the sinking of the titanic essay

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 12, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

The RMS Titanic, a luxury steamship, sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic after sideswiping an iceberg during its maiden voyage. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 lost their lives in the disaster. Titanic has inspired countless books, articles and films (including the 1997 Titanic movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio), and the ship's story has entered the public consciousness as a cautionary tale about the perils of human hubris.

The Building of the RMS Titanic

The Titanic was the product of intense competition among rival shipping lines in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, the White Star Line found itself in a battle for steamship primacy with Cunard, a venerable British firm with two standout ships that ranked among the most sophisticated and luxurious of their time.

Cunard’s Mauretania began service in 1907 and quickly set a speed record for the fastest average speed during a transatlantic crossing (23.69 knots or 27.26 mph), a title that it held for 22 years.

Cunard’s other masterpiece, Lusitania , launched the same year and was lauded for its spectacular interiors. Lusitania met its tragic end on May 7, 1915, when a torpedo fired by a German U-boat sunk the ship, killing nearly 1,200 of the 1,959 people on board and precipitating the United States’ entry into World War I .

Did you know? Passengers traveling first class on Titanic were roughly 44 percent more likely to survive than other passengers.

The same year that Cunard unveiled its two magnificent liners, J. Bruce Ismay, chief executive of White Star, discussed the construction of three large ships with William J. Pirrie, chairman of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff. Part of a new “Olympic” class of liners, each ship would measure 882 feet in length and 92.5 feet at their broadest point, making them the largest of their time.

In March 1909, work began in the massive Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, on the second of these three ocean liners, Titanic, and continued nonstop for two years.

On May 31, 1911, Titanic’s immense hull–the largest movable manmade object in the world at the time–made its way down the slipways and into the River Lagan in Belfast. More than 100,000 people attended the launching, which took just over a minute and went off without a hitch.

The hull was immediately towed to a mammoth fitting-out dock where thousands of workers would spend most of the next year building the ship’s decks, constructing her lavish interiors and installing the 29 giant boilers that would power her two main steam engines.

‘Unsinkable’ Titanic’s Fatal Flaws

According to some hypotheses, Titanic was doomed from the start by a design that many lauded as state-of-the-art. The Olympic-class ships featured a double bottom and 15 watertight bulkhead compartments equipped with electric watertight doors that could be operated individually or simultaneously by a switch on the bridge.

It was these watertight bulkheads that inspired Shipbuilder magazine, in a special issue devoted to the Olympic liners, to deem them “practically unsinkable.”

But the watertight compartment design contained a flaw that was a critical factor in Titanic’s sinking: While the individual bulkheads were indeed watertight, the walls separating the bulkheads extended only a few feet above the water line, so water could pour from one compartment into another, especially if the ship began to list or pitch forward.

The second critical safety lapse that contributed to the loss of so many lives was the inadequate number of lifeboats carried on Titanic. A mere 16 boats, plus four Engelhardt “collapsibles,” could accommodate just 1,178 people. Titanic could carry up to 2,435 passengers, and a crew of approximately 900 brought her capacity to more than 3,300 people.

As a result, even if the lifeboats were loaded to full capacity during an emergency evacuation, there were available seats for only one-third of those on board. While unthinkably inadequate by today’s standards, Titanic’s supply of lifeboats actually exceeded the British Board of Trade’s requirements.

Passengers on the Titanic

Titanic created quite a stir when it departed for its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. After stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (now known as Cobh), Ireland, the ship set sail for New York with 2,240 passengers and crew—or “souls,” the expression then used in the shipping industry, usually in connection with a sinking—on board.

As befitting the first transatlantic crossing of the world’s most celebrated ship, many of these souls were high-ranking officials, wealthy industrialists, dignitaries and celebrities. First and foremost was the White Star Line’s managing director, J. Bruce Ismay, accompanied by Thomas Andrews, the ship’s builder from Harland and Wolff.

Absent was financier J.P. Morgan , whose International Mercantile Marine shipping trust controlled the White Star Line and who had selected Ismay as a company officer. Morgan had planned to join his associates on Titanic but canceled at the last minute when some business matters delayed him.

The wealthiest passenger was John Jacob Astor IV, heir to the Astor family fortune, who had made waves a year earlier by marrying 18-year-old Madeleine Talmadge Force, a young woman 29 years his junior, shortly after divorcing his first wife.

Other notable passengers included the elderly owner of Macy’s, Isidor Straus, and his wife Ida; industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, accompanied by his mistress, valet and chauffeur; and widow and heiress Margaret “Molly” Brown, who would earn her nickname “ The Unsinkable Molly Brown ” by helping to maintain calm and order while the lifeboats were being loaded and boosting the spirits of her fellow survivors.

The employees attending to this collection of First Class luminaries were mostly traveling Second Class, along with academics, tourists, journalists and others who would enjoy a level of service and accommodations equivalent to First Class on most other ships.

But by far the largest group of passengers was in Third Class: more than 700, exceeding the other two levels combined. Some had paid less than $20 to make the crossing. It was Third Class that was the major source of profit for shipping lines like White Star, and Titanic was designed to offer these passengers accommodations and amenities superior to those found in Third Class on any other ship of that era.

Titanic Sets Sail

Titanic’s departure from Southampton on April 10 was not without some oddities. A small coal fire was discovered in one of her bunkers–an alarming but not uncommon occurrence on steamships of the day. Stokers hosed down the smoldering coal and shoveled it aside to reach the base of the blaze.

After assessing the situation, the captain and chief engineer concluded that it was unlikely it had caused any damage that could affect the hull structure, and the stokers were ordered to continue controlling the fire at sea.

According to a theory put forth by a small number of Titanic experts, the fire became uncontrollable after the ship left Southampton, forcing the crew to attempt a full-speed crossing; moving at such a fast pace, they were unable to avoid the fatal collision with the iceberg.

Another unsettling event took place when Titanic left the Southampton dock. As she got underway, she narrowly escaped a collision with the America Line’s S.S. New York. Superstitious Titanic buffs sometimes point to this as the worst kind of omen for a ship departing on her maiden voyage.

The Titanic Strikes an Iceberg

On April 14, after four days of uneventful sailing, Titanic received sporadic reports of ice from other ships, but she was sailing on calm seas under a moonless, clear sky.

At about 11:30 p.m., a lookout saw an iceberg coming out of a slight haze dead ahead, then rang the warning bell and telephoned the bridge. The engines were quickly reversed and the ship was turned sharply—instead of making direct impact, Titanic seemed to graze along the side of the berg, sprinkling ice fragments on the forward deck.

Sensing no collision, the lookouts were relieved. They had no idea that the iceberg had a jagged underwater spur, which slashed a 300-foot gash in the hull below the ship’s waterline.

By the time the captain toured the damaged area with Harland and Wolff’s Thomas Andrews, five compartments were already filling with seawater, and the bow of the doomed ship was alarmingly pitched downward, allowing seawater to pour from one bulkhead into the neighboring compartment.

Andrews did a quick calculation and estimated that Titanic might remain afloat for an hour and a half, perhaps slightly more. At that point the captain, who had already instructed his wireless operator to call for help, ordered the lifeboats to be loaded.

Titanic’s Lifeboats

A little more than an hour after contact with the iceberg, a largely disorganized and haphazard evacuation began with the lowering of the first lifeboat. The craft was designed to hold 65 people; it left with only 28 aboard.

Tragically, this was to be the norm: During the confusion and chaos during the precious hours before Titanic plunged into the sea, nearly every lifeboat would be launched woefully under-filled, some with only a handful of passengers.

In compliance with the law of the sea, women and children boarded the boats first; only when there were no women or children nearby were men permitted to board. Yet many of the victims were in fact women and children, the result of disorderly procedures that failed to get them to the boats in the first place.

Exceeding Andrews’ prediction, Titanic stubbornly stayed afloat for close to three hours. Those hours witnessed acts of craven cowardice and extraordinary bravery.

Hundreds of human dramas unfolded between the order to load the lifeboats and the ship’s final plunge: Men saw off wives and children, families were separated in the confusion and selfless individuals gave up their spots to remain with loved ones or allow a more vulnerable passenger to escape. In the end, 706 people survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Titanic Sinks

The ship’s most illustrious passengers each responded to the circumstances with conduct that has become an integral part of the Titanic legend. Ismay, the White Star managing director, helped load some of the boats and later stepped onto a collapsible as it was being lowered. Although no women or children were in the vicinity when he abandoned ship, he would never live down the ignominy of surviving the disaster while so many others perished.

Thomas Andrews, Titanic’s chief designer, was last seen in the First Class smoking room, staring blankly at a painting of a ship on the wall. Astor deposited his wife Madeleine into a lifeboat and, remarking that she was pregnant, asked if he could accompany her; refused entry, he managed to kiss her goodbye just before the boat was lowered away.

Although offered a seat on account of his age, Isidor Straus refused any special consideration, and his wife Ida would not leave her husband behind. The couple retired to their cabin and perished together.

Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet returned to their rooms and changed into formal evening dress; emerging onto the deck, he famously declared, “We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”

Molly Brown helped load the boats and finally was forced into one of the last to leave. She implored its crewmen to turn back for survivors, but they refused, fearing they would be swamped by desperate people trying to escape the icy seas.

Titanic, nearly perpendicular and with many of her lights still aglow, finally dove beneath the ocean’s surface at about 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912. Throughout the morning, Cunard’s Carpathia , after receiving Titanic’s distress call at midnight and steaming at full speed while dodging ice floes all night, rounded up all of the lifeboats. They contained only 706 survivors.

Aftermath of the Titanic Catastrophe

At least five separate boards of inquiry on both sides of the Atlantic conducted comprehensive hearings on Titanic’s sinking, interviewing dozens of witnesses and consulting with many maritime experts. Every conceivable subject was investigated, from the conduct of the officers and crew to the construction of the ship. Titanic conspiracy theories abounded.

While it has always been assumed that the ship sank as a result of the gash that caused the bulkhead compartments to flood, various other theories have emerged over the decades, including that the ship’s steel plates were too brittle for the near-freezing Atlantic waters, that the impact caused rivets to pop and that the expansion joints failed, among others.

Technological aspects of the catastrophe aside, Titanic’s demise has taken on a deeper, almost mythic, meaning in popular culture. Many view the tragedy as a morality play about the dangers of human hubris: Titanic’s creators believed they had built an unsinkable ship that could not be defeated by the laws of nature.

This same overconfidence explains the electrifying impact Titanic’s sinking had on the public when she was lost. There was widespread disbelief that the ship could not possibly have sunk, and, due to the era’s slow and unreliable means of communication, misinformation abounded. Newspapers initially reported that the ship had collided with an iceberg but remained afloat and was being towed to port with everyone on board.

It took many hours for accurate accounts to become widely available, and even then people had trouble accepting that this paragon of modern technology could sink on her maiden voyage, taking more than 1,500 souls with her.

The ship historian John Maxtone-Graham has compared Titanic’s story to the Challenger space shuttle disaster of 1986. In that case, the world reeled at the notion that one of the most sophisticated inventions ever created could explode into oblivion along with its crew. Both tragedies triggered a sudden collapse in confidence, revealing that we remain subject to human frailties and error, despite our hubris and a belief in technological infallibility.

Titanic Wreck

Efforts to locate the wreck of Titanic began soon after it sank. But technical limitations—as well as the vastness of the North Atlantic search area—made finding it extremely difficult.

Finally, in 1985, a joint U.S.-French expedition located the wreck of the RMS Titanic . The doomed ship was discovered about 400 miles east of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, some 13,000 feet below the surface.

Subsequent explorations have found that the wreck is in relatively good condition, with many objects on the ship—jewelry, furniture, shoes, machinery and other items—are still intact.

Since its discovery, the wreck has been explored numerous times by manned and unmanned submersibles—including the submersible Titan, which imploded during what would have been its third dive to the wreck in June 2023.

HISTORY Vault: Titanic's Achilles Heel

Did Titanic have a fatal design flaw? John Chatterton and Richie Kohler of "Deep Sea Detectives" dive the wreckage of Titanic's sister ship, Britannic, to investigate the possibility.

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Material Failures

Design flaws, effects of the disaster, ship design, safety regulations.

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History Resources

Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912

A spotlight on a primary source by washington dodge.

Dodge, a prominent doctor, banker, and politician from San Francisco, boarded the Titanic at Southampton on April 10 with his wife Ruth and son Washington Dodge Jr. His description of the sinking was written within days after the disaster, as the Carpathia ferried the Titanic survivors to New York. Carpathia passenger Doctor Frank H. Blackmarr began soliciting narratives from various passengers, including Dr. Dodge. He assembled a scrapbook of firsthand accounts and used them to lecture about the sinking.

Dodge’s tale begins at 11:40 p.m. when he and his wife were awakened by the ship’s impact with the iceberg. Twice Dodge went on deck and was told there was no danger. "Having been told that there was no danger, and believing such to be the fact from the general conduct of the passengers & such officers as I saw I insisted that my family remain in bed and await developments — Once more returning to the companion way I asked our steward who was standing in there was he had heard — He replied the order has just come down for all passengers to put on life preservers."

Dodge and his family quickly ascended to the starboard boat deck. His wife and son boarded life boat three, the second boat launched from that side of the ship. Dodge remained on the starboard side of the ship, a decision which undoubtedly saved his life, as the majority of passengers congregated on the port side of the ship. As Fifth Officer Lowe started filling lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship, Dodge was able to secure a spot.

Public outrage at the extreme loss of life was immediate. Just over 700 people, or 32 percent of the passengers and crew, survived. The US Senate and British Board of Trade held special hearings into the causes of the disaster, the lack of life boats, why most life boats left the ship less than full, the conduct of the officers and crew, and the treatment of the third-class passengers. The total number of people who died on the Titanic is unclear. The figures released were quickly revised to between 1490 and 1,500. The statistics have been adjusted so many times since 1912 that most historians agree that they will never know how many people died on the Titanic .

As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for each person embarked; that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, because the Californian had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic , that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Washington Dodge returned to San Francisco and in 1917 took controlling interest in Poulsen Wireless Corporation, a telegraph company. He committed suicide two years later in June of 1919.

A full transcript is available.

The officers in charge of loading the boats were cool and masterful, preventing as far as possible all disorder and enforcing the command to load [ inserted : care for] women and children first. When boat 13 was lowered to A deck to be loaded I went to this deck - After 8 or 10 women had been placed aboard, no furt other women or children resp were within hearing to respond to the officers call. A number of men then climbed over the rail into the boat when some one pushed me from behind and shouted get in doctor. I climed in and in a few moments the boat was filled & orders given to lower - As we were lowered boat 15 which had been loaded from the boat deck, was also being lowered - By this we were for a few minutes placed in a perilous position - which threated our destruction - We observed as we neared the water that our boat was being lowered directly into the immense volume of water thrown out from the ships side by the condenser pump - On the Titanic this was a stream from 3 to about 3 feet in diameter, which was thrown with great force 6 or 8 feet form the ship s . It would instantly have swamped our boat - To add to our anxiety boat 15 had swung directly over our heads owing to the fact that the steamer was had settled several feet [inserted: into the water] at her bow - Both boats were being lowered when our loud cries of warning were heard above & the lowering of both boats arrested - As We had no officer or seaman in our boat to direct us but fortunately were able to disengage an oar, and with it we push the bow of our boat, which overhung the threatening waters from the pump, 8 or 10 feet from the ships side when releasing the trigger we dropped into the water & were at once swept away from the steamers side by great force of [inserted: the] water - The ocean being as calm as the waters of a smooth flowing river we rowed off to overtake a boat having a lantern aboard, we being unable to find one in our boat - As the Having rowed about 1/4 mile we found ourselves in close proximity to five boats - We observed the closing incidents the gradual submergence of the ship forward - The final extinguishment suddenly of all her lights - The final plunge downward [inserted: as a shooting star full from the Zenith visable nearly to the horizon] - From this time until shortly after 4 in a sea gradually growing rougher & in a [ inserted " with] a temperature of extremely cold we rowed about -

Questions for Discussion

Read the document introduction and transcript excerpt and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the questions that follow.

• Why does the loss of the Titanic continue to interest people one hundred years after the event?
• How might we question the accuracy of the Washington Dodge letter? How can his description be verified?
• How closely does the Dodge description come to any version of the sinking that has appeared in print or film?

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90 Titanic Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best titanic topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 good essay topics on titanic, 🔎 most interesting titanic topics to write about, ❓ titanic research questions.

• Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie Even when she rejects the privileges that her class offers in order to be with the one she loves, she is eventually separated from him because of the consequences of social inequality.
• The Role of Music in the Film “Titanic” Also, it will discuss the content and themes of the movie and explain the role played by music in the movie. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• A Rhetorical Analysis of the Titanic Film The close-up shots used in the scene add to the emotional effect of the scene and create a sense of intimacy between the audience and characters, making the intended viewers experience the scene as if […]
• “Titanic” by James Cameron: The Design of the American Epic Romance Film The custom building of the ship was meant to validate the historical detail of the movie. The detailed design of the ship was meant to support the narrative such that the occurrences could be as […]
• “Titanic” by James Cameron: Storyline, Language & Characters Analysis The head of the excursion is Brock Lovett and is just exploring to find valuables, which might have been carried to the ship. With the story developing, the ship, on the other hand, is pushed […]
• Would 1997 Movie Titanic Be Considered a Great Epic? Griffith, the “father of film technique”, “the man who invented Hollywood” and “the Shakespeare of the screen,” “a film is a cooperative effort between the director and the audience.
• “Titanic” by James Cameron Movie Analysis Therefore, there is indeed a good reason in referring to Cameron’s film, as such that promotes a thoroughly humanistic idea that the measure of people’s actual worth has very little to do with what happened […]
• Titanic Sinking in Poetic and Oral History Genres In the opening he takes aim at the claim that the ship was unsinkable, calling that an example of “human vanity” and the “Pride of life” from which the ship now lies far removed.
• The Titanic: Preconditions, the Trigger, the Crisis, Post-Crisis The sinking of the RMS Titanic is the subject of this report and seeks to analyze the tragedy through the lens of risk and crisis management.
• Historical Romance: “An Affair to Remember” and “Titanic” The primary aspect of the two films’ social environment is the characters’ ability to get involved in romantic antics and affairs. Love is the central theme in the movie and is signified by the Heart […]
• The Titanic: Risk Management The vehicle’s high speed at the time of the collision and delayed evacuation can be explained by the captain’s attempt to save the prestige of the ship.
• The Role of the Social Institution in the Cameron’s “Titanic” Most of the movie is about the encounter and relationships of this boy with the members of the aristocratic family mentioned above.
• Black Vernaculars in “Sinking of the Titanic” by Hughes and “Shine and the Titanic” by Abraham In both poems, the main character is a black man named Shine who works in the boiler room of the Titanic and attempts to inform the captain of the impending disaster.
• “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Titanic” Film Analysis As a result, it can be argued that the time difference between these two films is significant in terms of understanding the changes in the depiction of the theme of love by the producers of […]
• The Significance and the Esteem of the Film “Titanic” It is hard to believe that James Cameron envisaged the love narrative involving the two characters and ultimately decided the ideal backdrop would be the sinking of the Titanic.
• Gender Propagation in Titanic Miniseries In spite of the film indicating that the people travelling in the Titanic are divided based on their social status, the film goes ahead to show a high level of interaction among the different classes […]
• Technological Catastrophe: Titanic in 1912 The events leading to the sinking of the ship and the finding of its wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean led to in-depth analysis of technology with a clear line between advantages and disadvantages of technological […]
• Rhetorical Criticism of the Titanic Jack and Rose develop a friendship They walk round the ship and explore all the hidden areas The people of the high class treat and see the employees and people from the lower societies There […]
• My Opinion on the Movie Titanic Upon the knowledge of the portray, Dawson Calvert contacted Lovett, she was asked if she knew about the necklace and she said that indeed she was the one Rose DeWittone of the passengers deemed to […]
• Loss of RMS Titanic (1912): Significant Events of the 20th Century The loss occurred while the ship was on its Maiden voyage from Southampton, United Kingdom to the New York City in the United States causing one of the deadliest maritime disasters of the 20th century.
• Similarities and Differences Between the Movies “Titanic” and “Romeo and Juliet”
• The Night That Changed Everything for the “Titanic”
• Analysis of the Use of Mise-En-Scène to Convey Narrative in “Titanic”
• Acting and Emotions in “Titanic” Movie
• Elegant Production Design and Surprising Visual Outcomes: “Titanic”
• The History and Sinking of the “Titanic”
• “Titanic”: The Most Fascinating and Well-Known Ship in History
• Archetypal and Mythic Patterns in the “Titanic”
• “Titanic”: The Birth of a New Generation and Its Terrible Destruction
• The Events That Led to the Sinking of the “Titanic” in 1912
• Flaws, Failures, and Fractures of the “Titanic”
• Human Neglect as a Reason Behind the Sinking of the “Titanic”
• A Tragic Love Story in “Titanic” Movie
• “Titanic” and “Lusitania”: The Ships That Have Changed History
• Historical Decision: The Incident of the “Titanic”
• “Titanic”: Standout Ship and Legendary Fail
• Comparative Analysis of American Independent Films: “Clerks” and “Titanic”
• “Titanic” and Its Poetics Elements
• Structural Weakness and the Hull of the “Titanic”
• Factors of Success of the Film “Titanic” by James Cameron
• Hollywood Elite and “Titanic” Film by Director James Cameron
• The Size, Shape, and Design of the “Titanic”
• The Theme of Social Classes and Inequalities in the Movie “Titanic”
• The Age-Old Mystery Surrounding the Sinking of the Maiden Ship “Titanic”
• Regarding the “Titanic” and What Should Be Done With the Remains
• Themes and Motives in James Cameron’s “Titanic”
• Impact of Sinking of the “Titanic” on the U.S. Capital Markets
• The Life and Works of Thomas Andrews, the Designer of “Titanic”
• The Wild Conspiracy Theory That the “Titanic” Never Sank
• Various Social Classes and How They Were Treated on the “Titanic”
• Captain Edward J. Smith on Trail for Sinking of the “Titanic”
• The Most Famous Survivor Passenger on “Titanic”
• How the Movie “Titanic” Relates to Suffering and Death
• Engineering and Construction Factors That Caused the “Titanic” to Fail
• James Cameron’s Presentation and Adaptation of “Titanic” for the Cinema
• Comparison of the Movies “Titanic” and “Pearl Harbor”
• The Real Story Behind the Discovery of “Titanic’s” Watery Grave
• Survival Prediction for “Titanic” Data Using Machine Learning Algorithms
• Comparing the “Titanic” Movie and the Real “Titanic” Story
• What Engineering and Construction Factors Caused the Sinking of the “Titanic”?
• Could Such an Accident as “Titanic” Happen Again?
• Why Were the “Titanic” and “Lusitania” Ships That Changed History?
• How Were Different Social Classes Treated on the “Titanic”?
• How Can the Film “Titanic” Be Considered From a Formalist Point of View?
• What Would Be the Survival Prediction of “Titanic” Data Using Machine Learning Algorithms?
• Who Was the Most Famous “Titanic” Survivor?
• How Has James Cameron Presented and Adapted the True Story of “Titanic” for the Cinema?
• Could Anything Have Saved the “Titanic”?
• What Critical Approach Is Used in the Movie “Titanic”?
• How Does James Cameron Represent the “Old World” and the “New World” in His Film “Titanic”?
• Why Did They Say That God Couldn’t Even Sink the “Titanic”?
• Did Any of the 3rd Class Passengers Survive on the “Titanic”?
• What Could Have Prevented the “Titanic” From Sinking?
• How Does Thomas Hardy Present the Tragedy of the Sinking of the “Titanic” in the Poem “The Convergence of the Twain”?
• Was Captain Smith Responsible for the Sinking of the “Titanic”?
• Has the Real “Titanic” Been Found?
• What Changed as a Result of the Sinking of the “Titanic”?
• Is There a Difference Between the Movie “Titanic” and the Real Story of the “Titanic”?
• Why Was the “Titanic” One of the Greatest Shipping Disasters of All Time?
• Is the Story of the “Titanic” a True Story of Life?
• What Events Led to the Sinking of the “Titanic” in 1912?
• What Is the Essence of the Inequality of Different Social Classes in the Story “Titanic”?
• How Much Was a First-Class Ticket on the “Titanic”?
• Was the “Titanic” the Most Fascinating and Well-Known Ship in History?
• Are There Similarities Between the Films “Titanic” and “Pearl Harbor”?
• What Events Led to the Discovery of the “Titanic”?
• How Accurately Does the Movie “A Night to Remember” Depict the Actual Sinking of the Ship “Titanic”?
• Why Will the “Titanic” Always Hold Significance?
• What Were the Causes and Consequences of the “Titanic” Disaster?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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44 secrets you never knew about the Titanic, which sank 112 years ago

The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, but the wreck was not found until September 1, 1985.

The story of the ship, its passengers, and life onboard still fascinates us today.

One of the ship's musicians wasn't officially declared dead until 2000.

The sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, has captivated people for 112 years. The stories of survivors, the various explanations as to why it sank, the decades-long search to find the wreck, and the multi-billion-dollar film released in 1997 have all contributed to its enduring place in pop culture.

On September 1, 1985, more than seven decades after the Titanic sank, its wreckage was found during a secret US Navy mission searching for two other missing vessels.

As technology advanced, companies started offering tourists the chance to dive 2.4 miles below the surface and see the wreck for themselves. In June 2023, a submersible, the Titan, with five people aboard, went missing two hours into its journey to the wreckage. The Coast Guard later confirmed the Titan had imploded, killing all five.

Keep scrolling to learn more about the Titanic, including how it was found, what it was like on board, and what secrets we've learned from the wreckage.

Actress Dorothy Gibson, who was aboard the Titanic and survived, starred in a film called "Saved From the Titanic," which was released just one month after the ship sank.

American silent film actress Dorothy Gibson was one of the approximately 700 survivors of the tragedy.

Upon arriving in New York City unscathed, she immediately began filming "Saved From the Titanic," the first film to depict the events of the sinking.

According to the Los Angeles Times , it was released in May 1912, a month after the crash. She is famous for wearing the same clothes and shoes in the movie as she had worn during the actual sinking, according to Atlas Obscura.

While the film was successful, it exists only in memories now, much like one Jack Dawson. The only known print of the film was destroyed in a fire, reported IB Times .

A popular urban legend is that another survivor, Lawrence Beesley, tried to crash the filming of the 1958 film "A Night to Remember" because he wanted to symbolically go down with the ship.

According to IMDb 's trivia page, Beesley was on the set of "A Night to Remember," which is considered the most accurate of all Titanic films, at least according to the BBC .

He reportedly tried to jump into the scene depicting the ship's sinking, in order to symbolically go down with the ship. Legend has it that director Roy Ward Baker refused, as it would have been a union violation and could have halted filming.

Beesley was a survivor from the second class, and he wrote a memoir about his experience entitled " The Loss of the SS Titanic ."

The 700 third-class passengers had to share two bathtubs.

Even though, by all accounts, the third-class accommodations on the Titanic were much better than those on an average ship, they were still pretty rough.

The total number of third-class passengers was at least 709, according to Encyclopedia Titanica , and they all had to share two bathtubs, reported  ABC News.

Roger Bricoux, the Titanic's cello player, was just 21 years old when he perished during the ship's sinking.

But Bricoux wasn't officially declared dead until 2000, though all of the musicians died on April 15, 1912. The French army even called him a deserter when he failed to show up to serve in World War I, according to his profile on Encyclopedia Titanica.

The Association Française du Titanic (French Association of the Titanic) worked to clear his name and officially put Bricoux to rest, but it didn't succeed until 88 years after the Titanic sank.

The ship's band played music right until the very end to try to calm passengers, just like in the 1997 movie.

They have been called heroes, and they played music for more than two hours after hitting the iceberg, the BBC reported.

The ship's lookouts had to rely on their eyesight alone — the ship's binoculars were locked inside a cabinet that no one could find the key to.

According to The Telegraph , the ship's lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, didn't have access to binoculars during the journey and therefore couldn't see very far.

The ship's second officer was replaced at the last minute and forgot to hand off the key to the locker that housed the ship's binoculars.

The key resurfaced at auction in 2007, where it was sold for over $90,000, reported Scottish newspaper The Herald .

One theory is that the crew didn't spot the iceberg in time because they didn't have access to said binoculars.

According to the official 1912 inquiry findings, The Telegraph reported, only 37 seconds elapsed between actually seeing the iceberg, calling downstairs, and deciding what course of action to take.

At the memorial of Frederick Fleet, one of the lookouts, a prankster left a pair of binoculars with a note reading, "Sorry for bringing these 100 years too late."

Fleet was the lookout who called out the now-famous words, "Iceberg, right ahead." He survived the sinking but tragically went on to take his own life in 1965, after the death of his wife, according to his Encyclopedia Titanica profile.

On the centennial anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, a prankster removed a memorial wreath from his gravestone and replaced it with a pair of binoculars and a note apologizing for the lateness of the binoculars, reported The Daily Mail.

The Titanic was plagued by tragedy from the start. Eight people died during the ship's construction.

According to National Geographic , eight men died during the construction of the ship, but only five of their names are known: Samuel Scott, John Kelly, William Clarke, James Dobbin, and Robert Murphy. A plaque memorializing the eight men in Belfast was unveiled in 2012.

The richest man aboard was John Jacob Astor IV, who was widely believed to have been the richest man in the world at the time of his death.

Astor was not just the richest man on the Titanic but widely believed to be the richest man in the world at the time of his death. He was worth an estimated $150 million, or $4.5 billion in today's dollars, according to CNBC.

According to Biography , Astor was on the ship returning home from a months-long honeymoon with his new wife, Madeleine Talmage Force, who, at 18 years old, was 28 years younger than him.

The extended honeymoon was actually a way to escape society's gossip — Astor had just been divorced within two years of his new marriage, which was relatively unheard of back then, Mental Floss reported.

Astor's body was one of the few that was recovered in the Atlantic Ocean after the ship went down, The New York Times reported at the time.

Multiple newspapers mistakenly reported that the crash caused no fatalities, including the Daily Mail, the Belfast Telegraph, and The World.

In the race to publish a headline about the disaster, numerous newspapers gave families and loved ones false hope about the sinking of the Titanic. As a Library of Virginia project showed, The Daily Mail declared "no lives lost" while the Reno Evening Gazette said that "passengers are safe."

The Belfast Telegraph claimed "no danger of loss of life."

Some American newspapers were able to take advantage of the time difference, making their headlines more accurate. The New York Times , for example, ran the headline "Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued by Carpathia, Probably 1,250 Perish; Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing."

A woman who survived the Titanic's sinking later survived the sinking of another ship: the Britannic.

Depending on how you look at it, stewardess and nurse Violet Jessop is the luckiest — or unluckiest — woman alive. She survived the sinking of both the Titanic and the Britannic.

Jessop was just 25 when she survived the sinking of the Titanic. She was instructed to get into a lifeboat while the ship was going down to show women that the boats were safe.

Undeterred by this maritime tragedy, Jessop began working on the Britannic, according to the Belfast Telegraph (dubbed the Titanic 2 by the media), until it came across a mine that had been planted by a German U-boat in 1916.

That ship  also sank, and Jessop escaped again, but this time with a serious head injury that would affect her for the rest of her life.

It is rumored that a few men dressed up as women to get a spot on a lifeboat.

For one couple, these rumors even caused divorce.

Dickinson and Helen Bishop were granted a divorce in 1916, four years after the Titanic went down. Helen claimed that her husband was cruel and a drunk, according to M Live , but their relationship was also plagued by rumors that Dickinson had dressed up as a woman in order to escape the ship.

These claims were explained further in the 2012 book " Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived ."

In his official testimony during the US Senate Inquiry regarding the Titanic, Dickinson claimed that there had been no official order allowing only women and children to get on lifeboats, according to the Titanic Inquiry Project.

Bishop's not the only man to have been accused of disguising himself as a woman — J. Bruce Ismay, William Carter, and William T. Sloper were all dogged by the same rumors throughout their lives, according to fact-checking site Snopes .

Every single engineer aboard the Titanic perished — they all stayed behind to keep the ship's power running until the very end.

The Titanic's lights only went out when she finally went under, due to the tireless efforts of the ship's engineers, who stayed behind to keep the electricity and pumps running while the ship sank. They also kept the radio running, which put out distress signals until minutes before the ship sank, according to The Guardian.

Not one of the 35 engineers survived.

No city was more affected by the Titanic's sinking than Southampton, England, where the ship had departed from. In one school, half of the students lost their fathers.

According to the Daily Echo , at "one Northam school, 120 of the 240 pupils lost their father" — Northam is a neighborhood in Southampton. Most of the crew was from the city, and only 213 crewmembers survived, while 686 died.

The Daily Echo also reported that one widow, who had just given birth to twins, found out her husband had died and died of shock herself.

The Navratil brothers were known as the "Titanic orphans." They were the only two children from the ship to be rescued without a parent or guardian.

The Navratil brothers Edmond and Michel were just 2 and 4 years old, respectively, when the Titanic sank. They were with their father, Michel Sr., who had kidnapped them.

Separated from their mother, he decided to take them to America in the hopes that his estranged wife would follow, and that they could start a new life in the New World, according to NPR.

Their father put them on a lifeboat, and he was never seen again.

The two spoke no English, so they were taken in by a French-speaking survivor, Margaret Hays, until the authorities could locate their mother. She found them a month after the disaster, thanks to their faces being plastered on newspapers the world over.

One of the most beloved quotes from the 1997 film is based on a true story.

In the movie, Benjamin Guggenheim refuses a life vest and states, "We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down as gentlemen."

While it seems almost too cinematic to be true, the real Benjamin Guggenheim actually was prepared to go down like a gentleman, according to Encyclopedia Britannica .

A New York Times article published in April 1912 that was reprinted by Encyclopedia Titanica  reported that he had asked a steward to tell his wife in New York City, "I've done my best in doing my duty." He went down with the ship.

Watch the scene based on Guggenheim's final moments here.

There were at least 13 couples celebrating their honeymoon on the Titanic.

According to the 2011 book " Titanic Love Stories, " there were at least 13 couples celebrating their honeymoons on the ship.

A novella called "Futility" which was published 14 years before the Titanic set sail seemed to have predicted the disaster.

"Futility," a novella written by American author Morgan Robertson, was published in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic set sail. It was centered on the sinking of a fictional ship called the Titan.

There's an eerie number of similarities between the ship's sinking in "Futility" and the Titanic in real life.

First, the ship names are just two letters off (Titan vs Titanic). They were also said to be almost the same size, and both sank in April, due to an iceberg. Both ships had been described as unsinkable, and, sadly, both had just over the legally required amount of lifeboats, which were nowhere near enough.

The author was accused of being a psychic, but he explained that the uncanny similarities were simply a product of his extensive knowledge, saying, "I know what I'm writing about, that's all."

The SS Californian is known for having been near the Titanic when it sank, but not coming to its aid until it was too late. Three years after the Titanic, the Californian sank too.

As the BBC reported, multiple bad judgment calls led to the Californian not helping the Titanic: The ship's radio was allegedly shut off for the night when the Titanic hit the iceberg, and when the captain was awakened by the flares the Titanic had been setting off, he assumed that they were just fireworks.

By the time the SOS messages finally came through, it was too late.

However, the Californian wasn't long for this world either — it sank in November 1915, torpedoed by a German submarine during World War I, according to the book " British Merchant Ships Sunk by U-boats in World War One, " published in 2006.

Only one woman actually went down with the ship and survived, Rhoda Mary Abott.

Abott was on the deck until the very end with her two sons, and all three went into the water with the ship.

Tragically, her two sons were washed away by the ocean, but Abott was eventually pulled into a lifeboat that was rescued by the Carpathia, according to the 2012 guide " The Titanic For Dummies ."

One of the ship's cooks, Charles Joughin, was able to survive much longer in the cold water than others because of the copious amounts of whiskey he had drank.

Joughin is briefly but memorably portrayed in "Titanic" as chugging a flask of alcohol before entering the water. This is based on reality — according to reports, Joughin grabbed two bottles of whiskey as the ship went down, as written in the 2015 book " Fascinating Footnotes From History. "

According to the Titanic Inquiry Project , Joughin reported that he survived in the frigid North Atlantic for at least two hours.

Joughin had had a busy night. The last dinner served on the Titanic (to first-class passengers) was a whopping 10 courses.

According to NPR , the menu included "oysters, filet mignon, poached salmon, chicken Lyonnaise, foie gras, roasted pigeon, lamb with mint sauce, and Punch Romaine, a palate-cleansing ice flavored with oranges and drenched in Champagne."

And that's just for first class — the ship's cooks had to prepare food for second- and third-class passengers, plus the crew, too.

The 1997 movie ended up costing more to produce than it cost to build the Titanic, which was the largest and most luxurious ship at the time, even when adjusted for inflation.

The Titanic was estimated to have cost around $7.5 million in 1912, reported the History Channel , which, according to the US Department of Labor's inflation calculator, would be around $231 million.

The 1997 blockbuster's budget was $200 million, or around $376 million today, according to the Los Angeles Times.

And though it was the biggest ship in the world at the time, it still took 73 years to find its wreckage. It was discovered in the midst of a secret Cold War Navy mission.

The Titanic's wreckage was discovered in 1985, during a secret Cold War Navy mission to locate two sunken nuclear submarines, which explorer Robert Ballard revealed to National Geographic over two decades later.

"The Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and so when that happened, they got really nervous because of the publicity," Ballard said. "But people were so focused on the legend of the Titanic they never connected the dots."

When the wreck was found, it finally confirmed reports that the ship had, in fact, broken in two. This was a long-disputed issue.

There were at least 15 witnesses who swore on the record that they had seen the Titanic break into two pieces before completely sinking beneath the waves. But they were ignored — the official US inquiry stated that the ship sank intact, as the New York Daily News reported.

How the Titanic sank was disputed for 73 years until it was finally found on the ocean floor , broken in two.

The whole wreck could be gone by 2030.

According to ABC News , UNESCO and scientists think the whole wreck could vanish by 2030, thanks to bacteria eating away at it.

During one of the expeditions to view the wreckage, a bowler hat was discovered inside a passenger's closet, right where he left it.

James Cameron, director/writer/producer/editor of "Titanic," wrote about his experiences touring the ship's wreckage for National Geographic. He shared that "in Henry Harper's D Deck cabin, his bowler hat remains in the ruins of his closet, right where he left it."

While many people believed the Titanic was unsinkable, not everyone did. A passenger, Charles Melville Hays, predicted an "appalling disaster." He perished in the water.

According to his entry in Encyclopedia Titanica , Hays was president of the Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Companies, which would later become the Canadian National Railway, and was thus well-versed in the technological advancements in transportation.

Survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie Hays pondered if continuing to build bigger and faster ships was wise, according to a reprinted article from the Toronto Daily Star that was reprinted in Encyclopedia Titanica.

According to Gracie, Hays said "the White Star, the Cunard, and Hamburg-American Lines are devoting their attention and ingenuity in vying with one another to attain the supremacy in luxurious ships and in making speed records. The time will come soon when this will be checked by some appalling disaster."

And an appalling disaster it was. Over 1,500 people died — though only four of those were women from the first class.

According to Encyclopedia Titanica, just four women from first class died during the disaster.

One of those four women was Ann Elizabeth Isham, who perished because she refused to leave her dog behind.

Isham reportedly jumped out of a lifeboat once she realized that she couldn't take her Great Dane with her, according to PETA .

It's been speculated that a woman found in the water with her arms wrapped around her large dog was Isham, though it's impossible to know for sure.

Of the 1,500-plus who perished, only 300 bodies were recovered. One was called the "Unknown Child" and wasn't identified until almost 100 years later.

A child's body was recovered from the water five days after the Titanic went down. Rescuers were so moved by the little boy that they buried him in a grave in Nova Scotia memorializing the 53 children that died.

The body was misidentified three times before he was finally identified as Sidney Goodwin when his shoes were donated to a museum and DNA tested, the Toronto Star reported.

Goodwin's tomb, marked with a headstone that says "unknown child," has remained untouched. His family stated, "The tombstone of the unknown child represents all of the children who perished on the Titanic, and we left it that way," reported LiveScience.

The last remaining survivor passed away in 2009 — she was just 2 months old when the ship sank.

Millvina Dean was just 2 months old when she was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat . She was the last living survivor of the Titanic and died in 2009, at age 97.

One of the most famous survivors was the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown. She later ran for US Senate.

After the sinking of the Titanic, Brown became a full-fledged activist, according to Biography . She was a vocal supporter of the suffrage movement, worked with the Red Cross during World War I, and even ran for Senate, though she didn't win.

Of the about 700 survivors, only one was Japanese. When he returned home, he was ridiculed and ostracized for not going down with the ship.

Masabumi Hosono was originally called the "Lucky Japanese Boy" by American media, but he was soon labeled a coward for getting on a lifeboat, which many considered primarily for women and children, reported AV Club.

He was called dishonorable in his home country and was accused of dressing up as a woman in order to gain access to a boat (there's no proof of this).

After "Titanic" was released in 1997, Hosono's family published a letter he had written to his wife describing the sinking of the ship — explaining he had been ready to die until a crew member called out for two more people, and he hopped in with another man.

A lifeboat drill that was supposed to take place the day of the sinking was canceled by the ship's captain.

According to a survivor's testimony, it was completely out of the ordinary for a Sunday to pass without a lifeboat drill, the Toronto Star reported. April 14, 1912, was the last Sunday the Titanic would ever see, and the day of the sinking (technically, the Titanic sank on April 15 at 2 a.m.).

It's unclear why the drill never happened.

While it's impossible to know for sure, a ship spotted this iceberg with a streak of red paint going along its side soon after the crash. This is believed to be the iceberg that sank the ship.

This photo was taken on April 15, 1912, the morning after the Titanic crashed, from a ship called the SS Prinz Adalbert.

The photographer hadn't even heard about the Titanic sinking yet, he just noticed that it appeared to show signs of collision, including a streak of red paint, according to Wired .

The hangar used to build the Titanic is now a filming location — HBO's hit show "Game of Thrones" shot there.

Part of Titanic Studios incorporates Paint Hall, where construction on the Titanic took place. It was first used in 2007 for the filming of "City of Ember," and it has been part of multiple TV shows and movies since then, including "Game of Thrones," according to Variety.

The ship's profile, which features four smokestacks, makes it one of the most recognizable ships in history. But the fourth smokestack served no purpose, other than aesthetics.

The Titanic had four smokestacks (or funnels), but only three actually carried smoke from the furnaces. You can see how no smoke is coming out of the fourth one.

A lucky few bought tickets but never boarded the ship, such as Milton Hershey, J.P. Morgan, and Guglielmo Marconi.

Days after the ship went down, newspapers began compiling lists of people who had bought tickets but never boarded the Titanic — they called them the "Just Missed It Club."

Those who narrowly escaped disaster included Milton Hershey, who decided to take an earlier ship home with his wife; J. Pierpont Morgan (founder of General Electric and US Steel), who ended up staying at a French spa; and Guglielmo Marconi (an inventor), who also caught an earlier ship.

The ship was reportedly carrying 15,000 bottles of beer, 1,000 bottles of wine, 850 bottles of liquor, and 8,000 cigars.

In addition to all that alcohol and tobacco, there were 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 7,500 pounds of bacon, 36,000 oranges, 1,000 loaves of bread, and 40,000 fresh eggs on board, according to Titanic Facts.

James Cameron's "Titanic" isn't the only movie about the ship. A Nazi propaganda film was shot depicting the events from a German perspective.

The Nazi re-telling of the sinking of the Titanic attempted to blame the British for the sinking of the Titanic by pushing the ship to continue at full speed, despite the warnings of a (fictional) German First Officer who ostensibly was the only person aboard who cared about human life.

The behind-the-scenes scandal of this movie is almost unbelievable, according to the New York Post. Before being murdered in prison for speaking against the Nazi regime, the director demanded a full-size ocean liner that he could film on, and the Nazis provided the SS Cap Arcona (their version of a luxury ocean liner).

Tragically, the Cap Arcona ended up being used as a floating concentration camp and sank, resulting in somewhere between 4,500 and 7,000 casualties, according to The Washington Post.

Captain Edward Smith really did go down with the ship, though it's unclear what his final moments were actually like.

Smith, who had been a captain for 40 years, was preparing to retire after his final journey on the Titanic. Unfortunately, he'd never get to retire, as he died aboard the ship. As History notes, no one knows for sure what happened to Smith, but there are many rumors regarding his death.

"Captain Smith had at least five different deaths, from heroic to ignominious," wrote Wyn Craig Wade in " The Titanic: End of a Dream ." Some said he jumped off the ship with a baby, dove off himself, was washed away by a wave, or even shot himself (though historians widely discredit this theory).

Stranger still, some people claimed that he survived and that they'd seen him, but these sightings have been discounted.

Mysteries are still being solved to this day. Six Chinese passengers survived the sinking but were unable to get off the Carpathia and enter the US. Instead, they were sent to Cuba and seemingly vanished — until recently.

A documentary about the six missing Chinese survivors (Lee Bing, Fang Lang, Chang Chip, Ah Lam, Chung Foo, and Ling Hee) called " The Six " premiered at film festivals in 2021.

"Six of the survivors, all Chinese sailors, had to stay on the ship, prohibited from entering the United States under an anti-immigration law called the Chinese Exclusion Act. The next day, immigration officials escorted them across Manhattan and put them on board a Cuba-bound cargo ship they had been contracted to work on. And then they seemingly vanished," The New York Times reported in August 2021.

One of these men, Lang, even inspired a scene in James Cameron's "Titanic" — he was rescued from the water by the single returning lifeboat, much like Kate Winslet's Rose. His rescue was also depicted, but the scene, which is available to watch on YouTube, was later deleted.

The BBC reported that the six survivors eventually returned to the UK. Chip died soon after the sinking in 1914. Lam was deported to Hong Kong, Hee made his way to India, Bing moved to Canada, and Lang eventually became a US citizen decades after he was rejected. It's unclear what happened to Foo.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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• Ethics Studies

Sample Essay on the Sinking of the Titanic

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On April 10, 1912, the Titanic began its journey shortly before noon (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic 12). On April 14, 1912, the unthinkable happened; the supposedly unsinkable Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. When travelling from Europe to America, steamships would usually tale one of two major routes (Gardiner 247). The northern route was a much more direct one to cross the sea but was well known for icebergs. These colossal pieces of floating rock come from glaciers. Every year, about 10,000 to 15,000 icebergs break off from 100 different glaciers and about 1,000 of these icebergs make their way into the sea routes on which ships travel (Aldridge 47)

Prior to hitting the fateful iceberg that night, the Titanic had received a number of warnings, estimated at eight on the presence of icebergs in the area. At 7:30 p.m., the Californian sent a message of three large bergs, which were just about 50 miles ahead on the Titanic’s path. This message had been sent by a wireless operator who gave the warning to a crewmember on the bridge. Out of all the messages sent to the ship that night, three supposedly went to the bridge. However, it is alleged that everyone on the bridge (Aldridge 48) could view only one of these messages.

The last message warning the ship on the possibility of hitting an iceberg came in at 9:40 p.m. on that fateful Sunday night, about two hours to the terrible accident. This message also warned of ice and icebergs in Titanic’s general area. The wireless operator Jack Philips who was sending these messages assumed that the bridge had received several of the previous warnings. So when the final warning from the Californian read, “We are stopped and surrounded by ice”, Philips did not take it seriously and he angrily told them to stop jamming his signal. He went on to send the backlog of passenger messages and ignored the warning (Aldridge 50).

The fleet first spotted the deadly iceberg when it was very close but owing to the dim moonlight, they could not tell that it was about half a million tons and 10 times the weight of the ship. To avoid hitting the iceberg, First Officer Murdoch gave the order to turn the ship left sharply. He also directed the men in the engine room to halt the power pushing the ship forward and to instead start going in reverse. He also took the precaution of flipping the switch to shut the watertight doors below deck. With all this maneuvering, Murdoch managed to avoid a head-on collision with the giant iceberg. Instead, The Titanic moved past it on the left only to hit the iceberg with its right side 37 seconds later causing small chunks of ice to fall onto the deck (Aldridge 51).

However, we know that an iceberg is more than meets the eye and a better part of this iceberg was hidden beneath the dark ocean, and the ship’s hull under water was where most of the damage occurred. Six of its compartments were torn open to the ocean waters. In the boiler room 6, cold water began rushing in as the watertight doors began to shut. Two crewmembers made it out from under the roof just in time, and another worker made it out by climbing up an emergency ladder. They were the first to know that Titanic was filling with water and possibly sinking. Most of the passengers were fast asleep at this time, quite oblivious of the impending danger (Aldridge 52).

Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus use in determining what is ethical and what is not unethical.

An English philosopher Jeremy Bentham was the first hedonist to adopt a utilitarian position and he attempted to contribute to ethics through the scientific application of social principles. Bentham was of the view that ethics had been too vague and imprecise in the past, and that it was now time to introduce scientific rigor into ethical constructs (Porter 106). Being a utilitarian, his interest was to quantify the amount of happiness that would arise from a given action. This led him to invent the calculus of pleasures or the hedonic calculus, which was a scheme for scientifically measuring the amount of pleasure and pain that any action would yield. Bentham felt that he could simply pleasure to certain elements that he called hedons, which are units of pleasure or pain capable of being added and subtracted. Further, Bentham wished to isolate each of the factors that were involved in the reception of pleasure and pain, and to rate actions according to the number of hedons emanating from all these factors (Porter 107).

Since he had mastered the history of hedonism, Bentham made some important considerations such as intensity, immediacy, and physicality from the Cyrenaics. He also took into accounts factors such as tranquility, duration, and others from the Epicureans. He upheld both schools of thought and went ahead to develop a model that gave action numerical values relative to the degree of pleasure or pain that was attained from the two schools of thought (Porter 107).

Bentham isolated the factors involved in actions and reduced them to seven marks. The first mark was intensity, which held that holding all other factors constant, we wish our pleasures to be as intense as possible. The second factor, duration checks whether the pleasure is extended or brief. We prefer a pleasure of a longer duration to a shorter duration. The other mark is certainty or uncertainty where he posits that an experience we are certain to enjoy would receive a higher rating that one in which we depend on probability. The fourth mark is propinquity or remoteness, which states that pleasurable experience that can be enjoyed immediately, is superior to that which is hoped for in the future. The greater the proximity of pleasure the better (Porter 108).

The fifth factor is fecundity, which relates to the tendency of a pleasure to be succeeded by sensations of a similar nature. Here he recognized the merit of the Epicurean point that one has to be concerned with the future effects of her pleasures as opposed to merely seizing or avoiding experiences without taking a considerate thought. The sixth factor considered by Bentham is purity, which is the chance that a pleasure or pain has of not being succeeded by sensations of an opposite nature, i.e. for instance a pleasure succeeded by a pain or a pain succeeded by a pleasure. This resonates into the Epicurean concern with the future consequences of action and the overall pleasure content. The seventh and final mark is extent, which means the number of persons affected by the pleasure or pain. A pleasurable action that affects more people is better than that which affects less people. On the other hand, a painful action is undesirable and its extent should be brought to the most practical minimum (Porter 108).

Having set the relevant factors, Bentham employed them in his hedonic calculus. Through this calculus, a person would draw up a list of all the pleasures that could arise from a given action. The specific values of each pleasure would then be determined by applying each of the seven marks, and the sum of the hedons added together. A similar process is undertaken with regard to pain and the negatives subtracted from the positives to see whether the action had an overall pleasurable outcome (Porter 109).

Using the Hedonic Calculus to provide an ethical analysis of the case

Ethical issues have emerged surrounding the sinking of the Titanic. The hedonic calculus can be used in analyzing the actions taken by the makers of the ship, the managers, and the crew that resulted in the pain that was the loss of such a great masterpiece and over 1,500 innocent lives.

On intensity, the crew and the passengers on board wished that there would enjoy such an intense and phenomenal pressure arising from a  trip with the most celebrated navigation masterpieces of its time; the legend that had become the Titanic. On duration, they hoped to have a long pleasurable moment that would last their whole journey. They hoped that all measures had been taken to assure them of this pleasure. On certainty, they were certain of a long pleasurable experience especially with the assurances that came from the engineers who had arrogantly claimed that there existed nothing in the universe that could sink the titanic. However, every trip comes with the possibility of accident or misfortunes and these considerations seemed not to have been taken in the Titanic. The Journey was filled with overtones of long pleasurable experience and guaranteed safety and due precaution seems lacking.

On propinquity, the pleasure was enjoyed immediately and so did the pain that followed the shipwreck. On fecundity, we wish to find out whether the actions of taking the Titanic to the ocean were done with the consideration of consequences that would result from any failure. It is alleged that the Titanic did not have enough lifeboats, first owing to legal regulations of the time that did not require the Titanic to carry more than sixteen lifeboats. Following such regulations without taking into account the number of passengers on board was unethical and due exceptions should have been sought. In this case, there was the belief that the Titanic would never sink and the crew took the action without such considerations.

The Purity factor would have meant going with the possibility that the pleasure of the trip would be succeeded by pain and anguish if the ship sank thereby informing precautionary measures that would be geared towards saving lives. It appears that the crew and management were more bent on consolidating their confidence in a ship that would never sink than in preparing for the possibility of an accident. Even the attitude towards warning signs and messages affirmed this. The final factor is extent. The makers of the ship should have taken actions that guaranteed safety given that they had constructed a ship which had such a high capacity to warrant due care. Although it is believed that, the steel that was used in constructing the Titanic was the best standard carbon ship plate steel available in the time, some important considerations were not made such as visibility and that is why the crew could not easily cite the iceberg from far. This denied reasonable action for evasive action (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic 12).

Works Cited

Aldridge, Rebecca. The Sinking of the Titanic . New York: Chelsea House, 2008. Internet resource.

Felkins, Katherine, Leighly, H.P., and Jankovic, A. The Royal Mail Ship Titanic: Did a Mettalurgical Failure Cause a Night to Remember? JOM 50 (1) 1998, pp 12-18. Web.

Gardiner, Robin. Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank? Hersham: Ian Allan, 2009. Print.

Porter, Burton F. The Good Life: Alternatives in Ethics . Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Print.

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This novella accurately predicted how the Titanic would sink 14 years before the disaster

Foretelling might be a controversial topic where some people believe in it and some find the idea absurd. However, it can't be disputed that many historical records show how people in the past had predicted some of the crucial breakthroughs and events that happened years later. One such mysterious yet incredible prediction caught the internet's eye, which was about the infamous sinking of the grand vessel, "Titanic." While many know that the Titanic sank into the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, it is still an enigma as to how an American author, Morgan Robertson, predicted the disaster in his novella "Futility" 14 years before it happened.

Housed in the Caird Library of the National Maritime Museum at the  Royal Museums Greenwich , UK, this novella has become a subject of debate among experts. It is because the description of the fictional steamship "Titan" in this story seemed strikingly similar to that of Titanic. The novella mentions, "She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men. In her construction and maintenance were involved , every science, profession,and trade known to civilization. On her bridge were officers who, besides being the pick of the Royal Navy, had passed rigid examinations in all studies … they were not only seamen but scientists. Unsinkable – indestructible, she carried as few [life] boats as would satisfy the laws. In view of her absolute superiority to other craft … she would steam at full speed in fog, storm, and sunshine, and on the Northern Lane Route, winter and summer."

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Not just the description of the vessel's grandeur and its name, "Titan," but Robertson also was almost accurate with the specifics. Both "Futility" and its 1912 version named "Wreck Of The Titan" mentioned that the Titan was 800 feet in length, close to the 882.5-foot Titanic, per History On The Net . Titan's passenger capacity of 3000 was exactly similar to that of the Titanic. It only keeps getting more mysterious . Robertson wrote that the Titan was hit by an iceberg in April, sometime close to midnight and the starboard was the point of impact. Now, one who has a good comprehension of Titanic's fate would know that the infamous iceberg hit the vessel's starboard at 11.40 pm on April 14, leading to the ship's sinking the following day.

Strangely, Robertson also was quite accurate in  his reasoning  about the lives lost during the accident. He wrote about the lack of adequate lifeboats and pointed out how the vessel was carrying just 24 lifeboats - just 4 more than Titanic's lifeboat count. There was more to Robertson's story that revolved around the protagonist who survived the shipwreck, but his incredible prediction of the 1912 disaster as early as 1898 was what made the book more fascinating. Does this make Robertson a prophet who could foretell things? Not exactly. Paul Heyer, a Titanic scholar and professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, suggested a possible reason for this prediction.

The key is the author's biography. It turns out that Robertson was a maritime enthusiast who often wrote about it in his literary works, as per  TIME . "He was an experienced seaman, and he saw ships as getting very large and the possible danger that one of these behemoths would hit an iceberg ," Heyer said. Robertson's description of the Titan spawned from his knowledge of naval trends back then. When the author was acclaimed to be clairvoyant, post the Titanic disaster, he refused to acknowledge it and said, "I know what I'm writing about, that's all."

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The Tragic Sinking of the Titanic

Updated 25 October 2023

Subject Movies ,  Disaster

Downloads 61

Category Entertainment ,  Environment

Topic Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic

The fateful day of 15 April 1912 recorded one of the worst transport accidents of all times. The ship, with 2224 people on board hit an iceberg and sank. The accident led to the death of 1503 people, making it the disaster the biggest in the twentieth century. The state of the art vessel was making the first journey after completion. Due to the massive size, many people boarded the ship to mark the first maiden journey. After the impact with the ice, water started entering the vessel at a high rate making the rescue missions impossible. In approximately two hours, the ship was sinking in the far depth of the ocean. Due to the speed at which the ship sank, it was impossible for rescue mission from the beach to reach the scene of the accident in time to salvage the situation. The sinking of the Titanic ship is the worst accident in the transport system of the twentieth century.

Manufacturers of the Titanic

Manufacturers of the titanic understood the dangers associated with traveling long distances at sea. Therefore, the engineers fitted the ship with sensors that could detect obstructions on the pathway from a distance. Such obstacles included icebergs, rocks in the shallow waters as well as islands when the visibility is poor. The sensors detected the obstructions from a range, which the ship could change the direction to safety. More so, the Titanic had radio connections that would be useful in calling for help (Meadow 194). The transmitters captured signals from the nearby ships for communication purposes. More so, the radio calls assisted the management of the vessel to communicate with passengers on board. Therefore, the captain could notify the passengers of any impending danger or an urgent message. In case of an accident, the engineers fitted the ship with twenty lifeboats. The boats accommodated 36% of the capacity carried by ship.

The journey and warnings

The boats aimed to transport the passengers to nearby ships in case of an accident. Therefore, the designers ascertained that the number was enough to save every person before the boat sunk. On the fateful day, the ship was traveling at night from Southampton to New York. The vessel received many warnings from other ships of the floating icebergs in the pathway. In April, the Atlantic Ocean had massive icebergs due to the weather conditions in the region. However, some of the messages did not get to the attention of the captain since the crew was using the radios in communicating with the passengers. Due to the inability to receive the messages, the captain was unaware of the seriousness of the situation and sailed the ship at high speed. Further encounters with more icebergs prompted Captain Smith to change the course and sail southwards.

Collision with the iceberg

In the new route, a German ship sent a message of two massive icebergs along the way. However, the captain did not receive the signal since the radios were busy. Another boat from California sent messages to warn the captain, but the faulty communication system failed to deliver the message. Despite the warnings, the captain did not reduce the speed of the ship as a precautionary step. Instead, he maintained the critical rate (McCarty et al. 147). During the time, the crew on deck identified the icebergs and the sensors begun sending warning messages. However, the speed was too high for the ship to stop or change direction to safety. Therefore, the vessel collided with the iceberg creating a big hole at the bottom of the boat. At the time, many of the passengers were asleep, and the temperature of the water was shallow.

Immediately, water started getting into the ship at high speed. During the designing of the ship, the engineers anticipated such a moment. Therefore, they made the boat in a way that divided the bottom of the vessel into compartments. The compartments created buoyancy for natural floatation. Even if water filled four of the chambers, it was impossible for the boat to sink. During the collision, water managed to breach six of the compartments due to broken doors. With the water in the chambers, it was impossible for the ship to withstand the weight leading to breakage into two and an immediate sinking. If the water remained in the four compartments as designed during the manufacturing process, the ship would float for long enabling the rescuers to arrive on time. However, the error led to a miscalculation of the estimated period required for the vessel to sink making the accident tragic.

The aftermath of the sinking

When the ship began sinking, the management sent flares to attract the attention of other boats for help. During the time, the mode of communication during tragic moments was using the radio calls. The ships used the flares as a sign of identification for the vessel. When the other captains saw the flashes they, assumed that the captain was identifying the vessel as the norm. Therefore, no one extended any help to the sinking ship. The last course of action was moving the people to the lifeboats, which could not accommodate many people. As such, over 60 percent of the people died from the accident (Troupe and Jomike 28). Some of the people drowned while those that tried to float died from the cold water. Others suffered injuries from the sinking debris making them too weak to swim. The first rescue ships arrived almost two hours later making the most of the survivors succumb to the cold.

Analysis of the mistakes

A keen analysis of the accident reveals many errors committed by both the engineers of the ship as well as the crew. Initially, the vessel embarked on the journey with some of the radio calls being faulty. The crew used the remaining radio calls in communicating with the passengers. The faulty communications made it impossible for the team to receive all the warning messages from the other ships. Therefore, the vessel took the direction of the significant icebergs without receiving the warning. If the radios were in a working condition, the crew would receive the message and postpone the journey such as the other ships along the way. The inability to accept the messages played a crucial role in causing the accident and the collective loss of lives from the tragedy (Cale and David 134). Therefore, that was the mistake of the engineers responsible for maintaining the ship.

The second mistake was that of the captain. During the journey, he was able to identify icebergs that presented a huge challenge for the safety of the ship. The situation was dire to the extent of changing the course of the journey to avoid the obstructions. Since the weather was the same all over the ocean, it was logical of him to anticipate more icebergs along the new path. However, he maintained a high speed and relied on the people at the deck to spot the icebergs. Due to the lateness of the hour and the poor visibility of the sea, the ship ended up crushing the iceberg and causing a massive accident. If the speed were lower, it would have been possible for the crew to see the ice in advance and change direction before the impact. However, the rate made it impossible to stop the ship making the collision imminent.

Lastly, the compartments of the ship were faulty. From the collision, the engineers expected the watertight compartments to keep out the water. The entry of the water was the reason the vessel sunk from the weight. In a worst-case scenario, the engineers expected the water to access four cabins, whose weight was not enough to sink the ship. However, the faulty doors allowed the water into six compartments making the boat sink from one side. The weight sank one side of the vessel leading to breakage of the vessel into two. The mistake by the designers was the last mistake for the tragedy. If the doors were working efficiently, the weight of the ship would be within manageable limits leaving enough time for the rescuers to arrive. However, the ship sank within two hours leaving a trail of death and technological failure for the designers. The losses paint the accident as the worst in the transport system for the twentieth century. Modern designers used the tragedy to improve the current safety measures for ships such as the introduction of floating devices for all passengers and designation of communication systems for strict communication between the boat and the outside world.

Works Cited

Cale, Priscilla M., and David C. Tate. Sink or swim : how lessons from the Titanic can save your family business. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2011. Print.

McCarty, Jennifer H., and Tim Foecke. What really sank the Titanic : new forensic discoveries. New York: Citadel Press, 2008. Print.

Meadow, Charles T. Making Connections : Communication through the Ages. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2002. Print.

Troupe, Thomas K., and Jomike Tejido. Titanic's tragic journey. North Mankato, Minnesota: Picture Window Books, a Capstone imprint, 2018. Print.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Titanic — The Enduring Impact of Titanic: Themes, Characters, and Narrative

The Enduring Impact of Titanic: Themes, Characters, and Narrative

• Categories: Titanic

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Words: 493 |

Published: Feb 12, 2024

Words: 493 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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The film titanic, the characters in titanic, the engaging narrative structure of titanic.

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• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free