Robert Ballard's discovery of the wrecked Titanic in 1985 and the subsequent publication in 1987 of his book, The Discovery of the Titanic, brought a deluge of Titanica. The fascination began with the initial newspaper reports, which, while exaggerating stories of supposed heroism, led to the erection of countless memorial plaques, statues, fountains, and buildings in both England and the United States.Īfter this initial outpouring of grief, interest in the Titanic lagged, but following the publication in 1955 of Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, additional books and films about the tragedy appeared. The Titanic story evolved into a major cultural phenomenon. Neither inquiry blamed the White Star Line, but both issued a series of recommendations, including lifeboats for all passengers, lifeboat drills, a twenty-four-hour wireless, and an international ice patrol to track icebergs. Nevertheless 128 bodies remained unidentified.Īmid calls for an investigation of the tragedy, hearings began in the United States and in England. To aid in identification, hair color, weight, age, birthmarks, jewelry, clothing, and pocket contents were recorded. Ultimately three other ships joined the search, and 328 bodies were recovered. The Carpathia rescued 705 people, but 1,523 died.įive days after the sinking, the White Star Line chartered a commercial cable company vessel, the Mackay-Bennett, to search the crash area for bodies. The eastbound liner Carpathia, some fifty miles away, responded to the Titanic's signals and began taking on survivors. the Titanic disappeared.Īlthough the Titanic sent out distress calls, few vessels carried wireless radios, and those that did staffed them only during daytime hours. The lifeboats had capacity for one-half of the passengers, and some of the boats left not fully loaded. Shortly after midnight the crew was instructed to prepare the lifeboats and to alert the passengers. On 14 April, at 11:40 p.m., the Titanic, some four hundred miles from the coast of Newfoundland, hit an iceberg on its starboard side. On board were many of the most wealthy and influential people in early twentieth-century society and hundreds of emigrants. On 12 April 1912 the White Star Line's royal mail steamer Titanic, a ship many considered unsinkable, set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, with stops at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland. So at best, we could say that people died from a combination of hypothermia and drowning, but it is also accurate to say that if the Titanic had been in the waters of the Caribbean, there wouldn't have been nearly as many deaths.TITANIC, SINKING OF THE. Now, it is possible that as people lost consciousness, they inhaled water, which hastened their deaths, but that's not drowning as we understand it, it's drowning as a side effect of being incapacitated by hypothermia. Drowning happens silently - people who are drowning can't call out for help. And the fact that the survivors in the lifeboats heard an awful din from those in the water suggests that most of them were not drowning. Those who remained in the ship probably drowned as the Titanic sank, but those who jumped into the water were wearing life preservers, so they were less likely to drown. According to the Encyclopedia Titanica, the Titanic didn't really have that many drowning victims. That's 4 degrees below the freezing temperature of fresh water, so brr. The water in the North Atlantic was only 28 degrees Fahrenheit on the night of the sinking. On the other hand, his failure to turn over that key may have doomed more than 1,500 people, so there's that. If you believe binoculars could have helped the crew avoid the iceberg, then Blair's life was never really in any danger. You can look at this a couple of ways - the last-minute reassignment saved Blair's life or the last-minute reassignment didn't save Blair's life because it was responsible for the entire disaster. In his rush to disembark, he forgot to give the key to his replacement. It seems that the key was in David Blair's pocket, and David Blair had disembarked in Southampton.Īccording to the Telegraph, Blair served as the ship's second officer between Belfast and Southampton, but at the last minute the White Star Line decided to replace him. So let's get this straight, the Titanic had rowing machines, an electric horse, a squash court, and a heated swimming pool, but it didn't have binoculars onboard? Actually it did, but they were unhelpfully locked away in a cabinet and no one could find the key.
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