{"id":1416,"date":"2016-10-22T10:38:13","date_gmt":"2016-10-22T10:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2021-11-29T19:04:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T19:04:46","slug":"12facts-titanic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/12facts-titanic\/","title":{"rendered":"Titanic Facts – 12 Fascinating Stories You Really Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Titanic is arguably the most famous ship in history<\/a>. Why? She was the unsinkable ship, that well…sunk. The ocean liner has featured in films that recreated her ill-fated maiden voyage. We have learnt valuable lessons, ensured changes to maritime law, and have better protection at sea. School students have studied and researched, the Titanic’s demise. And rich tycoons? well, they have dreamt of building replicas of the ship. The Titanic has sailed full steam ahead into our history books. With its deadly cocktail of human error. mismanagement, and one truly inconvenient iceberg, her story intrigues us. For over a century now, we have been obsessed with the Titanic’s story and it has been passed between generations. Unfamiliar facts still surface from time to time, helping to keep the ship’s legend alive.<\/p>\n

While her sister ships faded into obscurity, the Titanic became increasingly famous. The story of an unsinkable ship crashing into an iceberg and sinking on her maiden voyages still seems unreal. Stories of sacrifice and bravery have also emerged along with the sympathetic nature of people in the face of tragedy. While some facts are familiar to us now, others are less well-known. Here is a list of 12 lesser known facts<\/a> that you may also find fascinating.<\/p>\n

1. The Scary Moment an Iceberg Stepped Onto The World Stage.<\/h2>\n
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The iceberg the Titanic hit stood 100 metres above the sea – a small fraction of its hidden size below the water. The first recorded sighting of the iceberg was at 11.40pm on the 14 April. Lookout Frederick Fleet sighted the iceberg straight in front of the course the ship was steering. The Titanic took a mere 37 seconds from this\u00a0first sighting until it collided with the iceberg. And the rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n

2. The Titanic and Prophecy.<\/h2>\n
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Heard of the Titanic? Off course! But have you heard of the Titan? Morgan Robertson’s novel Futility, written 14 years before the 1912 disaster, starring an unsinkable ship. This vessel was the biggest in the world and sunk after running into iceberg one freezing April evening. This somewhat chilling tale also had the Titan crossing the Atlantic on her fateful journey. Creepy or prophetic, this ship was characteristically similar in design to the White Star Line’s own unsinkable ship.<\/p>\n

3. RMS- The Titanic as a “Royal Mail Steamer”<\/h2>\n
\"RMS-

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Historically, particular ships carried the mail to and from England. British ships with the initials RMS were part of the Royal Mail Service. The Titanic was carrying out duties as a Royal Mail Steamer on her maiden voyage when she hit the iceberg. Chances are the King’s mail never saw the light of day along with other people sending mail to the USA. Today only five Royal Mail Steamers still deliver mail worldwide. The really interesting thing is an attack on the Royal mail is an attack on the Monarch themselves. All British ships at the time, whether military or civilian, carried this distinction. Each ship, therefore, had the protection of the British Crown.<\/p>\n

4. Cameron’s Famous Blockbuster Earns Enough for FIVE New Titanics<\/h2>\n
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In the twenty years since Titanic’s release, James Cameron’s blockbuster has continued to earn revenue totalling over US$2.187 billion. In present day terms, the construction of the ship would cost around US$400m to build today. Given these figures, Cameron’s film generated enough income to fund nearly FIVE Titanic’s – not bad for a single film!<\/p>\n

5. Really, It’s a Seagoing Zeppelin, not a ship.<\/h2>\n
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The Titanic might not be considered a ship by some people. Instead, the ship could be seen as one gigantic, seagoing zeppelin. The Titanic generated some serious stats. For each of the days of her short maiden voyage, the ship burned a staggering 600 tonnes of coal, leaving one massive carbon footprint in her wake. A team of 176 men has to shovel enough coal into the Titanic’s furnaces to keep the ship steaming across the Atlantic. The furnaces produced 100 tonnes of ash were each day that was dumped in the sea.<\/p>\n

6. One Time When Being Drunk Might Have Saved Your Life<\/h2>\n
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courtesy of: en.wikipedia.org<\/p><\/div>\n

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The water temperatures in the Atlantic are freezing, made worse by the presence of floating icebergs. Nobody survived the sinking of the Titanic for long after they hit the water. The chief baker on-board however, survived the freezing temperatures because he had drunk excessively before the collision. The alcohol in his body fortified his organs so well that he survived for two hours until his rescue.<\/p>\n

7. Not Everything Is As It Appears<\/h2>\n
\"Not

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While at first glance the Titanic appears to have four funnels, only the first three worked. The funnel was added to the ship’s superstructure to give the Titanic balanced and symmetrical look. The Titanic looked more powerful too, proving the fourth funnel\u00a0was aesthetic, not functional.<\/p>\n

8. One Reason Fewer People Should Have Died That Night<\/h2>\n
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courtesy of: en.wikipedia.org<\/p><\/div>\n

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A major oversight on that fateful night was the misdirection in the use of available lifeboats. Most of the ship’s lifeboats were lowered into the sea in the blind panic on-board the ship. This was a wasted opportunity to save lives. \u00a0Crewmen did not fill any one boat to its full capacity.<\/p>\n

The crew ineffectively managed the loading of all lifeboats. \u00a0Of the twenty lifeboats available for use that night, the crew managed to lower only 18 into the water. Even these were only filled with half the number of people they were built for. Delays in the launching of the boats meant more people lost their lives. In the end was not enough time to launch all boats at capacity before the Titanic slipped into her watery grave.<\/p>\n

Initial plans for the Titanic included\u00a032 life boats. In a moment of stupidity, authorities removed twelve boats from the original plan. They thought the boats would clutter the deck would too much! Authorities stipulated fewer boats than were needed that night. At best their estimations would have saved a maximum of 1178 of the 2,200 passengers and crew on-board that night. The ship needed double the number of lifeboats it actually had.<\/p>\n

Titanic’s legacy to international maritime laws was significant. Shipping companies now had to provide enough lifeboats for everyone on-board. The number of boats is defined by passenger numbers, and no longer the ship’s tonnage. Today builders place enough lifeboats to carry all crew and passengers aboard every ship.<\/p>\n

9. A Watery Grave for Most of The Passengers<\/h2>\n
\"A

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Of the 1517 passengers who lost their lives on the Titanic, only 334 bodies were ever recovered(a mere 23%!) Nova Scotian authorities in Canada established a temporary mortuary. Rescuers transported a number of the bodies found floating in the sea to Nova Scotia. Crews from passing ships also buried others at sea (decomposition, severe damage and a lack of embalming fluid on ships transporting the dead).<\/p>\n

Third class passengers, emigrants and crew members made up the majority of bodies. These were the most vulnerable groups of all those on-board. Bodies of women, men and children were all retrieved from the sea.<\/p>\n

10. Remained Lost For a Significant Number of Years?<\/h2>\n
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Despite the fame of the Titanic, it took 73 years to relocate the shipwreck. Finding the ship was something similar to looking for a needle in a haystack. The Titanic had become so famous that explorers were desperate to find her. But the Atlantic is a vast ocean, not only is it wide but it is very deep! Robert Ballard always dreamt of finding the Titanic so he competed with other scientists and explorers to discover the wreck. He set out to look for the trail of debris ships leaves behind as they sink towards the sea floor. Ballard used the “Argo,”his deep-sea vehicle, loads of cameras and sonar. With sheer determination and grit, he finally located\u00a0the trail and of course, the Titanic herself.<\/p>\n

11. Unbelievably The Titanic Was Set to Sail for a Second Time<\/h2>\n
\"Unbelievably

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Take one rich Australian and his pre-occupation with the Titanic’s fate and what do you get? Titanic II! The business mogul planned to launch a modern day replica of the infamous ocean liner. Fans were expecting Titanic II’s maiden voyage in 2018 but plans appear to have run aground. The sea-worthy, full-sized replica was to sail between China and Dubai on her maiden voyage. It appears Clive Palmer the Australian enthusiast has got cold feet, and construction has not begun.<\/p>\n

A close replica of the Titanic, Titanic II would look like the original but with better lifeboats and communication systems!<\/p>\n

12. Survival Dependent on What Happened to Keys and Binoculars<\/h2>\n
\"Survival

courtesy of: history.co.uk<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Titanic crew had no binoculars. Despite reports of icebergs in the Atlantic, the watchmen had no binoculars to scope out stray masses of ice. So why did the men in the Crow’s nest rely on the naked eye? The key to the locker that the ship’s binoculars were in could not be opened because the key was lost! A last minute change to the crew would prove problematic for the watchmen Frederick Fleet and Regional Lee. The original officer forgot to hand over the key to the look-out’s locker, preventing access to the cupboard and the binoculars.<\/p>\n

At the official inquiry Fleet said that if the lookouts had had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg earlier. Presumably, he believed he could have saved the Titanic from its watery fate and the lives of hundreds of people.<\/p>\n

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The Titanic is arguably the most famous ship in history. Why? She was the unsinkable ship, that well…sunk. The ocean liner has featured in films that recreated her ill-fated maiden voyage. We have learnt valuable lessons, ensured changes to maritime law, and have better protection at sea. School students have studied and researched, the Titanic’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[241,239,238,240],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40340,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/40340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}