Everything about Rms Titanic totally explained
RMS Titanic was an
Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the
White Star Line and built at the
Harland and Wolff shipyard. On the night of
14 April 1912, during her
maiden voyage,
Titanic struck an
iceberg, and sank two hours and forty minutes later in early
15 April 1912. At the time of her launching in 1912, she was the largest
passenger steamship in the world.
The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people, ranking it as one of the worst peacetime
maritime disasters in history and by far the most infamous. The
Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was popularly believed to be “unsinkable” - indeed, in a 1910 White Star Line brochure advertising the
Titanic, it was claimed that she was "designed to be unsinkable". It was a great shock to many that despite the advanced technology and experienced crew, the
Titanic still sank with a great loss of life. The
media frenzy about
Titanic's famous victims, the
legends about what happened on board the ship, the resulting changes to
maritime law, and the discovery of the
wreck in 1985 by a team led by
Robert Ballard have made
Titanic persistently famous in the years since.
Construction
The
Titanic was a
White Star Line ocean liner, built at the
Harland and Wolff shipyard in
Belfast,
Ireland, designed to compete with rival company
Cunard Line's Lusitania and
Mauretania. The
Titanic, along with her
Olympic-class sisters, the
Olympic and the soon to be built
Britannic (originally named
Gigantic), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to operate. Construction of the RMS
Titanic, funded by the American
J.P. Morgan and his
International Mercantile Marine Co., began on
31 March 1909.
Titanic's hull was launched on
31 May,
1911, and her outfitting was completed by
31 March the following year.
Titanic was 882 ft 9 in (269 m) long and 92 ft 6 in (28 m) wide, had a
gross register tonnage of 46,328 tons, and a height from the water line to the boat deck of 60 ft (18 m).
Titanic contained two
reciprocating four-
cylinder, triple expansion, inverted
steam engines and one low pressure
Parsons turbine which powered three
propellers. There were 29
boilers fired by 159
coal burning
furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23
knots (43 km/h). Only three of the four 63 feet (19 m) tall
funnels were functional; the fourth funnel, which only served as a vent, was added to make the ship look more impressive. The ship could hold a total of 3,547 passengers and crew and, because she carried
mail, her name was given the prefix
RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) as well as SS (Steam Ship). There were insufficient lifeboats on the
Titanic for all passengers, though the legal requirements of the day were met.
Features
In her time,
Titanic surpassed all rivals in luxury and opulence. She offered an on-board swimming pool, a gymnasium, a
Turkish bath, libraries in both the first and second-class, and a
squash court.
First-class common rooms were adorned with elaborate wood panelling, expensive furniture and other decorations. In addition, the
Café Parisien offered cuisine for the
first-class passengers, with a sunlit veranda fitted with trellis decorations.
The ship incorporated technologically advanced features for the period. She had an extensive electrical subsystem with steam-powered
generators and ship-wide electrical wiring feeding electric lights. She also boasted two wireless
Marconi sets, including a powerful 1,500-watt radio manned by operators who worked in shifts, allowing constant contact and the transmission of many passenger messages.
Comparisons with the Olympic
The
Titanic closely resembled her older sister
Olympic. Although she enclosed more space and therefore had a larger gross register tonnage, the hull was exactly the same length as the
Olympic. But there were a few differences. Two of the most noticeable were that half of the
Titanic's forward promenade A-Deck (below the boat deck) was enclosed against outside weather, and her B-Deck configuration was different from the
Olympic. The
Titanic had a speciality restaurant called Café Parisien, a feature that the
Olympic didn't have until 1913. Some of the flaws found on the
Olympic, such as the creaking of the aft expansion joint, were corrected on the
Titanic. The skid lights that provided natural illumination on A-deck were round; while on
Olympic they were oval. The
Titanic's wheelhouse was made narrower and longer than the
Olympic's. These, and other modifications, made the
Titanic 1,004 gross register tons larger than the
Olympic and thus the biggest active ship in the world during her maiden voyage in April 1912.
Maiden voyage
The ship began her maiden voyage from
Southampton,
England, bound for
New York City,
New York, on Wednesday,
10 April,
1912, with Captain
Edward J. Smith in command. As the
Titanic left her berth, her wake caused the liner
New York, which was docked nearby, to break away from her moorings and was drawn dangerously close (about four feet) to the
Titanic before a tugboat towed the
New York away. The near accident delayed departure for one hour. After crossing the
English Channel, the
Titanic stopped at
Cherbourg,
France, to board additional passengers and stopped again the next day at Queenstown (known today as
Cobh),
Ireland, before continuing towards New York with 2,240 people aboard.
Some of the most prominent people in the world were travelling in first–class. These included millionaire
John Jacob Astor and his wife
Madeleine Force Astor; industrialist
Benjamin Guggenheim;
Macy's owner
Isidor Straus and his wife
Ida;
Denver millionairess
Margaret "Molly" Brown; Sir
Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife couturiere
Lady Lucille Duff-Gordon; George Elkins Widener and his wife Eleanor; John Borland Thayer, his wife Marian and their seventeen-year-old son, Jack; journalist
William Thomas Stead; the Countess of Rothes; U.S. presidential aide
Archibald Butt; author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee; author
Jacques Futrelle, his wife May, and their friends,
Broadway producers Henry and Irene Harris; silent film actress
Dorothy Gibson; and others. Also travelling in first–class were White Star Line's managing director
J. Bruce Ismay who came up with the idea for
Titanic and the ship's builder
Thomas Andrews, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship.
Disaster
14 April, the temperature had dropped to near freezing and the ocean was absolutely calm. There was no moon and the sky was clear. Captain Smith, in response to
iceberg warnings received via
wireless over the last few days, altered the
Titanic's course slightly to the south. That Sunday at 1:45
PM, a message from the steamer
Amerika warned that large icebergs lay in the
Titanic's path, but inexplicably, the warning was never relayed to the
bridge. Later that evening, another report of numerous large icebergs, this time from the
Mesaba, also failed to reach the bridge.
At 11:40
PM while sailing south of the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts
Fredrick Fleet and
Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship. Fleet sounded the ship's bell three times and telephoned the bridge exclaiming, "Iceberg, right ahead!"
First Officer Murdoch ordered an abrupt turn to
port (left) and full speed astern, which stopped and then reversed the ship's engines. A collision was inevitable and the iceberg brushed the ship's
starboard (right) side, buckling the hull in several places and popping out
rivets below the waterline over a length of 300 ft (91 m). As seawater filled the forward compartments, the watertight doors shut. However, while the ship could stay afloat with four flooded compartments, five were filling with water. The five water-filled compartments weighed down the ship so that the tops of the forward watertight bulkheads fell below the ship's waterline, allowing water to pour into additional compartments. Captain Smith, alerted by the jolt of the impact, arrived on the bridge and ordered a full stop. Following an inspection by the ship's officers and Thomas Andrews, and shortly after midnight on
15 April,
lifeboats were ordered to be readied and a distress call sent out.
The first lifeboat launched, boat 7, despite popular belief of a 12:40
AM time, was lowered at 12:27
AM on the
starboard side with 12 people on board. Boat 5 was launched two to three minutes later. The
Titanic carried 20 lifeboats with a total capacity of 1,178 persons. While not enough to hold all of the passengers and crew, the
Titanic carried more boats than required by the British Board of Regulations. At the time, the number of lifeboats required was determined by a ship's gross register tonnage, rather than her human capacity.
Wireless operators
Jack Phillips and
Harold Bride were busy sending out
CQD, the international distress signal. Several ships responded, including
Mount Temple,
Frankfurt and
Titanic's sister ship,
Olympic, but none were close enough to make it in time. The closest ship was
Cunard Line's
RMS Carpathia 58 miles (93 km) away, which arrived in about four hours—too late to rescue all of
Titanic's passengers. The only land–based location that received the distress call from
Titanic was a
wireless station at
Cape Race,
Newfoundland.
From the bridge, the lights of a nearby ship could be seen off the port side. Not responding to wireless, Fourth Officer Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe attempted signalling the ship with a
Morse lamp and later with distress rockets, but the ship never appeared to respond. The
SS Californian, which was nearby and stopped for the night because of ice, also saw lights in the distance. The
Californian's wireless was turned off, and the wireless operator had gone to bed for the night. Just before he went to bed at around 11:00
PM the
Californian's radio operator attempted to warn the
Titanic that there was ice ahead, but he was cut off by an exhausted Jack Phillips, who snapped, "Shut up, shut up, I'm busy". When the
Californian's officers first saw the ship, they tried signalling her with their Morse lamp, but also never appeared to receive a response. Later, they noticed the
Titanic's distress signals over the lights and informed
Captain Stanley Lord. Even though there was much discussion about the mysterious ship, which to the officers on duty appeared to be moving away, the
Californian didn't wake her wireless operator until morning.
The
Titanic showed no outward signs of being in imminent danger, and passengers were reluctant to leave the apparent safety of the ship to board small lifeboats. As a result, most of the boats were launched partially empty; one boat meant to hold 40 people left the
Titanic with only 12 people on board. With "Women and children first" the imperative for loading lifeboats,
Second Officer Lightoller, who was loading boats on the port side, allowed men to board only if oarsmen were needed, even if there was room. First Officer Murdoch, who was loading boats on the starboard side, let men on board if women were absent. As the ship's list increased people started to become nervous, and some lifeboats began leaving fully loaded. By 2:05
AM, the entire
bow was under water, and all the lifeboats, save for two, had been launched.
Around 2:10
AM, the
stern rose out of the water exposing the
propellers, and by 2:17 the waterline had reached the boat deck. The last two lifeboats floated off the deck, one upside down, the other half filled with water. Shortly afterwards, the forward funnel collapsed, crushing part of the bridge and people in the water. On deck, people were scrambling towards the stern or jumping overboard in hopes of reaching a lifeboat. The ship's stern slowly rose into the air, and everything not secured crashed towards the water. While the stern rose the electrical system finally failed and the lights went out. Shortly afterwards, the stress on the hull caused
Titanic to break apart between the last two funnels, and the bow went completely under. The stern righted itself slightly and then rose vertically. After a few moments, at 2:20
AM, this too sank into the ocean.
Of a total of 2,223 people, only 706 survived; 1,517 perished. The majority of deaths were caused by
hypothermia in the 28 °F (−2 °C) water. Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up five people, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later lifeboat 14 went back and rescued four people, one of whom died afterwards. Other people managed to climb onto the lifeboats that floated off the deck. There were some arguments in some of the other lifeboats about going back, but many survivors were afraid of being swamped by people trying to climb into the lifeboat or getting pulled down by the suction from the sinking
Titanic, though it turned out that there had been very little suction. In the disaster, first class men were four times as likely to survive as second class men, and twice as likely to survive as third class men. Nearly every first-class woman survived, compared to 86 percent of those in second class and less than half of those in third class.
As the ship fell into the depths, the two sections behaved very differently. The streamlined bow planed off approximately 2,000 feet (609 m) below the surface and slowed somewhat, landing relatively gently. The stern, however, plunged violently to the ocean floor, the hull being torn apart along the way from massive
implosions caused by compression of the air still trapped inside. The stern smashed into the bottom at considerable speed, grinding the hull deep into the silt.
Long-term implications
The sinking of the RMS
Titanic was a factor that influenced later maritime practices, ship design, and the seafaring culture. Changes included the establishment of the
International Ice Patrol, a requirement for twenty-four-hour radio watch keeping on foreign-going passenger ships, and new regulations related to lifeboats.
International Ice Patrol
The
Titanic disaster led to the convening of the first
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) in
London, on
12 November 1913. On
30 January 1914, a treaty was signed by the conference that resulted in the formation and international funding of the
International Ice Patrol, an agency of the
United States Coast Guard that to the present day monitors and reports on the location of North
Atlantic Ocean icebergs that could pose a threat to transatlantic sea lane traffic. It was also agreed in the new regulations that all passenger vessels would have sufficient lifeboats for everyone on board, that appropriate safety drills would be conducted, and that radio communications on passenger ships would be operated 24 hours along with a secondary power supply, so as not to miss distress calls. In addition, it was agreed that the firing of red rockets from a ship must be interpreted as a distress signal (red rockets launched from the
Titanic prior to sinking were mistaken by nearby vessels as celebratory fireworks, delaying rescue). This treaty was scheduled to go into effect on
1 July 1915 but was upstaged by
World War I.
Ship design changes
The sinking of
Titanic changed the way passenger ships were designed. Many existing ships, such as the
Olympic, were refitted for increased safety. Besides increasing the number of lifeboats on board, improvements included reinforcing the hull and increasing the height of the watertight
bulkheads. The bulkheads on
Titanic extended 10 feet (3 ;m) above the
waterline; after
Titanic sank, the bulkheads on other ships were extended higher to make compartments fully watertight. While
Titanic had a
double bottom, she didn't have a
double hull; after her sinking, new ships were designed with double hulls; also, the double bottoms of other ships, including the
Olympic, were extended up the sides of their hulls, above their waterlines, to give them double hulls.
Rediscovery
The idea of finding the wreck of
Titanic, and even raising the ship from the ocean floor, had been around since shortly after the ship sank. No attempts were successful until
September 1,
1985, when a joint American-French expedition, led by Jean-Louis Michel and Dr.
Robert Ballard of the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, located the
wreck. It was found at a depth of 2 miles (3,800 m), slightly more than 600 km south-east of
Mistaken Point,
Newfoundland at, 13 miles (22 km) from fourth officer
Joseph Boxhall's last position reading where
Titanic was originally thought to rest.
Ballard had in 1982 requested funding for the project from the
US Navy, but this was provided only on the condition that the first priority was the search for the sunken US submarines
Thresher and
Scorpion. Only when these has been discovered and photographed was the search for the
Titanic started.
The most notable discovery the team made was that the ship had split apart, the stern section lying 1,970 feet (600 m) from the bow section and facing opposite directions. There had been conflicting witness accounts of whether the ship broke apart or not, and both the American and British inquires found that the ship sank intact. Up until the discovery of the wreck, it was generally assumed the ship didn't break apart.
The bow section had embedded itself 60 feet (18 m) into the silt on the ocean floor. Although parts of the hull had buckled, the bow was mostly intact. The stern section was in much worse condition. As the stern section sank the increasing water pressure in turn pressurized the air trapped within the hull to such a point that it exploded. The speed at which the stern hit the ocean floor caused even more damage. Surrounding the wreck is a large debris field with pieces of the ship, furniture, dinnerware and personal items scattered over one square mile (2.6 km²). Softer materials, like wood, carpet and human remains were devoured by undersea organisms.
Dr. Ballard and his team didn't bring up any artifacts from the site, considering this to be tantamount to grave robbing. Under international maritime law, however, the recovery of artifacts is necessary to establish salvage rights to a shipwreck. In the years after the find,
Titanic has been the object of a number of court cases concerning ownership of artifacts and the wreck site itself. In 1994 RMS Titanic, Inc. was awarded ownership and salvaging rights of the wreck, even though RMS Titanic Inc. and other salvaging expeditions have been criticized for taking items from the wreck.
Approximately 6,000 artifacts have been removed from the wreck. Many of these were put on display at the
National Maritime Museum in
Greenwich,
England, and later as part of a travelling museum exhibit.
Current condition of the wreck
Many scientists, including Robert Ballard, are concerned that visits by tourists in
submersibles and the recovery of artifacts are hastening the
decay of the wreck. Underwater microbes have been eating away at
Titanic's iron since the ship sank, but because of the extra damage visitors have caused, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that "the hull and structure of the ship may collapse to the ocean floor within the next 50 years."
Ballard's book
Return to Titanic, published by the
National Geographic Society, includes photographs depicting the deterioration of the
promenade deck and damage caused by submersibles landing on the ship. The
mast has almost completely deteriorated and has been stripped of its bell and brass light. Other damage includes a gash on the bow section where block letters once spelled
Titanic, and part of the brass telemotor which once held the ship's wooden
wheel is now twisted.
Ownership and litigation
Titanic's rediscovery in 1985 launched a debate over ownership of the wreck and the valuable items inside. On
7 June 1994,
RMS Titanic Inc., a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc., was awarded ownership and salvaging rights by the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. (See
Admiralty law) Since
1987,
RMS Titanic Inc. and its predecessors have conducted seven expeditions and salvaged over 5,500 historic objects. The biggest single recovered object was a 17-ton section of the hull, recovered in 1998. Many of these items are part of travelling museum exhibitions.
In 1993, a
French administrator in the Office of Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Equipment, Transportation, and Tourism awarded RMS Titanic Inc's predecessor title to the relics recovered in 1987.
In a motion filed on
12 February 2004 RMS Titanic Inc. requested that the
district court enter an order awarding it "title to all the artifacts (including portions of the hull) which are the subject of this action pursuant to the Law of Finds" or, in the alternative, a salvage award in the amount of $225 million. RMS Titanic Inc. excluded from its motion any claim for an award of title to the objects recovered in 1987, but it did request that the district court declare that, based on the French administrative action, "the artifacts raised during the 1987 expedition are independently owned by RMST." Following a hearing, the district court entered an order dated
2 July 2004, in which it refused to grant
comity and recognize the 1993 decision of the French administrator, and rejected RMS Titanic Inc's claim that it should be awarded title to the items recovered since 1993 under the Maritime Law of Finds.
RMS Titanic Inc. appealed to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In its decision of
31 January 2006 the court recognized "explicitly the appropriateness of applying maritime salvage law to historic wrecks such as that of
Titanic" and denied the application of the Maritime Law of Finds. The court also ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the "1987 artifacts", and therefore vacated that part of the court's
2 July 2004 order. In other words, according to this decision, RMS Titanic Inc. has ownership title to the objects awarded in the French decision (valued $16.5 million earlier) and continues to be salvor-in-possession of
Titanic wreck. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court to determine the salvage award ($225 million requested by RMS Titanic Inc.).
Possible factors in the sinking
Originally, historians thought the iceberg had cut a gash into
Titanic's hull. Since the part of the ship which the iceberg damaged is now buried, scientists used
sonar to examine the area and discovered the iceberg had caused the hull to buckle, allowing water to enter
Titanic between her steel plates.
Steel plates and iron rivets
A detailed analysis of small pieces of the steel plating from the Titanic's wreck hull found that it was of a metallurgy that loses its elasticity and becomes
brittle in cold or icy water, leaving it vulnerable to dent-induced ruptures. The pieces of steel were found to have very high content of
phosphorus and
sulfur (4x and 2x respectively, compared to modern steel), with
manganese-sulfur ratio of 6.8:1 (compare with over 200:1 ratio for modern steels). High content of phosphorus initiates fractures, sulfur forms grains of iron sulfide that facilitate propagation of cracks, and lack of manganese makes the steel less ductile. The recovered samples were found to be undergoing
ductile-brittle transition in temperatures of 32 °C (for longitudinal samples) and 56 °C (for transversal samples—compare with transition temperature of -27 °C common for modern steels—modern steel would became so brittle in between -60 and -70 °C). The
anisotropy was likely caused by
hot rolling influencing the orientation of the sulfide
stringer inclusions. The steel was probably produced in the acid-lined, open-hearth furnaces in
Glasgow, which would explain the high content of P and S, even for the times.
Another factor was the rivets holding the hull together, which were much more fragile than once thought. From 48 rivets recovered from the hulk of the Titanic, scientists found many to be riddled with high concentrations of slag. A glassy residue of smelting, slag can make rivets brittle and prone to fracture. Records from the archive of the builder show that the ship's builder ordered No. 3 iron bar, known as “best” — not No. 4, known as “best-best,” for its rivets, although shipbuilders at that time typically used No. 4 iron for rivets. The company also had shortages of skilled riveters, particularly important for hand riveting, which took great skill: the iron had to be heated to a precise colour and shaped by the right combination of hammer blows. The company used steel rivets, which were stronger and could be installed by machine, on the central hull, where stresses were expected to be greatest, using Iron rivets for the stern and bow.
Perhaps more fatal to the design of the
Titanic was her triple screw engine configuration, which had reciprocating steam engines driving her wing propellers, and a steam turbine driving her centre propeller. The reciprocating engines were reversible, while the turbine was not. When First Officer Murdoch gave the order to reverse engines to avoid the iceberg, he inadvertently handicapped the turning ability of the ship. Since the centre turbine couldn't reverse during the "full speed astern" manoeuvre, it simply stopped turning. Furthermore, since the centre propeller was positioned forward of the ship's rudder, the effectiveness of that rudder would have been greatly reduced. Had Murdoch simply turned the ship while maintaining her forward speed, the
Titanic might have missed the iceberg with metres to spare.
Iceberg impact
It has been speculated that the ship could have been saved if she'd rammed the iceberg head on. It is hypothesised that if
Titanic hadn't altered her course at all and had collided head first with the iceberg, the damage would only have affected the first or, at most, first two compartments. This would have disabled her severely, but wouldn't likely have resulted in sinking since
Titanic was designed to float with the first four compartments flooded. Instead the glancing blow to the starboard side of the ship opened a gash along five compartments, more than the ship's designers had allowed for.
Legends and myths
Use of SOS
Despite popular belief, the sinking of
Titanic wasn't the first time the internationally recognised
Morse code distress signal "
SOS" was used. The SOS signal was first proposed at the International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea in
Berlin in 1906. It was ratified by the international community in 1908 and had been in widespread use since then. The SOS signal was, however, rarely used by British wireless operators, who preferred the older CQD code. First Wireless Operator Jack Phillips began transmitting CQD until Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride suggested half jokingly, "Send SOS; it's the new call, and this may be your last chance to send it." Phillips, who later died, then began to intersperse SOS with the traditional CQD call.
Titanic's band
One of the most famous stories of
Titanic is of the
band. On
April 15,
Titanic's eight-member band, led by
Wallace Hartley, had assembled in the first-class lounge in an effort to keep passengers calm and upbeat. Later they moved on to the forward half of the boat deck. The band continued playing music even when it became apparent the ship was going to sink.
None of the band members survived the sinking, and there has been much speculation about what their last song was. Some witnesses said the final song played was the
hymn "
Nearer, My God, to Thee." Hartley reportedly said to a friend if he was on a sinking ship "Nearer, My God, to Thee" would be one of the songs he'd play.
Walter Lord's book
A Night to Remember popularised wireless operator Harold Bride’s account that he heard the song "Autumn" before the ship sank. It is considered Bride either meant the hymn called "Autumn" or "Songe d'Automne," a popular song at the time.
The "Titanic curse"
When
Titanic sank, claims were made that a curse existed on the ship. One of the most widely spread legends linked directly into the
sectarianism of the city of
Belfast, where the ship was built. It was suggested that the ship was given the number 390904 which, when read backwards in a mirror, was claimed to spell 'no pope', a sectarian slogan attacking Roman Catholics that was (and is) widely used provocatively by extreme Protestants in
Northern Ireland, where the ship was built. In the extreme sectarianism of north-east Ireland (Northern Ireland itself didn't exist until 1920), the ship's sinking, though mourned, was alleged to be on account of the sectarian anti-Catholicism of her manufacturers, the Harland and Wolff company, which had an almost exclusively Protestant workforce and an alleged record of hostility towards Catholics. (Harland and Wolff did have a record of hiring few Catholics; whether that was through policy or because the company's shipyard in Belfast's bay was located in almost exclusively Protestant East Belfast — through which few Catholics would dare to travel — or a mixture of both, is a matter of dispute.)
The 'no pope' story is in fact an
urban legend, with no basis in fact. RMS
Olympic and
Titanic were assigned the yard numbers 400 and 401 respectively. The source of the story may have been from reports by dock workers in
Queenstown (Cobh) of
anti-Catholic graffiti that they found on Titanic's coal bunkers when they were loading coal.
Titanic in popular culture
The sinking of
Titanic has been the basis for many
novels describing fictionalized events on board the ship. Many reference books about the disaster have also been written since the
Titanic sank, the first of these appearing within months of the sinking. Survivors like Second Officer Lightoller and passenger Jack Thayer have written books describing their experiences. Some like
Walter Lord, who wrote the popular
A Night to Remember, did independent research and interviews to describe the events that happened on board the ship.
Morgan Robertson's 1898 novella
Futility, which was written 14 years before RMS
Titanic's ill-fated voyage, was found to have many parallels with the
Titanic disaster; Robertson's work concerned a fictional state-of-the-art ocean liner called
Titan, which eventually collides with an iceberg on a calm April night whilst en route to New York. Huge amounts of people died because of the lack of lifeboats. Both
Titan herself and the manner of her demise bore many striking similarities to the eventual fate of
Titanic, and Robertson's novella remains in print today as an unnerving curiosity.
Titanic has been featured in a large number of
movies and
TV movies, most notably:
The most widely-viewed is the 1997 film
Titanic, directed by
James Cameron and starring
Leonardo DiCaprio and
Kate Winslet. It became the
highest-grossing film in history. It also won 11 out of 14
Academy Awards, tying with
Ben-Hur (1959) and later,
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) for the most awards won.
The story was also made into a
Broadway musical,
Titanic, written by
Peter Stone with music by
Maury Yeston.
Titanic ran from 1998 to 2000. The 1960 Broadway musical
The Unsinkable Molly Brown tells survivor Margaret Brown's life story, which included the events on
Titanic. The musical was written by Richard Morris with music by
Meredith Willson. A film version starring
Debbie Reynolds was released in 1964.
Other media includes which was a 1996 computer game that took place on the
Titanic.
Starship Titanic was another computer game that takes place in the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe and was a parody of the
Titanic disaster. Many
television shows have also referenced the
Titanic disaster. The show
The Time Tunnel featured a visit to the ship on its first episode and the animated series
Futurama had the cast boarding a space-faring vessel called
Titanic. The spaceship was torn in half by a
black hole on the maiden voyage. Other shows have also had minor references to the
Titanic, for example in the show
Doctor Who, the title character claimed to have been on board the ship when she sank. There was later an episode of the same popular British show,
Voyage of the Damned, its 2007
Christmas special, in which the doctor was on board a re-made Space Ship Titanic. In movies like
Time Bandits,
Cavalcade and
Ghostbusters II the
Titanic has had brief appearances.
On the television drama
Upstairs, Downstairs, the characters of Lady Marjorie Bellamy and her seamstress, Maude Roberts, were passengers on board the Titanic when she sank. Roberts was placed in a lifeboat and saved; while Lady Marjorie went down with the ship.
In 1982, renowned Italian singer-songwriter
Francesco De Gregori released the album
Titanic, featuring three songs (the titular
Titanic,
I muscoli del capitano and
L'abbigliamento di un fuochista) that talk about the ship, as well as her passengers and crew.
Last living survivor
Millvina Dean, who was only two months old at the time of the sinking, is the only living survivor of the Titanic. Currently 96 years old, she's remained active in Titanic-related events and lives in Southampton, England.
Recent survivors' deaths
Barbara Dainton (née West) (May 24, 1911 – October 16, 2007)
Lillian Asplund (October 21, 1906 – May 6, 2006)
For more, see Recent survivors' deaths
100th anniversary
On 15 April 2012, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic is planned to be commemorated around the world. By that date, the Titanic Quarter in Belfast is planned to have been completed. The area will be regenerated and a signature memorial project unveiled to celebrate Titanic and her links with Belfast, the city that built the ship.
Gallery
Image:RMS Titanic sea trials April 2, 1912.jpg|RMS Titanic undergoes sea trials on April 2, 1912.
Image:18 titanic.jpg|Titanic passing through the Belfast Lough en route to the Irish Sea for her trials.
Image:Titanic departure2.jpg|Titanic departing Belfast Lough entering the Irish Sea.
Image:Rms titanic1.jpg|Titanic departing her Southampton pier on her maiden voyage.
Image:Rms titanic.jpg|Titanic docked in Southampton before her maiden voyage.
Image:View of the stern and rudder of the TITANIC in drydock.png|View of the stern and rudder of one of the Olympic class liners in drydock.
Image:10 titanic.jpg|The Titanic ready for launch.
Image:22 titanic.jpg|Titanic during her fitting out.
Image:Grand staircase.jpg|The Grand Staircase of the Olympic, identical to the one aboard the Titanic.
Image:Titanic lounge.jpg|The first-class lounge aboard the Titanic, in the Louis XVI style.
Image:Titanic smokeroom.jpg|The first-class smoking room aboard the Titanic.
Image:Titanic verandah.jpg|The verandah Café aboard the Titanic.
Image:Titanic cafe parisien.jpg|The Café Parisien aboard the Titanic.
Image:Titanic gym.jpg|Gymnasium aboard the Titanic.
Image:Titanic parlor.jpg|The sitting room of a first-class parlour suite.
Image:Titanic cabin.jpg|A first-class cabin aboard the Titanic.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Rms Titanic'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://rms_titanic.totallyexplained.com">RMS Titanic Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
