Latin name of a region roughly corresponding to modern Portugal; in modern use, allusive or poetic for "Portugal." The Cunard ocean liner (sister ship of the Mauretania and Aquitania, also named after Roman Atlantic coastal provinces) was launched in 1906, torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915.
A British passenger ship sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland in 1915. Germany, then at war with Britain but not with the United States (see World War I), had warned Americans against traveling on the ship. More than a hundred Americans died in the sinking. The incident worsened relations between Germany and the United States and encouraged American involvement in the war.