Queen Mary 2 sounded its whistle at 2 p.m. Saturday (July 4) in Liverpool to signify the time exactly 175 years earlier that Cunard’s first ship Britannia left the city’s Coburg Dock and inaugurated the first-ever scheduled transatlantic service. That first crossing changed the face of ocean travel, establishing the first permanent link between the Old World and the New – a link that has remained unbroken for 175 years as Cunard’s ships have crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic every year since, in peace and war, without fail. Britannia was Cunard’s first flagship, but at just 1,154 tons and carrying just 115 passengers, could fit inside the Britannia Restaurant of today’s 150,000 ton flagship Queen Mary 2, which accommodates 2,600 guests. Pictured, a descendant of Sir Samuel Cunard Hugh Paton from Canada, is welcomed by Cunard’s officers and bellmen in Liverpool.