It may have been more than a century since the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage in 1912, but one of the biggest tragedies of the 20th century still fascinates and haunts people to this day. The night the so-called “Unsinkable” ship sank to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean sent shock waves around the world and has been immortalized in many books and films ever since, most famously by James Cameron in his 1997 Oscar-winning retelling of the ship’s fateful voyage.
Like a lot of kids who grew up in the ‘90s, the blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is what introduced me to the Titanic tragedy. While it was filled with plenty of historical inaccuracies, the film definitely did well in portraying the horror faced by every passenger on board and gave modern audiences a glimpse of what it may have been like to travel on the “grandest ship in the world” before she tragically cut short her voyage and the lives of more than half the souls on board.
But, despite what you already know from the Titanic movie or what you may have heard in history class, there are many other sad and disturbing facts about the sinking that you may not have come across before. Colliding with the iceberg was only the tip (if you’ll excuse the pun) of the disaster. The real tragedy is the fact that the whole thing could have been easily avoided and in the end, the ship’s design killed more people than it saved. Even after 105 years, these 15 forgotten facts about the Titanic will get you right in the feels.
15. There Weren’t Enough Lifeboats For HALF The People On Board
In the wake of the tragedy, a fatal flaw that people jumped on immediately were the insufficient number of lifeboats and how they were used. The 20 lifeboats Titanic carried could only hold 1,178 people, despite there being a total of 2,224 people on board. The lack of lifeboats was supposedly down to the fact that the deck would have been too cluttered. As well as the lack of lifeboats, many lives were doomed by the fact that the lifeboats that were used were never filled up fully.
In James Cameron’s 1997 retelling, many lifeboats are sent down carrying only a third of the passengers it had the capacity to carry (65). In the movie, the ship’s architect, Thomas Andrews, tells the lifeboat crew that the boats held the weight of 70 men in Belfast where Titanic was built. As a result, only 712 people were rescued by lifeboat, when near to 2,000 people could have been saved if they were filled properly.
14. If The Course Had Been Changed 30 Seconds Earlier, The Iceberg Wouldn’t Have Struck
Timing is everything and in Titanic’s case, just 30 seconds could have made the difference in saving thousands of lives and keeping the ship’s “unsinkable” reputation afloat. When the lookout crew first made out the shape of a distant iceberg, they immediately warned the officers on the bridge. The men then had just 37 seconds until the fateful iceberg hit the hull of the ship. It was in this brief moment that the course was slightly delayed by First Officer William Murdoch, and this decision sealed the fate of everyone on board.
As Officer Murdoch looked out at the approaching iceberg, he foolishly waited half a minute before deciding to change course. At first, he thought the ship may be able to pass by safely with no harm done, but by the time he realized that this wasn’t the case, his orders for the ship to turn “hard a starboard” turned the ship left. Murdoch also ordered the engines to stop, but halting a ship this size in such little time would have been impossible.
...[ Continue to next page ]
Share This Post
