History UsefulNotes / RMSTitanic

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'': The episode "Terror on the Titanic" featured mutated algae that can possess people and inanimate objects. It eventually possesses the Titanic (which is inaccurately portrayed as in one piece), causing the vessel to rise from the depths and attack everything in its way. Aquaman eventually [[DeadlyDodging makes it hit an iceberg and sink again]].

* The 17th book of the ''[[Recap/TheMagicTreeHouse Magic Tree House]]'' series, ''Tonight on the Titanic'', features Jack and Annie visiting the ship on the night of the sinking.

'''Impractical''' being the operative word. Certainly, unpredictable things might happen, but as a major passenger tragedy had not befallen any White Star ship in nearly forty years[[note]]The greatest disaster for a White Star Line ship at the time was the sinking of the SS ''[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantic_(1870) Atlantic]]'' in 1873, when that ship struck underwater rocks during a storm and capsized, killing at least 535 people[[/note]], there was little reason for anyone in the shipping industry to be overly concerned beyond academics.\\

* "The Sinking of the Titanic": (1975) A experimental-classical musical piece composed by Gavin Bryers, which takes the legend of the ''Titanic'''s band playing until the very end and imagines the band's final performance reverberating throughout the waters of the Atlantic as the ship goes under.

* ''Titanic: Honor and Glory'': A video game [[{{Vaporware}} currently stuck in development]]. The original concept was to feature a story arc in which the protagonist must solve a crime he didn't commit, and also serve as a learning tool capturing every detail of the ship. The creators have been conducting exhaustive research into the sinking, even creating a [[https://youtu.be/rs9w5bgtJC8 real-time video]] of the sinking using the game's engine. Their Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX99blR1pC2290NcBa_FsPA channel]] is an absolute gold mine of information about the ship, the sinking, and the history around the same in the form of both informational videos and podcasts. However, after internal strife, the project is currently being reevaluated, now being focused on a virtual tour. A side project ''VideoGame/BritannicPatronessOfTheMediterranean'' has been released, in which players can tour ''Titanic'''s doomed sister ''Britannic'', both as a hospital ship and in her intended White Star Line configuration.

Because of all the terror and confusion during the sinking, inevitably there are conflicting accounts about the actions of several people, including whether or not one of the officers shot a passenger in the chaos and then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself.[[note]]If the shooting ''did'' actually happen, Murdoch is often considered the candidate, but Lightoller claimed to have last seen him working to free one of the collapsible lifeboats; Murdoch's descendants understandably don't accept that he would have behaved in such a manner and were outraged by his portrayal in Cameron's film.[[/note]] According to some witnesses Captain Smith, upon realizing the scope of the emergency, gave vague and sometimes impractical orders and became so disconnected that he didn't bother to find out if they were being carried out; others said that he did everything in his power to prevent panic and to make sure the boats were being lowered safely. His command of "Women and children first" was interpreted by Murdoch to mean "Women and children ''first'', let men in if there's room," while Lightoller took it to mean "Women and children ''only''." Neither officer was informed of the rated capacity of the lifeboats and erred on the side of caution; furthermore, the ship did not appear to be in immediate danger, which made passengers reluctant to leave it on a small rowing boat in the middle of the freezing night, especially if it meant being separated from their loved ones. [[note]]Another crucial matter that's often overlooked when discussing who ended up in the lifeboats; unlike the far wealthier upper class passengers who could afford to replace most lost items, the majority of the people in Third Class had brought ''all'' of their worldly possessions with them in emigrating to America and were naturally reluctant to abandon everything they owned in leaving the ship.[[/note]] As a result boats built for 65 were often lowered only half-full and one lifeboat, #1, had only ''twelve'' people in it; all told, there were some 400-500 empty berths on the lifeboats. However, at first the passengers and crew weren't too concerned as they (mistakenly) thought help was just around the corner, since the ''Californian'' was visible on the horizon; by the time the deadliness of the situation set in and the panic really started, most of the boats had left. Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation and the limited time in which they were launched, it has been speculated that even had there been enough lifeboats for all on board, only a small additional number of people would have been saved; particularly since most of the able seamen (again, the few individuals who were actually ''trained'' to launch and man the boats) had left early on with the first evacuees, assuming they'd be able to return later. The last boats were launched less than ten minutes before the ship went under, and the last two collapsibles -- A and B -- were never launched at all, instead being actually washed off the deck as the water swept over the bow.\\

* Started in 2009, the ''Titanic Voyage RPG'' is an annual roleplaying game in which players can be a historical or fictional passenger or crew member. The game lasts from April 10 to 18, featuring the entire voyage in real time. The game map uses the ''Honor & Glory'' model to simulate the ship.

Safety was also considered in the design: a double-bottomed hull to contain flooding in the event of running aground; fifteen bulkheads that went two decks above the waterline (any two of which could flood with bulkheads above the floodwater to spare[[note]]The design lacked any watertight ''decks'', leaving the compartments "open-topped," so to speak. This may seem like an obvious FatalFlaw today, and contemporary warships had significantly greater watertight compartmentalization with both decks and bulkheads being watertight. But unlike warships, passenger liners were not expected to get large holes blasted in them by torpedoes and battleship shells (even if they ''were'' designed to be fitted with guns and operate as auxiliary merchant cruisers in the event of war) and at the time, any accident that would cause a sufficient loss of buoyancy to bring the top of a watertight bulkhead below the waterline and thus allow water to flood over it into the next compartment was considered such a remote possibility that it wasn't worth worrying about[[/note]] that divided the ship into sixteen watertight compartments); these compartments featured the very latest watertight doors, which were held in place by a magnetic latch and could be sealed by flipping a switch on the bridge and letting gravity do the rest; in the event of a collision, or in the impractical probability of the first four compartments flooding the ship would still float, acting as its own lifeboat until help could arrive, at which point the ship's boats would be used to shuttle passengers to the incoming rescue ships; and above all, in the event of the worst, the ships boasted a new [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davit davit]] design that could hold up to 68 lifeboats, but for various reasons (cosmetics, impracticality, cost, etc.) the number was reduced to 20, which was still four boats beyond the legally required 16 for ships 10,000 tons and over in the British Board of Trade regulations.[[note]]The common wisdom of the time was that lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers to a rescue ship rather than having to keep the entire ship's population afloat at the same time, which was seemingly confirmed when, in 1909, another White Star ship, RMS ''Republic'', was struck and took forty hours to sink. The limited lifeboats were enough to save everyone on board, with the only fatalities being those killed in the initial impact. Given that the majority of accidents took place close to shore, the North Atlantic being one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and the advent of wireless telegraphy making inter-ship communications possible, it seemed logical that a rescue ship would always be close by for assistance.[[/note]]\\

Because of all the terror and confusion during the sinking, inevitably there are conflicting accounts about the actions of several people, including whether or not one of the officers shot a passenger in the chaos and then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself.[[note]]If the shooting ''did'' actually happen, Murdoch is often considered the candidate, but Lightoller claimed to have last seen him working to free one of the collapsible lifeboats; Murdoch's descendants understandably don't accept that he would have behaved in such a manner and were outraged by his portrayal in Cameron's film.[[/note]] According to some witnesses Captain Smith, upon realizing the scope of the emergency, gave vague and sometimes impractical orders and became so disconnected that he didn't bother to find out if they were being carried out; others said that he did everything in his power to prevent panic and to make sure the boats were being lowered safely. His command of "Women and children first" was interpreted by Murdoch to mean "Women and children ''first'', let men in if there's room," while Lightoller took it to mean "Women and children ''only''." Neither officer was informed of the rated capacity of the lifeboats and erred on the side of caution; furthermore, the ship did not appear to be in immediate danger, which made passengers reluctant to leave it on a small rowing boat in the middle of the freezing night, especially if it meant being separated from their loved ones. [[note]]Another crucial matter that's often overlooked when discussing who ended up in the lifeboats; unlike the far wealthier upper class passengers who could afford to replace most lost items, the majority of Third Class had brought ''all'' of their worldly possessions with them in emigrating to America and were naturally reluctant to abandon everything they owned in leaving the ship.[[/note]] As a result boats built for 65 were often lowered only half-full and one lifeboat, #1, had only ''twelve'' people in it; all told, there were some 400-500 empty berths on the lifeboats. However, at first the passengers and crew weren't too concerned as they (mistakenly) thought help was just around the corner, since the ''Californian'' was visible on the horizon; by the time the deadliness of the situation set in and the panic really started, most of the boats had left. Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation and the limited time in which they were launched, it has been speculated that even had there been enough lifeboats for all on board, only a small additional number of people would have been saved; particularly since most of the able seamen (again, the few individuals who were actually ''trained'' to launch and man the boats) had left early on with the first evacuees, assuming they'd be able to return later. The last boats were launched less than ten minutes before the ship went under, and the last two collapsibles -- A and B -- were never launched at all, instead being actually washed off the deck as the water swept over the bow.\\

Over those next two hours, the crew rushed to launch the lifeboats while Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips and his assistant Harold Bride worked frantically to get the word out, right up to the very end. The closest ship to respond to the distress call, the Cunard Line's RMS ''Carpathia'', instantly rushed to ''Titanic''[='=]s aid,[[note]]In fact, Captain Arthur Henry Rostron [[TimTaylorTechnology ordered all non-essential power systems shut off and rerouted to the engines]]. It's widely reported that during the rush, the chief engineer took off his hat and placed it over the main steam pressure valve so the crewmen wouldn't see just ''how'' far they were pushing the engines; apparently it was far enough that the engines were [[HeroicRROD permanently damaged,]] and the ''Carpathia'' never exceeded 12 knots for the rest of her service life, a handicap that many attribute to her later being chased down and sunk by a German U-Boat during WWI.[[/note]] but was four hours away.[[note]]''Carpathia'' was not the only ship that night to respond to the distress calls, though her heroics were by far the most impressive; the Canadian Pacific Railway's ''Mount Temple'', the Allen Line's ''Virginian'', the Russian American Line's ''Birma'', Norddeutscher Lloyd's ''Frankfurt'', and White Star's own ''Baltic'' and ''Olympic'', among others, all altered course to respond, but were even farther away than the ''Carpathia'' and despite valiant efforts didn't begin arriving until morning.[[/note]] In the meantime, the lifeboat launchings were extremely chaotic and disorganized. While it was easy enough for First Class passengers to be roused and guided to the lifeboats individually, those in Second and Third Class mostly just got a hasty knock on their cabin door, a lifejacket and an order to go to the Boat Deck. However, thanks to the ship being specifically designed to keep the upper and lower classes fully separated[[note]]This was required by regulations, as passengers in Second and especially Third Class were generally assumed to be immigrants rather than tourists, had undergone medical screenings before embarking, and Third Class passengers needed to disembark at Ellis Island rather than New York proper[[/note]], the Boat Deck was only meant for First and Second Class outside of an emergency; thus most of the passengers travelling on the lower decks had no idea how to get there and needed directions from the equally frightened stewards. Unfortunately and inevitably, these men and women were vastly outnumbered by the people they were trying to help, a lot of whom couldn't speak or understand English and who needed to be guided through a system of maze-like corridors which Second Officer Charles Lightoller (who had served on ''Olympic'') said would take someone ''weeks'' to memorize. [[note]]However, contrary to popular belief fuelled by various retellings, and while some survivors did report that crew members tried to prevent them from getting above deck, the Third Class passengers were ''not'' deliberately locked down in the bowels of the ship by the crew to make sure that as many First and Second class passengers as possible could get to safety. More women and children from Third Class survived the disaster than men from both First and Second Class combined, though it's still a paltry number compared to the survival rate of women and children from the upper classes. The Admiralty report later stated that many of the Third Class passengers were in the part of the ship that flooded first -- in particular, single men were housed in the bow, while single women and families were accomodated in the stern section -- and they never had any chance to survive. At the same time, it was alleged that the male employees of the ''À La Carte Restaurant'', located on B Deck, ''were'' locked in their quarters by the stewards to prevent them from rushing the boats, though this has never been conclusively proven. [[/note]] To make matters worse, ''Titanic'' had only had one very basic lifeboat drill when the ship was docked in Southampton; there ''had'' been a drill planned for the Sunday morning before the sinking, but Captain Smith had cancelled it for unknown reasons. While the 29 able seamen who manned the deck were trained in how to use the launching equipment for the boats, the vast majority of the crew (who were stewards, kitchen staff or engineers) had barely any idea of what was expected of them in this type of emergency -- many of them had never even rowed a boat before. And even if everyone had been able to get to the Boat Deck without a problem and the crew were more aware of what they were supposed to do, there was still the little matter of the ship only having enough lifeboats to accommodate barely ''half'' of the people on board.\\

There is much controversy concerning the near-constant dives on the wreck and the issue of salvaging artifacts from the site. Moreover, some visits to the wreck have also caused more damage to it (the team that retrieved the ship's bell destroyed the crow's nest while doing so, which until then had been virtually whole and intact; and on one of the dives with the Russian Mir, a sub accidentally damaged a deckhouse with its propeller). Some, including Ballard himself, equate the salvaging with GraveRobbing, and that the ship should be left to ([[AccidentalPun no pun intended]]) rust in peace. When Ballard found the wreck of the scuttled Nazi battleship ''Bismarck'' a few years after the ''Titanic'' discovery, he refused to publicize its location to prevent it from meeting a similar fate. Others claim that such comparisons are invalidated by the treatment of similar legendary disaster sites such as Pompeii, and that it is important to document the wreck site as clearly and thoroughly as possible while the ship still exists, both to ensure the stories of her passengers and crew continue to be told and that the scientific understanding of the tragedy is fully understood.

Over those next two hours, the crew rushed to launch the lifeboats while Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips and his assistant Harold Bride worked frantically to get the word out, right up to the very end. The closest ship to respond to the distress call, the Cunard Line's RMS ''Carpathia'', instantly rushed to ''Titanic''[='=]s aid,[[note]]In fact, Captain Arthur Henry Rostron [[TimTaylorTechnology ordered all non-essential power systems shut off and rerouted to the engines]]. It's widely reported that during the rush, the chief engineer took off his hat and placed it over the main steam pressure valve so the crewmen wouldn't see just ''how'' far they were pushing the engines; apparently it was far enough that the engines were [[HeroicRROD permanently damaged,]] and the ''Carpathia'' never exceeded 12 knots for the rest of her service life, a handicap that many attribute to her later being chased down and sunk by a German U-Boat during WWI.[[/note]] but was four hours away.[[note]]''Carpathia'' was not the only ship that night to respond to the distress calls, though her heroics were by far the most impressive; the Canadian Pacific Railway's ''Mount Temple'', the Allen Line's ''Virginian'', the Russian American Line's ''Birma'', Norddeutscher Lloyd's ''Frankfurt'', and White Star's own ''Baltic'' and ''Olympic'', among others, all altered course to respond, but were even farther away than the ''Carpathia'' and despite valiant efforts didn't begin arriving until morning.[[/note]] In the meantime, the lifeboat launchings were extremely chaotic and disorganized. While it was easy enough for First Class passengers to be roused and guided to the lifeboats individually, those in Second and Third Class mostly just got a hasty knock on their cabin door, a lifejacket and an order to go to the Boat Deck. However, thanks to the ship being specifically designed to keep the upper and lower classes fully separated[[note]]This was required by regulations, as passengers in Second and especially Third Class were generally assumed to be immigrants rather than tourists, had undergone medical screenings before embarking, and Third Class passengers needed to disembark at Ellis Island rather than New York proper[[/note]], the Boat Deck was only meant for First and Second Class outside of an emergency; thus most of the passengers travelling on the lower decks had no idea how to get there and needed directions from the equally frightened stewards. Unfortunately and inevitably, these men and women were vastly outnumbered by the people they were trying to help, a lot of whom couldn't speak or understand English and who needed to be guided through a system of maze-like corridors which Second Officer Charles Lightoller (who had served on ''Olympic'') said would take someone ''weeks'' to memorize. [[note]]However, contrary to popular belief fuelled by various retellings, and while some survivors did report that crew members tried to prevent them from getting above deck, the Third Class passengers were ''not'' deliberately locked down in the bowels of the ship by the crew to make sure that as many First and Second class passengers as possible could get to safety. More women and children from Third Class survived the disaster than men from both First and Second Class combined, though it's still a paltry number compared to the survival rate of women and children from the upper classes. The Admiralty report later stated that many of the Third Class passengers were in the part of the ship that flooded first -- in particular, single men were housed in the bow, while single women and families were accomodated in the stern section -- and they never had any chance to survive. At the same time, it was alleged that the male employees of the ''À La Carte Restaurant'', located on B Deck, ''were'' locked in their quarters by the stewards to prevent them from rushing the boats, though this has never been conclusively proven. [[/note]] To make matters worse, ''Titanic'' had only had one very basic lifeboat drill when the ship was docked in Southampton [[note]]There ''had'' been a drill planned for the Sunday morning before the sinking, but Captain Smith had cancelled it for unknown reasons.[[/note]] and while the 29 able seamen who manned the deck were trained in how to use the launching equipment for the boats, the vast majority of the crew (who were stewards, kitchen staff or engineers) had barely any idea of what was expected of them in this type of emergency -- many of them had never even rowed a boat before. And even if everyone had been able to get to the Boat Deck without a problem and the crew were more aware of what they were supposed to do, there was still the little matter of the ship only having enough lifeboats to accommodate barely ''half'' of the people on board.\\

Because of all the terror and confusion during the sinking, inevitably there are conflicting accounts about the actions of several people, including whether or not one of the officers shot a passenger in the chaos and then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself.[[note]]If the shooting ''did'' actually happen, Murdoch is often considered the candidate, but Lightoller claimed to have last seen him working to free one of the collapsible lifeboats; Murdoch's descendants understandably don't accept that he would have behaved in such a manner and were outraged by his portrayal in Cameron's film.[[/note]] According to some witnesses Captain Smith, upon realizing the scope of the emergency, gave vague and sometimes impractical orders and became so disconnected that he didn't bother to find out if they were being carried out; others said that he did everything in his power to prevent panic and to make sure the boats were being lowered safely. His command of "Women and children first" was interpreted by Murdoch to mean "Women and children ''first'', let men in if there's room," while Lightoller took it to mean "Women and children ''only''." Neither officer was informed of the rated capacity of the lifeboats and erred on the side of caution; furthermore, the ship did not appear to be in immediate danger, which made passengers reluctant to leave it on a small rowing boat in the middle of the freezing night, especially if it meant being separated from their loved ones. [[note]]Another crucial matter that's often overlooked when discussing who ended up in the lifeboats; unlike the far wealthier upper class passengers who could afford to replace any lost possessions, the majority of Third Class had brought ''all'' of their worldly goods with them in emigrating to America and were naturally reluctant to abandon everything they owned in leaving the ship.[[/note]] As a result boats built for 65 were often lowered only half-full and one lifeboat, #1, had only ''twelve'' people in it; all told, there were some 400-500 empty berths on the lifeboats. However, at first the passengers and crew weren't too concerned as they (mistakenly) thought help was just around the corner, since the ''Californian'' was visible on the horizon; by the time the deadliness of the situation set in and the panic really started, most of the boats had left. Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation and the limited time in which they were launched, it has been speculated that even had there been enough lifeboats for all on board, only a small additional number of people would have been saved; particularly since most of the able seamen (again, the few individuals who were actually ''trained'' to launch and man the boats) had left early on with the first evacuees, assuming they'd be able to return later. The last boats were launched less than ten minutes before the ship went under, and the last two collapsibles -- A and B -- were never launched at all, instead being actually washed off the deck as the water swept over the bow.\\

At 2:20 AM local time, ''Titanic'' broke apart and slipped beneath the waves, with the bow and stern hitting the ocean floor about five minutes afterwards located 600 meters apart from each other. The some-odd 1,500 men, women, and children left behind (or at least the ones who hadn't already drowned while trapped below decks and weren't crushed by the collapsing funnels) had to contend with the 28°F (-2°C) water; almost everyone perished within half an hour. Only three lifeboats went back to look for survivors -- another point of contention about the disaster, but it's usually agreed that so many desperate swimmers trying to climb into the lifeboats could have resulted in them capsizing, dooming even more to an icy death. Lifeboat 14 only found four men still alive in the water, one of whom died soon after he was pulled from the sea, although they were later able to save the people in the close-to-sinking Collapsible A; Lifeboats 4 and 12 managed to rescue Lightoller and the sixteen or so men who were balanced on top of the overturned Collapsible B. With little to do but wait, around 700 people were picked up by RMS ''Carpathia'' at dawn... and, on top of ''everything else'' that went wrong that night, it turned out the lifeboats were barely provisioned with emergency supplies of food, so if it had taken longer for rescue to arrive then the survivors could have been in real trouble. As it was, several of the men who had managed to get aboard the collapsible boats, even as ''Titanic'' sank from under them, still ended up dying of hypothermia before the ''Carpathia'' arrived.

The RMS ''Titanic'' was a British transatlantic liner[[labelnote:*]]Not a cruise ship, which she's often erroneously described as. An ocean liner was a ship built primarily to take people from Point A to Point B, as this was long before airplanes could make long-distance flights. Cruise ships sail around an area and then usually return to their point of origin, with the purpose being to visit nearby ports in a leisurely manner.[[/labelnote]] that sank in 1912, causing approximately 1,500 deaths. At the time of her maiden voyage, she was the largest ship to have ever sailed the seas. Construction started in March 1909 in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, then-UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} (now UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland) and was completed a few months before the big trip--enough time for rumors to spread about the luxurious White Star Liner being "unsinkable". Then, said ship set sail for New York, hit an iceberg on the fourth day, and sank in under three hours, and due to the ship only having 20 lifeboats (a large number of which were launched barely half full) less than a ''third'' of the people onboard survived.