 80% of results can be achieved by doing 20% of tasks. If productivity is the aim of time management, then these tasks should be prioritized higher.


title: Time management

text: The "Eisenhower Method" or "Eisenhower Principle" is a method that utilizes the principles of importance and urgency to organize priorities and workload. This method stems from a quote attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower: "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Eisenhower did not claim this insight for his own, but attributed it to an (unnamed) "former college president."


title: Time management

text: Using the Eisenhower Decision Principle, tasks are evaluated using the criteria important/unimportant and urgent/not urgent, and then placed in according quadrants in an Eisenhower Matrix (also known as an "Eisenhower Box" or "Eisenhower Decision Matrix"). Tasks in the quadrants are then handled as follows.


title: Time management

text: POSEC is an acronym for "Prioritize by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing and Contributing". The method dictates a template which emphasizes an average individual's immediate sense of emotional and monetary security. It suggests that by attending to one's personal responsibilities first, an individual is better positioned to shoulder collective responsibilities.


title: Time management

text: Inherent in the acronym is a hierarchy of self-realization, which mirrors Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.


title: Time management

text: Time management also covers how to eliminate tasks that do not provide value to the individual or organization.


title: Time management

text: The software executive Elisabeth Hendrickson asserts that rigid adherence to task lists can create a "tyranny of the to-do list" that forces one to "waste time on unimportant activities".


title: Time management

text: Part of setting priorities and goals is the emotion "worry," and its function is to ignore the present to fixate on a future that never arrives, which leads to the fruitless expense of one's time and energy. It is an unnecessary cost or a false aspect that can interfere with plans due to human factors. The Eisenhower Method is a strategy used to compete with worry and dull-imperative tasks. Worry as stress is a reaction to a set of environmental factors; understanding this is not a part of the person gives the person possibilities to manage them. Athletes under a coach call this management as "putting on the game face."


title: Time management

text: Change is hard, and daily life patterns are the most deeply ingrained habits of all. To eliminate non-priorities in study time, it is suggested to divide the tasks, capture the moments, review task handling method, postpone unimportant tasks (understanding that a task's current relevancy and sense of urgency reflect the wants of the person rather than the task's importance), manage life balance (rest, sleep, leisure), and cheat leisure and nonproductive time (hearing audio taping of lectures, going through presentations of lectures when in a queue, etc.).


title: Time management

text: Certain unnecessary factors that affect time management are habits, lack of task definition (lack of clarity), over-protectiveness of the work, the guilt of not meeting objectives and subsequent avoidance of present tasks, defining tasks with higher expectations than their worth (over-qualifying), focusing on matters that have an apparent positive outlook without assessing their importance to personal needs, tasks that require support and time, sectional interests, and conflicts, etc. A habituated systematic process becomes a device that the person can use with ownership for effective time management.


title: Time management

text: A task list (also called a to-do list or "things-to-do") is a list of tasks to be completed, such as chores or steps toward completing a project. It is an inventory tool which serves as an alternative or supplement to memory.


title: Time management

text: Task lists are used in self-management, business management, project management, and software development. It may involve more than one list.


title: Time management

text: When one of the items on a task list is accomplished, the task is checked or crossed off. The traditional method is to write these on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil, usually on a note pad or clip-board. Task lists can also have the form of paper or software checklists.


title: Time management

text: Numerous digital equivalents are now available, including personal information management (PIM) applications and most PDAs. There are also several web-based task list applications, many of which are free.


title: Time management

text: Task lists are often diarized and tiered. The simplest tiered system includes a general to-do list (or task-holding file) to record all the tasks the person needs to accomplish and a daily to-do list which is created each day by transferring tasks from the general to-do list. An alternative is to create a "not-to-do list", to avoid unnecessary tasks.


title: Time management

text: A completely different approach which argues "against" prioritizing altogether was put forward by British author Mark Forster in his book "Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management". This is based on the idea of operating "closed" to-do lists, instead of the traditional "open" to-do list. He argues that the traditional never-ending to-do lists virtually guarantees that some of your work will be left undone. This approach advocates getting all your work done, every day, and if you are unable to achieve it, that helps you diagnose where you are going wrong and what needs to change.


title: Time management

text: Many companies use time tracking software to track an employee's working time, billable hours, etc., e.g. law practice management software.


title: Time management

text: Many software products for time management support multiple users. They allow the person to give tasks to other users and use the software for communication and to prioritize tasks.


title: Time management

text: Task-list applications may be thought of as lightweight personal information manager or project management software.


title: Time management

text: Modern task list applications may have built-in task hierarchy (tasks are composed of subtasks which again may contain subtasks), may support multiple methods of filtering and ordering the list of tasks, and may allow one to associate arbitrarily long notes for each task.


title: Time management

text: In contrast to the concept of allowing the person to use multiple filtering methods, at least one software product additionally contains a mode where the software will attempt to dynamically determine the best tasks for any given moment.


title: Time management

text: Time management systems often include a time clock or web-based application used to track an employee's work hours. Time management systems give employers insights into their workforce, allowing them to see, plan and manage employees' time. Doing so allows employers to manage labor costs and increase productivity. A time management system automates processes, which eliminates paperwork and tedious tasks.


title: Time management

text: Getting Things Done was created by David Allen. The basic idea behind this method is to finish all the small tasks immediately and a big task is to be divided into smaller tasks to start completing now. The reasoning behind this is to avoid the information overload or "brain freeze" which is likely to occur when there are hundreds of tasks. The thrust of GTD is to encourage the user to get their tasks and ideas out and on paper and organized as quickly as possible so they're easy to manage and see.


title: Time management

text: Francesco Cirillo's "Pomodoro Technique" was originally conceived in the late 1980s and gradually refined until it was later defined in 1992. The technique is the namesake of a Pomodoro (Italian for tomato) shaped kitchen timer initially used by Cirillo during his time at university. The "Pomodoro" is described as the fundamental metric of time within the technique and is traditionally defined as being 30 minutes long, consisting of 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break time. Cirillo also recommends a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes after every four Pomodoros. Through experimentation involving various workgroups and mentoring activities, Cirillo determined the "ideal Pomodoro" to be 20–35 minutes long.


title: Time management

text: Organizational time management is the science of identifying, valuing and reducing time cost wastage within organizations. It identifies, reports and financially values sustainable time, wasted time and effective time within an organization and develops the business case to convert wasted time into productive time through the funding of products, services, projects or initiatives as a positive return on investment.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Ladda Tammy Duckworth (born March 12, 1968) is an American politician and retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel serving as the junior United States senator from Illinois since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented Illinois's 8th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Born in Bangkok, Thailand, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Duckworth was educated at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and George Washington University. A combat veteran of the Iraq War, she served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. In 2004, when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents, she lost both legs and some mobility in her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war. Despite her injuries, she sought and obtained a medical waiver that allowed her to continue serving in the Illinois Army National Guard until she retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2014.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2006, then served as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and as assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2011. In 2012, Duckworth was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served two terms. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, defeating Republican incumbent Mark Kirk.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth is the first Thai American woman elected to Congress, the first person born in Thailand elected to Congress, the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, the first female double amputee in the Senate, and the first senator to give birth while in office. Duckworth is the second of three Asian American women to serve in the U.S. Senate, after Mazie Hirono, and before Kamala Harris.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, the daughter of Franklin Duckworth and Lamai Sompornpairin. Although born outside the United States, Duckworth is a natural-born citizen through her father's status as an American citizen. Her father, who died in 2005, was a veteran of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps who traced his family's American roots to the American Revolutionary War. Her mother is Thai Chinese and originally from Chiang Mai. Her father was a Baptist who worked with the United Nations and international companies in refugee, housing, and development programs, and the family moved around Southeast Asia. Duckworth became fluent in Thai and Indonesian, in addition to English.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth attended Singapore American School, the International School Bangkok, and the Jakarta International School. The family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, when Duckworth was 16, and she attended Honolulu's McKinley High School, where she participated in track and field and graduated in 1985. Because of a difference in the grade levels between the school systems she attended, Duckworth skipped half of her ninth grade year and half of her tenth. She was a Girl Scout, and earned her First Class, now called the Gold Award. Her father was unemployed for a time, and the family relied on public assistance. She graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. In 1992, she received a Master of Arts in international affairs from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. She began a PhD program at Northern Illinois University, which was interrupted by her war service. She completed a PhD in human services at Capella University in March 2015.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Following in the footsteps of her father, who served in World War II and the Vietnam War, and ancestors who served in every major conflict since the Revolutionary War, Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps in 1990 as a graduate student at George Washington University. She became a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 and chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat jobs open to women at that time. As a member of the Army Reserve, she went to flight school, later transferring to the Army National Guard and in 1996 entering the Illinois Army National Guard. Duckworth also worked as a staff supervisor at Rotary International headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, and was the coordinator of the Center for Nursing Research at Northern Illinois University.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was working toward a Ph.D. in political science at Northern Illinois University, with research interests in the political economy and public health of southeast Asia, when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. She lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries sustained on November 12, 2004, when the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents. She was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq War. The explosion severely broke her right arm and tore tissue from it, necessitating major surgery to repair it. Duckworth received a Purple Heart on December 3 and was promoted to the rank of major on December 21 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she was presented with an Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal. She retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in October 2014 as a lieutenant colonel.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In 2011 the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a statue with Duckworth's likeness and that of Molly Pitcher in Mount Vernon, Illinois. The statue was dedicated to female veterans.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On November 21, 2006, several weeks after losing her first congressional campaign, Duckworth was appointed director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs by Governor Rod Blagojevich. She served in that position until February 8, 2009. While director, she was credited with starting a program to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and veterans with brain injuries.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On September 17, 2008, Duckworth attended a campaign event for Dan Seals, the Democratic candidate for Illinois's 10th congressional district. She used vacation time, but violated Illinois law by going to the event in a state-owned van that was equipped for a person with physical disabilities. She acknowledged the mistake and repaid the state for the use of the van.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In 2009, two Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs employees at the Anna Veterans' Home in Union County filed a lawsuit against Duckworth. The lawsuit alleged that she wrongfully terminated one employee and threatened and intimidated another for bringing reports of abuse and misconduct of veterans when she was head of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. Duckworth was represented in the suit by the Illinois Attorney General's office. The case was dismissed twice but refilings were allowed. The case settled in June 2016 for $26,000 with no admission of wrongdoing. The plaintiffs later indicated they no longer wanted to settle, but the judge gave them 21 days to sign the settlement and canceled the trial.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On February 3, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Duckworth to be the Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). and the United States Senate confirmed her for the position on April 22. As Assistant Secretary, she coordinated a joint initiative with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help end Veteran homelessness, worked to address the unique challenges faced by female as well as Native American Veterans, and created the Office of Online Communications to improve the VA's accessibility, especially among young Veterans. Duckworth resigned her position in June 2011 in order to launch her campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois's 8th congressional district.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: After longtime incumbent Republican Henry Hyde announced his retirement from Congress, several candidates began campaigning for the open seat. Duckworth won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 44%, defeating 2004 nominee Christine Cegelis with 40%, and Wheaton College professor Lindy Scott with 16%. State Senator Peter Roskam was unopposed in the Republican primary. For the general election, Duckworth was endorsed by EMILY's List, a political action committee that supports female Democratic candidates who back abortion rights. Duckworth was also endorsed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Fraternal Order of Police. While she raised $4.5 million to Roskam's $3.44 million, Duckworth lost by 4,810 votes, receiving 49% to Roskam's 51%.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In July 2011, Duckworth launched her campaign to run in 2012 for Illinois's 8th congressional district. She defeated former Deputy Treasurer of Illinois Raja Krishnamoorthi for the Democratic nomination on March 20, 2012, then faced incumbent Republican Joe Walsh in the general election. Duckworth received the endorsement of both the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Daily Herald". Walsh generated controversy when in July 2012, at a campaign event, he accused Duckworth of politicizing her military service and injuries, saying "my God, that's all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it's the last thing in the world they talk about." Walsh called the controversy over his comments "a political ploy to distort my words and distract voters" and said that "Of course Tammy Duckworth is a hero ... I have called her a hero hundreds of times."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On November 6, 2012, Duckworth defeated Walsh 55%–45%, making her the first Asian-American from Illinois in Congress, the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, and the first member of Congress born in Thailand.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In the 2014 general election, Duckworth faced Republican Larry Kaifesh, a United States Marine Corps officer who had recently left active duty as a colonel. Duckworth defeated Kaifesh with 56% of the vote.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On April 3, 2013, Duckworth publicly returned 8.4% ($1,218) of her congressional salary for that month to the United States Department of Treasury in solidarity with furloughed government workers.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On June 26, 2013, during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Duckworth received national media attention after questioning Strong Castle CEO Braulio Castillo on a $500 million government contract the company had been awarded based on Castillo's disabled veteran status. Castillo had injured his ankle at the US Military Academy's prep school, USMAPS, in 1984.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On March 30, 2015, Duckworth announced that she would challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk for his seat in the 2016 Senate election in Illinois. Duckworth defeated fellow Democrats Andrea Zopp and Napoleon Harris in the primary election on March 15, 2016.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: During a televised debate on October 27, 2016, Duckworth talked about her ancestors' past service in the United States military. Kirk responded, "I'd forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington." The comment led to the Human Rights Campaign withdrawing their endorsement of Kirk and switching it to Duckworth, stating his comments were "deeply offensive and racist."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On November 8, Duckworth defeated Kirk 55 percent to 40 percent to win the Senate seat. Duckworth and Kamala Harris, who was also elected in 2016, are the second and third female Asian American senators, after Mazie Hirono who was elected in 2012.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In March 2021, Duckworth announced her candidacy for reelection in the 2022 election. On November 8, 2022, Duckworth won her reelection to the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican challenger Kathy Salvi. Duckworth's win makes her the first woman reelected to a senate seat in Illinois.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: According to The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint partnership between the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, Duckworth's "Legislative Effectiveness Score" (LES) is "Exceeds Expectations" as a freshman senator in the 115th Congress (2017–2018), the 11th highest out of 48 Democratic senators.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: GovTrack's Report Card on Duckworth for the 115th Congress found that among Senate freshmen, she ranked first in favorably reporting bills out of committee and "Got influential cosponsors the most often compared to Senate freshmen." GovTrack also found that in the first session of the 116th Congress, Duckworth ranked first in favorably reporting bills out of committee and "Got influential cosponsors the most often compared to Senate sophomores."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: During the 115th Congress, Duckworth was credited with saving the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, she led public opposition to a controversial bill, H.R. 620, and led 42 senators in pledging to oppose any effort to pass H.R. 620 through the Senate. The Veterans Service Organization and Paralyzed Veterans of America recognized Duckworth's leadership in defending the Americans with Disabilities Act.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In January 2018, when the federal government shut down after the Senate could not agree on a funding bill, Duckworth responded to President Trump's accusations that the Democrats were putting "unlawful immigrants" ahead of the military:


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In 2018, Duckworth became the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office. Shortly afterward, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 463, which Duckworth introduced on April 12, 2018, by unanimous consent. The resolution changed Senate rules so that a senator may bring a child under one year old to the Senate floor during votes. The day after the rules were changed, Duckworth's daughter became the first baby on the Senate floor.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On April 15, 2020, the Trump administration invited Duckworth to join a bipartisan task force on the reopening of the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was publicly critical of Trump's decision to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in September 2020. Barrett, a devout Catholic, is a member of a group that considers in vitro fertilization morally illicit. Duckworth said that Barrett's membership in such an organization was "disqualifying and, frankly, insulting to every parent". Both of Duckworth's children were conceived by IVF.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint initiative of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, ranked Duckworth the fifth most effective Democratic senator in the 116th Congress and the most effective Democratic senator on transportation policy. Professors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman, co-directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, stated, "While still in her first term, Senator Tammy Duckworth has risen to the top five among effective Democratic lawmakers in the Senate. She sponsored 77 bills in the 116th Congress, with four of them passing the Republican-controlled Senate and two becoming law."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the attack, Duckworth called Trump "a threat to our nation" and called for his immediate removal from office through the invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or impeachment. Two days later, on January 8, she also called for the resignation of Representative Mary Miller, who had quoted Adolf Hitler during a speech on January 5.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In June 2022, President Biden sent Duckworth to Taiwan, where she held a press conference with Tsai Ing-wen to announce the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade in the wake of fears of angering China by the other partners to the May 2022 Indo-Pacific trade agreement. Duckworth's mission was planned in conjunction with the U.S. Trade Representative's office, which leads the Initiative for Washington.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth is the sponsor of S. 3635, the Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022, which would provide line of duty death designation to law enforcement and other public safety officers who die as a result of traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other "silent" injuries. The bill is based on the death of Washington, D.C. police officer Jeffrey Smith in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Smith died of post-concussive syndrome after suffering repeated attacks at the Capitol.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth has spoken at the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. She was the permanent co-chair of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. At the 2020 convention she called Trump "coward-in-chief" for not supporting the American military.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was vetted as a possible running mate during Joe Biden's vice presidential candidate selection. Fellow U.S. Senator Kamala Harris was instead selected. Biden nominated Duckworth to serve as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, along with Gretchen Whitmer, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Filemon Vela Jr.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In April 2019, Duckworth was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions and expressing disagreement with Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: During her unsuccessful congressional campaign in 2006, Duckworth called on Congress to audit the estimated $437 billion spent on overseas military and foreign aid since September 11, 2001.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On September 30, 2006, Duckworth gave the Democratic Party's response to President George W. Bush's weekly radio address. In it, she was critical of Bush's strategy for the Iraq War.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In October 2006, "The Sunday Times" reported that Duckworth agreed with General Sir Richard Dannatt, the British Army chief, that the presence of coalition troops was exacerbating the conflict in Iraq.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth supports continued U.S. military aid to Israel and opposes the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. She voiced her opposition to Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In May 2019, Duckworth was a cosponsor of the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and air space in disputed zones in the South China Sea.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: On June 6, 2021, Duckworth and Senators Dan Sullivan and Christopher Coons visited Taipei in an U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport to meet President Tsai Ing-wen and Minister Joseph Wu during the pandemic outbreak of Taiwan to announce President Joe Biden's donation plan of 750,000 COVID-19 vaccines included in the global COVAX program.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth was rated by the National Rifle Association as having a pro-gun control congressional voting record. Duckworth, who is a gun owner herself, cites violence in Chicago as a major influence for her support of gun control. She supports universal background checks and the halting of state-to-state gun trafficking.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth participated in the 2016 Chris Murphy gun control filibuster. During the sit-in, Duckworth hid her mobile phone in her prosthetic leg to avoid it being taken away from her since taking pictures and recording on the House floor is against policy.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In a 2016 interview with "GQ" magazine, Duckworth stated that gaining control of the Senate and "closing the gap" in the House would be necessary in order to pass common sense gun laws. She also stated that she believed moderate Republicans, who support common sense gun control, would have more power to influence gun control if they were not "pushed aside by those folks who are absolutely beholden to the NRA. And so we never get the vote."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth supports abortion rights. After "Roe v. Wade" was overturned in 2022, Duckworth said she was "outraged and horrified." She called the decision a "nightmare", robbing women of their right to make health care decisions.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth supports comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally. She would admit 100,000 Syrian refugees into the United States.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In August 2018, Duckworth was one of seventeen senators to sign a letter spearheaded by Kamala Harris to United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen demanding that the Trump administration take immediate action in attempting to reunite 539 migrant children with their families, citing each passing day of inaction as intensifying "trauma that this administration has needlessly caused for children and their families seeking humanitarian protection."


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: In May 2010, Duckworth was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) by Northern Illinois University. In 2011, Chicago's Access Living honored Duckworth for her work on behalf of veterans with disabilities, bestowing her with the Gordon H. Mansfield Congressional Leadership Award.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth is heavily decorated for her service in Iraq, with over 10 distinct military honors, most notably the Purple Heart, an award her Marine father had also received.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Former Republican presidential candidate and Senator from Kansas Bob Dole dedicated his autobiography "One Soldier's Story" in part to Duckworth. Duckworth credits Dole for inspiring her to pursue public service, while she recuperated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; although, in 2006, Dole endorsed Duckworth's Republican opponent, Peter Roskam.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth has been married to Bryan Bowlsbey since 1993. They met during Duckworth's participation in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and later served together in the Illinois Army National Guard. Bowlsbey, a Signal Corps officer, is also a veteran of the Iraq War. Both have since retired from the armed forces.


title: Tammy Duckworth

text: Duckworth and Bowlsbey have two daughters: Abigail, who was born in 2014, and Maile, born in 2018. Maile's birth made Duckworth the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office. Former senator Daniel Akaka helped the couple with the naming of both daughters; Akaka died April 6, 2018, three days before Maile was born. Shortly after Maile's birth, a Senate rule change permitted senators to bring children under one year old on the Senate floor to breastfeed. This was a symbolic moment for Duckworth, as she had previously introduced the bipartisan Friendly Airports for Mothers (FAM) Act to ensure new mothers access to safe, clean and accessible lactation rooms in airports. The day after the rule change, Duckworth brought Maile with her during the casting of a Senate vote, making Duckworth the first senator to cast a vote while holding a baby.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The was a UK-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. The attack took place in the declared maritime war-zone around the UK, shortly after unrestricted submarine warfare against the ships of the United Kingdom had been announced by Germany following the Allied powers' implementation of a naval blockade against it and the other Central Powers. The passengers had been warned before departing New York of the danger of voyaging into the area in a British ship.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The Cunard liner was attacked by commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. After the single torpedo struck, a second explosion occurred inside the ship, which then sank in only 18 minutes. The U-20’s mission was to torpedo warships and liners in the Lusitania’s area. 761 people survived out of the 1,266 passengers and 696 crew aboard, and 123 of the casualties were American citizens. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany. It also contributed to the American entry into the War two years later; images of the stricken liner were used heavily in US propaganda and military recruiting campaigns.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The contemporary investigations in both the United Kingdom and the United States into the precise causes of the ship's loss were obstructed by the needs of wartime secrecy and a propaganda campaign to ensure all blame fell upon Germany. Argument over whether the ship was a legitimate military target raged back and forth throughout the war, but after the war it was revealed that at the time of her sinking she was carrying over 4 million rounds of machine-gun ammunition (.303 calibre), almost 5,000 shrapnel shell casings (for a total of some 50 tons), and 3,240 brass percussion artillery fuses.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Several attempts have been made over the years since the sinking to dive to the wreck seeking information about how the ship sank, and military ammunition has been discovered in the wreck. The argument continues to the present day.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: When "Lusitania" was built, her construction and operating expenses were subsidized by the British government, with the provision that she could be converted to an Armed Merchant Cruiser if need be. At the outbreak of the First World War, the British Admiralty considered her for requisition as an armed merchant cruiser, and she was put on the official list of AMCs.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The Admiralty then cancelled their earlier decision and decided not to use her as an AMC after all; large liners such as "Lusitania" consumed enormous quantities of coal (910 tons/day, or 37.6 tons/hour) and became a serious drain on the Admiralty's fuel reserves, so express liners were deemed inappropriate for the role when smaller cruisers would do. They were also very distinctive; so smaller liners were used as transports instead. "Lusitania" remained on the official AMC list and was listed as an auxiliary cruiser in the 1914 edition of "Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships", along with "Mauretania".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: At the outbreak of hostilities, fears for the safety of "Lusitania" and other great liners ran high. During the ship's first eastbound crossing after the war started, she was painted in a drab grey colour scheme in an attempt to mask her identity and make her more difficult to detect visually. When it turned out that the German Navy was kept in check by the Royal Navy, and their commerce threat almost entirely evaporated, it very soon seemed that the Atlantic was safe for ships like "Lusitania", if the bookings justified the expense of keeping them in service.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Many of the large liners were laid up over the autumn and winter of 1914–1915, in part due to falling demand for passenger travel across the Atlantic, and in part to protect them from damage due to mines or other dangers. Among the most recognizable of these liners, some were eventually used as troop transports, while others became hospital ships. "Lusitania" remained in commercial service; although bookings aboard her were by no means strong during that autumn and winter, demand was strong enough to keep her in civilian service. Economizing measures were taken, however. One of these was the shutting down of her No. 4 boiler room to conserve coal and crew costs; this reduced her maximum speed from over . Even so, she was the fastest first-class passenger liner left in commercial service.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: With apparent dangers evaporating, the ship's disguised paint scheme was also dropped and she was returned to civilian colours. Her name was picked out in gilt, her funnels were repainted in their usual Cunard livery, and her superstructure was painted white again. One alteration was the addition of a bronze/gold coloured band around the base of the superstructure just above the black paint.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The British established a naval blockade of Germany on the outbreak of war in August 1914, issuing a comprehensive list of contraband that included even foodstuffs, and in early November 1914 Britain declared the North Sea to be a war zone, with any ships entering the North Sea doing so at their own risk.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: By early 1915, a new threat to British shipping began to materialise: U-boats (submarines). At first, the Germans used them only to attack naval vessels, and they achieved only occasional—but sometimes spectacular—successes. U-boats then began to attack merchant vessels at times, although almost always in accordance with the old cruiser rules. Desperate to gain an advantage on the Atlantic, the German government decided to step up its submarine campaign. On 4 February 1915, Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone: from 18 February, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. This was not wholly unrestricted submarine warfare, since efforts would be taken to avoid sinking neutral ships.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "Lusitania" was scheduled to arrive in Liverpool on 6 March 1915. The Admiralty issued her specific instructions on how to avoid submarines. Despite a severe shortage of destroyers, Admiral Henry Oliver ordered HMS and to escort "Lusitania", and took the further precaution of sending the Q ship to patrol Liverpool Bay. One of the destroyers' commanders attempted to discover the whereabouts of "Lusitania" by telephoning Cunard, who refused to give out any information and referred him to the Admiralty. At sea, the ships contacted "Lusitania" by radio, but did not have the codes used to communicate with merchant ships. Captain Daniel Dow of "Lusitania" refused to give his own position except in code, and since he was, in any case, some distance from the positions he gave, continued to Liverpool unescorted.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: It seems that, in response to this new submarine threat, some alterations were made to "Lusitania" and her operation. She was ordered not to fly any flags in the war zone; a number of warnings, plus advice, were sent to the ship's commander to help him decide how to best protect his ship against the new threat and it also seems that her funnels were most likely painted a dark grey to help make her less visible to enemy submarines. There was no hope of disguising her actual identity, since her profile was so well known, and no attempt was made to paint out the ship's name at the prow.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Dow, apparently suffering from stress from operating his ship in the war zone, and after a significant "false flag" controversy left the ship; Cunard later explained that he was "tired and really ill." He was replaced with a new commander, Captain William Thomas Turner, who had commanded "Lusitania", "Mauretania", and "Aquitania" in the years before the war.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 17 April 1915, "Lusitania" left Liverpool on her 201st transatlantic voyage, arriving in New York on 24 April. A group of German–Americans, hoping to avoid controversy if "Lusitania" were attacked by a U-boat, discussed their concerns with a representative of the German Embassy. The embassy decided to warn passengers before her next crossing not to sail aboard "Lusitania", and on 22 April placed a warning advertisement in 50 American newspapers, including those in New York:


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: This warning was printed adjacent to an advertisement for "Lusitania"s return voyage. The warning led to some agitation in the press and worried the ship's passengers and crew.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: While many British passenger ships had been called into duty for the war effort, "Lusitania" remained on her regular route between Liverpool and New York City. She departed Pier 54 in New York on 1 May 1915 on her return trip to Liverpool with 1,959 people aboard. In addition to her crew of 694, she carried 1,265 passengers, mostly British nationals as well as a large number of Canadians, along with 128 Americans. Her First Class accommodations, for which she was well regarded on the North Atlantic run, were booked at just over half capacity at 290. Second Class was severely overbooked with 601 passengers, far exceeding the maximum capacity of 460. While a large number of small children and infants helped reduce the squeeze into the limited number of two- and four-berth cabins, the situation was rectified by allowing some Second Class passengers to occupy empty First Class cabins. In Third Class, the situation was considered to be the norm for an eastbound crossing, with only 373 travelling in accommodations designed for 1,186.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Turner, known as "Bowler Bill" for his favourite shoreside headgear, had returned to his old command of "Lusitania". He was commodore of the Cunard Line and a highly experienced master mariner, and had relieved Daniel Dow, the ship's regular captain. Dow had been instructed by his chairman, Alfred Booth, to take some leave, due to the stress of captaining the ship in U-boat infested sea lanes and for his protestations that the ship should not become an armed merchant cruiser, making her a prime target for German forces. Turner tried to calm the passengers by explaining that the ship's speed made her safe from attack by submarine. However, Cunard shut down one of the ship's four boiler rooms to reduce costs on sparsely subscribed wartime voyages, reducing her top speed from 25.5 to around 22 knots.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "Lusitania" steamed out of New York at noon on 1 May, two hours behind schedule, because of a last-minute transfer of forty-one passengers and crew from the recently requisitioned "Cameronia". Shortly after departure three German-speaking men were found on board hiding in a steward's pantry. Detective Inspector William Pierpoint of the Liverpool police, who was travelling in the guise of a first-class passenger, interrogated them before locking them in the cells for further questioning when the ship reached Liverpool. Also among the crew was an Englishman, Neal Leach, who had been working as a tutor in Germany before the war. Leach had been interned but later released by Germany. The German embassy in Washington was notified about Leach's arrival in America, where he met known German agents. Leach and the three German stowaways went down with the ship. They had probably been tasked with spying on "Lusitania" and her cargo. Most probably, Pierpoint, who survived the sinking, would already have been informed about Leach.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: As the liner steamed across the ocean, the British Admiralty had been tracking the movements of , commanded by "Kapitänleutnant" Walther Schwieger, through wireless intercepts and radio direction finding. The submarine left Borkum on 30 April, heading north-west across the North Sea. On 2 May, she had reached Peterhead and proceeded around the north of Scotland and Ireland, and then along the western and southern coasts of Ireland, to enter the Irish Sea from the south. Although the submarine's departure, destination, and expected arrival time were known to Room 40 in the Admiralty, the activities of the decoding department were considered so secret that they were unknown even to the normal intelligence division which tracked enemy ships or to the trade division responsible for warning merchant vessels. Only the very highest officers in the Admiralty saw the information and passed on warnings only when they felt it essential.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 27 March, Room 40 had intercepted a message which clearly demonstrated that the Germans had broken the code used to pass messages to British merchant ships. Cruisers protecting merchant ships were warned not to use the code to give directions to shipping because it could just as easily attract enemy submarines as steering ships away from them. However, Queenstown (now Cobh) was not given this warning and continued to give directions in the compromised code, which was not changed until after "Lusitania"s sinking. At this time, the Royal Navy was significantly involved with operations leading up to the landings at Gallipoli, and the intelligence department had been undertaking a program of misinformation to convince Germany to expect an attack on her northern coast. As part of this, ordinary cross-channel traffic to the Netherlands was halted from 19 April and false reports were leaked about troop ship movements from ports on Britain's western and southern coasts. This led to a demand from the German army for offensive action against the expected troop movements and consequently, a surge in German submarine activity on the British west coast. The fleet was warned to expect additional submarines, but this warning was not passed on to those sections of the navy dealing with merchant vessels. The return of the battleship "Orion" from Devonport to Scotland was delayed until 4 May and she was given orders to stay from the Irish coast.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 5 May, "U-20" stopped a merchant schooner, "Earl of Lathom", off the Old Head of Kinsale, examined her papers, then ordered her crew to leave before sinking the schooner with gunfire. On 6 May, "U-20" fired a torpedo at "Cayo Romano" from Cuba, a British steamer flying a neutral flag, off Fastnet Rock narrowly missing by a few feet. At 22:30 on 5 May, the Royal Navy sent an uncoded warning to all ships – "Submarines active off the south coast of Ireland" – and at midnight an addition was made to the regular nightly warnings, "submarine off Fastnet". On 6 May "U-20" sank the 6,000 ton steamer "Candidate". It then failed to get off a shot at the 16,000 ton liner "Arabic", because although she kept a straight course the liner was too fast, but then sank another 6,000 ton British cargo ship flying no flag, "Centurion", all in the region of the Coningbeg light ship. The specific mention of a submarine was dropped from the midnight broadcast on 6–7 May as news of the new sinkings had not yet reached the navy at Queenstown, and it was correctly assumed that there was no longer a submarine at Fastnet.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Turner of "Lusitania" was given a warning message twice on the evening of 6 May, and took what he felt were prudent precautions. That evening a Seamen's Charities fund concert took place throughout the ship and the captain was obliged to attend the event in the first-class lounge.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: At about 11:00 on 7 May, the Admiralty radioed another warning to all ships, probably as a result of a request by Alfred Booth, who was concerned about "Lusitania": "U-boats active in southern part of Irish Channel. Last heard of twenty miles south of Coningbeg Light Vessel". Booth and all of Liverpool had received news of the sinkings, which the Admiralty had known about by at least 3:00 that morning. Turner adjusted his heading northeast, not knowing that this report related to events of the previous day and apparently thinking submarines would be more likely to keep to the open sea, so that "Lusitania" would be safer close to land. At 13:00 another message was received, "Submarine five miles south of Cape Clear proceeding west when sighted at 10:00 am". This report was inaccurate as no submarine had been at that location, but gave the impression that at least one submarine had been safely passed.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "U-20" was low on fuel and had only three torpedoes left. On the morning of 7 May, visibility was poor and Schwieger decided to head for home. He submerged at 11:00 after sighting a fishing boat which he believed might be a British patrol and shortly after was passed while still submerged by a ship at high speed. This was the cruiser returning to Queenstown, travelling fast and zig-zagging having received warning of submarine activity off Queenstown at 07:45. The Admiralty considered these old cruisers highly vulnerable to submarines, and indeed Schwieger attempted to target the ship.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On the morning of 6 May, "Lusitania" was west of southern Ireland. By 05:00 on 7 May, she reached a point west-southwest of Fastnet Rock (off the southern tip of Ireland), where she met the patrolling boarding vessel "Partridge". By 06:00, heavy fog had arrived and extra lookouts were posted. As the ship came closer to Ireland, Captain Turner ordered depth soundings to be made and at 08:00 for speed to be reduced to eighteen knots, then to 15 knots and for the foghorn to be sounded. Some of the passengers were disturbed that the ship appeared to be advertising her presence. By 10:00, the fog began to lift, by noon it had been replaced by bright sunshine over a clear smooth sea and speed increased to 18 knots.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "U-20" surfaced again at 12:45 as visibility was now excellent. At 13:20, something was sighted and Schwieger was summoned to the conning tower: at first it appeared to be several ships because of the number of funnels and masts, but this resolved into one large steamer appearing over the horizon. At 13:25, the submarine submerged to periscope depth of 11 metres and set a course to intercept the liner at her maximum submerged speed of 9 knots. When the ships had closed to "Lusitania" turned away, Schwieger feared he had lost his target, but she turned again, this time onto a near ideal course to bring her into position for an attack. At 14:10, with the target at 700m range he ordered one gyroscopic torpedo to be fired, set to run at a depth of three metres.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On board the "Lusitania", Leslie Morton, an eighteen-year-old lookout at the bow, had spotted thin lines of foam racing toward the ship. He shouted, "Torpedoes coming on the starboard side!" through a megaphone, thinking the bubbles came from two projectiles. The torpedo struck "Lusitania" under the bridge, sending a plume of debris, steel plating, and water upward and knocking lifeboat number five off its davits. "It sounded like a million-ton hammer hitting a steam boiler a hundred feet high", one passenger said. A second, more powerful explosion followed, sending a geyser of water, coal, dust, and debris high above the deck. Schwieger's log entries attest that he launched only one torpedo. Some doubt the validity of this claim, contending that the German government subsequently altered the published fair copy of Schwieger's log, but accounts from other "U-20" crew members corroborate it. The entries were also consistent with intercepted radio reports sent to Germany by "U-20" once she had returned to the North Sea, before any possibility of an official coverup.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: At 14:12, Captain Turner ordered Quartermaster Johnston stationed at the ship's wheel to steer 'hard-a-starboard' towards the Irish coast, which Johnston confirmed, but the ship could not be steadied on the course and rapidly ceased to respond to the wheel. Turner signalled for the engines to be reversed to halt the ship, but although the signal was received in the engine room, nothing could be done. Steam pressure had collapsed from 195 psi before the explosion, to 50 psi and falling afterwards. "Lusitania"s wireless operator sent out an immediate SOS, which was acknowledged by a coastal wireless station. Shortly afterward he transmitted the ship's position, south of the Old Head of Kinsale. At 14:14, electrical power failed, plunging the cavernous interior of the ship into darkness. Radio signals continued on emergency batteries, but electric lifts failed, trapping passengers and crew; bulkhead doors, that were closed as a precaution before the attack, could not be reopened to release trapped men.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: About one minute after the electrical power failed, Captain Turner gave the order to abandon ship. Water had flooded the ship's starboard longitudinal compartments, causing a 15-degree list to starboard.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "Lusitania"s severe starboard list complicated the launch of her lifeboats. Ten minutes after the torpedoing, when she had slowed enough to start putting boats in the water, the lifeboats on the starboard side swung out too far to step aboard safely. While it was still possible to board the lifeboats on the port side, lowering them presented a different problem. As was typical for the period, the hull plates of "Lusitania" were riveted, and as the lifeboats were lowered they dragged on the inch-high rivets, which threatened to seriously damage the boats before they landed in the water.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Many lifeboats overturned while loading or lowering, spilling passengers into the sea and others were overturned by the ship's motion when they hit the water. It has been claimed that some boats, because of the negligence of some officers, crashed down onto the deck, crushing other passengers, and sliding down towards the bridge. This has been disputed by passenger and crew testimony. Some crewmen would lose their grip on ropes used to lower the lifeboats while trying to lower the boats into the ocean, and this caused the passengers to spill into the sea. Others tipped on launch as some panicking people jumped into the boat. "Lusitania" had 48 lifeboats, more than enough for all the crew and passengers, but only 6 were successfully lowered, all from the starboard side. Lifeboat 1 overturned as it was being lowered, spilling its original occupants into the sea, but it managed to right itself shortly afterwards and was later filled with people from in the water. Lifeboats 9 (5 people on board) and 11 (7 people on board) managed to reach the water safely with a few people, but both later picked up many swimmers. Lifeboats 13 and 15 also safely reached the water, overloaded with around 150 people. Finally, Lifeboat 21 (52 people on board) reached the water safely and cleared the ship moments before her final plunge. A few of her collapsible lifeboats washed off her decks as she sank and provided flotation for some survivors.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Two lifeboats on the port side cleared the ship as well. Lifeboat 14 (11 people on board) was lowered and launched safely, but because the boat plug was not in place, it filled with seawater and sank almost immediately after reaching the water. Later, Lifeboat 2 floated away from the ship with new occupants (its previous ones having been spilled into the sea when they upset the boat) after they removed a rope and one of the ship's "tentacle-like" funnel stays. They rowed away shortly before the ship sank.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: There was panic and disorder on the decks. Schwieger had been observing this through "U-20" periscope, and by 14:25, he dropped the periscope and headed out to sea. Later in the war, Schwieger was killed in action when, as he commanded the vessel struck a British mine and sank on 5 September 1917, north of Terschelling. There were no survivors from "U-88" sinking.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Turner was on the deck near the bridge clutching the ship's logbook and charts when a wave swept upward towards the bridge and the rest of the ship's forward superstructure, knocking him overboard into the sea. He managed to swim and find a chair floating in the water which he clung to. He survived, having been pulled unconscious from the water after spending three hours there. "Lusitania"s bow slammed into the bottom about below at a shallow angle because of her forward momentum as she sank. Along the way, some boilers exploded. As he had taken the ship's logbook and charts with him, Turner's last navigational fix had been only two minutes before the torpedoing, and he was able to remember the ship's speed and bearing at the moment of the sinking. This was accurate enough to locate the wreck after the war. The ship travelled about from the time of the torpedoing to her final resting place, leaving a trail of debris and people behind. After her bow sank completely, "Lusitania"s stern rose out of the water, enough for her propellers to be seen, and went under. None of the four funnels collapsed, although some survivors testified that the third funnel swung and struck their lifeboat as they boarded it.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: "Lusitania" sank in only 18 minutes, at a distance of off the Old Head of Kinsale. Despite being relatively close to shore, it took several hours for help to arrive from the Irish coast. By the time help arrived, however, many in the water had succumbed to the cold. By the days' end, 764 passengers and crew from "Lusitania" had been rescued and landed at Queenstown. The final death toll for the disaster came to a catastrophic number. Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard "Lusitania" at the time of her sinking, 1,195 had been lost. In the days following the disaster, the Cunard line offered local fishermen and sea merchants a cash reward for the bodies floating all throughout the Irish Sea, some floating as far away as the Welsh coast. Only 289 bodies were recovered, 65 of which were never identified. The bodies of many of the victims were buried at either Queenstown, where 148 bodies were interred in the Old Church Cemetery, or the Church of St Multose in Kinsale, but the bodies of the remaining 885 victims were never recovered.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Two days before, "U-20" had sunk "Earl of Lathom", but first allowed the crew to escape in boats. According to international maritime law, any military vessel stopping an unarmed civilian ship was required to allow those on board time to escape before sinking it. The conventions had been drawn up in a time before the invention of the submarine and took no account of the severe risk a small vessel, such as a submarine, faced if it gave up the advantage of a surprise attack. Schwieger could have allowed the crew and passengers of "Lusitania" to take to the boats, but he considered the danger of being rammed or fired upon by deck guns too great. Merchant ships had, in fact, been advised to steer directly at any U-boat that surfaced. A cash bonus had been offered for any that were sunk, though the advice was carefully worded so as not to amount to an order to ram. This feat would be accomplished only once during the war by a commercial vessel when in 1918 the White Star Liner , sister ship to the "Titanic", rammed SM "U-103" in the English Channel, sinking the submarine.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: According to Bailey and Ryan, "Lusitania" was travelling without any flag and her name painted over with darkish dye.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: One story—an urban legend—states that when Lieutenant Schwieger of "U-20" gave the order to fire, his quartermaster, Charles Voegele, would not take part in an attack on women and children, and refused to pass on the order to the torpedo room – a decision for which he was court-martialed and imprisoned at Kiel until the end of the war. This rumour persisted from 1972, when the French daily paper "Le Monde" published a letter to the editor.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 8 May, the local county coroner John Hogan opened an inquest in Kinsale into the deaths of two males and three females whose bodies had been brought ashore by a local boat, "Heron". Most of the survivors (and dead) had been taken to Queenstown instead of Kinsale, which was closer. On 10 May Captain Turner gave evidence as to the events of the sinking where he described that the ship had been struck by one torpedo between the third and fourth funnels. This had been followed immediately by a second explosion. He acknowledged receiving general warnings about submarines, but had not been informed of the sinking of "Earl of Lathom". He stated that he had received other instructions from the Admiralty which he had carried out but was not permitted to discuss. The coroner brought in a verdict that the deceased had drowned following an attack on an unarmed non-combatant vessel contrary to international law. Half an hour after the inquest had concluded and its results given to the press, the Crown Solicitor for Cork, Harry Wynne, arrived with instructions to halt it. Captain Turner was not to give evidence and no statements should be made about any instructions given to shipping about avoiding submarines.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The formal Board of Trade investigation into the sinking was presided over by Wreck Commissioner Lord Mersey and took place in the Westminster Central Hall from 15 to 18 June 1915 with further sessions at the Westminster Palace Hotel on 1 July and Caxton Hall on 17 July. Lord Mersey had a background in commercial rather than maritime law but had presided over a number of important maritime investigations, including that into the loss of "Titanic". He was assisted by four assessors, Admiral Sir Frederick Inglefield, Lieutenant Commander Hearn and two merchant navy captains, D. Davies and J. Spedding. The Attorney General, Sir Edward Carson, represented the Board of Trade, assisted by the Solicitor General, F. E. Smith. Butler Aspinall, who had represented the Board of Trade at the "Titanic" inquiry, was retained to represent Cunard. A total of 36 witnesses were called, Lord Mersey querying why more of the survivors would not be giving evidence. Most of the sessions were public but two on 15 and 18 June were held in camera when evidence regarding navigation of the ship was presented.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Statements were collected from all the crew. These were all written out for presentation to the inquiry on standard forms in identical handwriting with similar phrasing. Quartermaster Johnston later described that pressure had been placed upon him to be loyal to the company, and that it had been suggested to him it would help the case if two torpedoes had struck the ship, rather than the one which he described. Giving evidence to the tribunal he was not asked about torpedoes. Other witnesses who claimed that only one torpedo had been involved were refused permission to testify. In contrast to his statement at the inquest, Captain Turner stated that two torpedoes had struck the ship, not one. In an interview in 1933, Turner reverted to his original statement that there had been only one torpedo. Most witnesses said there had been two, but a couple said three, possibly involving a second submarine. Clement Edwards, representing the seamen's union, attempted to introduce evidence about which watertight compartments had been involved but was prevented from doing so by Lord Mersey.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: It was during the closed hearings that the Admiralty tried to lay the blame on Captain Turner, their intended line being that Turner had been negligent. The roots of this view began in the first reports about the sinking from Vice-Admiral Coke commanding the Navy at Queenstown. He reported that "ship was especially warned that submarines were active on south coast and to keep mid-channel course avoiding headlands also position of submarine off Cape Clear at 10:00 was communicated by W/T to her". Captain Webb, Director of the Trade Division, began to prepare a dossier of signals sent to "Lusitania" which Turner may have failed to observe. First Sea Lord Fisher noted on one document submitted by Webb for review: "As the Cunard company would not have employed an incompetent man its a certainty that Captain Turner is not a fool but a knave. I hope that Turner will be arrested immediately after the enquiry whatever the verdict". First Lord Winston Churchill noted: "I consider the Admiralty's case against Turner should be pressed by a skilful counsel and that Captain Webb should attend as a witness, if not employed as an assessor. We will pursue the captain without check". In the event, both Churchill and Fisher were replaced in their positions before the enquiry because of the failures of the Gallipoli campaign.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Part of the proceedings turned on the question of proper evasive tactics against submarines. It was put to Captain Turner that he had failed to comply with Admiralty instructions to travel at high speed, maintain a zig-zag course and keep away from shore. Naval instructions about zig-zag were read to the captain, who confirmed that he had received them, though later added that they did not appear to be as he recollected. This was unsurprising, since the regulations quoted had been approved only on 25 April, after "Lusitania"s last arrival in New York, and started distribution on 13 May, after she sank. "Lusitania" had slowed to 15 knots at one point because of fog, but had otherwise maintained 18 knots passing Ireland. 18 knots was faster than all but nine other ships in the British merchant fleet could achieve and was comfortably faster than the submarine. Although he might have achieved 21 knots and had given orders to raise steam ready to do so, he was also under orders to time his arrival at Liverpool for high tide so that the ship would not have to wait to enter port. Thus, he chose to travel more slowly. At the time, no ship had been torpedoed travelling at more than 15 knots. Although the Admiralty instructed ships to keep well offshore and it was claimed that Turner had only been away, his actual distance when hit was . As a matter of established procedure, only ships travelling closer than from shore were ordinarily being censured for being too close.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Turner stated that he had discussed the matter of what course the ship should take with his two most senior officers, Captain Anderson and Chief Officer Piper, neither of whom survived. The three had agreed that the Admiralty warning of "submarine activity 20 miles [] south of Coningbeg" effectively overrode other Admiralty advice to keep to 'mid channel', which was where the submarine had been reported. He had, therefore, ordered the change of course at 12:40, intending to bring the ship closer to land and then take a course north of the reported submarine.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: At one point in the proceedings, Smith attempted to press a point he was making, by quoting from a signal sent to British ships. Lord Mersey queried which message this was, and it transpired that the message in question existed in the version of evidence given to Smith by the Board of Trade Solicitor, Sir Ellis Cunliffe, but not in versions given to others. Cunliffe explained the discrepancy by saying that different versions of the papers had been prepared for use, depending whether the enquiry had been in camera or not, but the message quoted appeared never to have existed. Lord Mersey observed that it was his job to get at the truth, and thereafter became more critical of Admiralty evidence.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: On 10 June, just before the hearing, significant changes were made to the Defence of the Realm Act, which made it an offence to collect or publish information about the nature, use, or carriage of "war materials" for any reason. Previously, this had only been an offence if the information was collected to aid the enemy. This was used to prohibit discussion about the ship's cargo. The rifle cartridges carried by "Lusitania" were mentioned during the case, Lord Mersey stating that "the 5,000 cases of ammunition on board were 50 yards away from where the torpedo struck the ship".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: An additional hearing took place on 1 July, at the insistence of Joseph Marichal, who was threatening to sue Cunard for their poor handling of the disaster. He testified that the second explosion had sounded to him like the rattling of machine gun fire and appeared to be below the second class dining room at the rear of the ship where he had been seated. Information about Marechal's background was sought out by the British government and then distorted and leaked to the press so as to discredit him.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Turner, the Cunard Company, and the Royal Navy were absolved of any negligence, and all blame was placed on the German government. Lord Mersey found that Turner "exercised his judgment for the best" and that the blame for the disaster "must rest solely with those who plotted and with those who committed the crime".


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Two days after he closed the inquiry, Lord Mersey waived his fees for the case and formally resigned. His last words on the subject were: "The "Lusitania" case was a damned, dirty business!" The full report has never been made available to the public. A copy was thought to exist amongst Lord Mersey's private papers after his death, but has since proved untraceable.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: In the United States, 67 claims for compensation were lodged against Cunard, which were all heard together in 1918 before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Julius Mayer, presided over the case: he had previously presided over the case brought following the loss of the "Titanic", where he had ruled in favour of the shipping company. Mayer was a conservative who was considered a safe pair of hands with matters of national interest, and whose favourite remark to lawyers was to "come to the point". The case was to be heard without a jury. The two sides agreed beforehand that no question would be raised regarding whether "Lusitania" had been armed or carrying troops or ammunition. Thirty-three witnesses who could not travel to the US gave statements in England to Commissioner R. V. Wynne. Evidence produced in open court for the Mersey investigation was considered, but evidence from the British closed sessions was not. The Defence of the Realm Act was invoked so that British witnesses could not give evidence on any subject it covered. Statements had been collected in Queenstown after the sinking by the American Consul, Wesley Frost, but these were not produced.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Captain Turner gave evidence in Britain and now gave a more spirited defence of his actions. He argued that up until the time of the sinking he had no reason to think that zig-zagging in a fast ship would help. Indeed, that he had since commanded another ship which was sunk while zig-zagging. His position was supported by evidence from other captains, who said that prior to the sinking of "Lusitania" no merchant ships zig-zagged. Turner had argued that maintaining a steady course for 30 minutes was necessary to take a four-point bearing and precisely confirm the ship's position, but on this point he received less support, with other captains arguing a two-point bearing could have been taken in five minutes and would have been sufficiently accurate.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: Many witnesses testified that portholes across the ship had been open at the time of the sinking, and an expert witness confirmed that such a porthole three feet under water would let in four tons of water per minute. Testimony varied on how many torpedoes there had been, and whether the strike occurred between the first and second funnel, or third and fourth. The nature of the official cargo was considered, but experts considered that under no conditions could the cargo have exploded. A record exists that Crewman Jack Roper wrote to Cunard in 1919 requesting expenses for his testimony in accord with the line indicated by Cunard.


title: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

text: The decision was rendered on 23 August 1918. Mayer's judgement was that "the cause of the sinking was the illegal act of the Imperial German Government", that two torpedoes had been involved, that the captain had acted properly and emergency procedures had been up to the standard then expected. He ruled that further claims for compensation should be addressed to the German government (which eventually paid $2.5 million in 1925).