"The Sinking of the Lusitania" (English: The Sinking of the Lusitania) is a 1918 silent animated short film created by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is a propaganda work that recreates on screen the 1915 sinking of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, an event for which no prior footage existed. With a runtime of 12 minutes, the film likely set a new record for the length of an animated picture. It is also the earliest animated documentary in history and the oldest surviving serious, dramatic animated work. In 1915, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, resulting in the deaths of up to 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. McCay was outraged by the event, but his employer, William Randolph Hearst, downplayed the incident due to his opposition to the United States entering World War I. Hearst's newspaper even instructed McCay to create editorial cartoons with anti-war and anti-British themes. In 1916, defying his employer's stance, McCay began self-financing and using his own time to produce the patriotic propaganda film "The Sinking of the Lusitania." Prior to this film, McCay had already produced several successful animated works: "Little Nemo" in 1911, "How a Mosquito Operates" in 1912, and "Gertie the Dinosaur" in 1914. These three films were drawn on rice paper, requiring extremely labor-intensive methods for creating the backgrounds. "The Sinking of the Lusitania" was McCay's first film to utilize the more efficient new technology of cel animation. The production took him and several assistants a total of 22 months to complete. However, the film was not as commercially successful as his previous works. Hearst also increased pressure on McCay, forcing him to devote more time to editorial illustration work, which led to a significant reduction in McCay's subsequent animated output.