Lusitania Lusitania Lusitania (; ; ) or Hispania Lusitana was an ancient Iberian Roman province located where modern Portugal (south of the Douro river) and part of western Spain (the present autonomous community of Extremadura and a part of the province of Salamanca) lie. It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people (an Indo-European people). Its capital was "Emerita Augusta" (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a province of its own in the Roman Empire. Romans first came to the territory around the mid-2nd century BC. A war
Sinking of the RMS Lusitania American citizens aboard. He referred to the ammunition and military goods declared on "Lusitania"s manifest and said that "vessels of that kind" could be seized and destroyed under the Hague rules without any respect to a war zone. The following day the German government issued an official communication regarding the sinking in which it said that the Cunard liner "Lusitania" "was yesterday torpedoed by a German submarine and sank", that "Lusitania" "was naturally armed with guns, as were recently most of the English mercantile steamers" and that "as is well known here, she had large quantities of war material in