The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth – the largest passenger ship in the world – caught fire and sank in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong on this day in 1972.
The Queen Elizabeth had been launched, along with her sister vessel the Queen Mary, in 1938 by the Cunard Line, but the outbreak of World War II ensured that she did not make her maiden voyage as a passenger liner until 1946 (pictured below).
The two liners dominated the golden age of cruising, but with the advent of the passenger jet in the late 1950s, trade declined and the Queen Elizabeth was retired in 1968.