[5] Tenyo Maru was launched in 1908 from Nagasaki, Japan, as the first Turbine Steam Ship built for trans-Pacific passenger service.

[8] On September 27, 1910, while en route from Hong Kong to San Francisco, via Yokohama and Honolulu, Tenyo Maru ran aground thirty miles from Shanghai.

The 115 first and second class passengers were kept below decks while the captain made the decision to ride out the storm by heaving to, which was very unusual in a large steamship.

[10] In 1921, the ship was fumigated due to a first-class passenger who became suddenly ill and died June 28 while en route from Nagasaki to Kobe.

When Tenyo Maru arrived in San Francisco on July 9, 1929, passenger Sui'e Ying Kao, wife of the Chinese Vice Consul, requested that her baggage be passed and delivered at once, claiming diplomatic immunity from Customs inspection.

The agents did not agree, broke the seals, opened the trunks, and found 2,300 cans of opium (about 1,000 pounds), worth about $600,000, making it a very large seizure by contemporary standards.