We don't care anymore when Victor Herbert was born. We don't care if he was born. Same goes for Horace Greeley, who's remembered for an aphorism and little else.

The Tuscania was torpedoed in 1918 by submarine captain Lt. Cdr. Wilhelm Meyer. It had but one year as a luxury liner; it was a troop ship for the next two years and sank three years "to the day after her maiden voyage." Two thousand people were aboard, and a tenth were lost.

Among its passengers was Harry Truman. No, the other one.

Harry Randall Truman (October 30, 1896 – May 18, 1980) was a resident of the U.S. state of Washington who lived on Mount St. Helens. He came to brief fame in the months preceding the volcano's 1980 eruption after he stubbornly refused to leave his home despite evacuation orders, and he is presumed to have been killed in the eruption. He was the owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake, located at the south end of Spirit Lake at the foot of the mountain in the danger zone at the time of the eruption.

In 1981, Art Carney portrayed Truman in the docu-drama film St. Helens.

But that's yet to come. In the meantime, you might enjoy American writer Irwin S. Cobb's account of the Tuscania's sinking. He was there.