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RMS Titanic was an Olympic class passenger liner that became infamous for its collision with an iceberg and dramatic sinking in 1912. The second of a trio of superliners, she and her sisters, RMS ''Olympic'' and HMHS ''Britannic'', were designed to provide a three-ship weekly express service and dominate the transatlantic travel business for the White Star Line.• Built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, Titanic was the largest passenger steamship in the world at the time of her sinking. During Titanic Harland and Wolff shipyard Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and was designed to compete with rival company Cunard Line's ''Lusitania'' and ''Mauretania'', known for being the fastest liners on the Atlantic. Titanic, along with her Olympic class sisters, ''Olympic'' and the soon-to-be-built ''Britannic'' (originally to be named Gigantic•), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to operate. Titanic was designed by Harland and Wolff chairman Lord Pirrie, head of Harland and Wolff's design department Thomas Andrews and general manager Alexander Carlisle, with the plans regularly sent to White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay for suggestions and approval. Construction of Titanic, funded by the American J.P. Morgan and his International Mercantile Marine Co., began on March 31 1909. Titanic Titanic was 882 ft 9 in (269 m) long and 92 ft 6 in (28 m) at its beam, it had a Gross Register Tonnage of 46,328 tons, and a height from the water line to the boat deck of 60 ft (18 m). It contained two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion, inverted steam engines and one low-pressure Parsons turbine which powered three propellers. There were 25 double-ended and 4 single-ended Scotch-type boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23 knots (43 km/h). Only three of the four 63 foot (19 m) tall funnels were functional; the fourth funnel, which only served as a vent, was added to make the ship look more impressive. The ship could hold a total of 3,547 passengers and crew and, because she carried mail, her name was given the prefix RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) as well as SS (Steam Ship). Titanic was considered a pinnacle of naval architecture and technological achievement. She was thought by The Shipbuilder magazine to be "practically unsinkable". Titanic was divided into 16 compartments with doors that were held by a magnetic latch and would fall by moving a switch on the bridge; however, the watertight bulkheads did not reach the entire height of the decks (only going as far as E-Deck). Titanic could stay afloat with any two of her compartments flooded, eleven of fourteen possible combinations of three compartments flooding or the first/last four compartments flooded; any more and the ship would sink. Unsurpassed luxury
Comparisons to the Olympic Titanic was nearly identical to her older sister, Olympic, but there were a few differences between the ships. Some of them were suggested by Bruce Ismay, based on observations he had made of Olympic. The most noticeable differences were that half of Titanic's forward promenade A-Deck (below the lifeboat deck) was enclosed, while her B-Deck configuration was completely different from that found on Olympic. Titanic was fitted with a specialty restaurant called Café Parisienne, a feature that Olympic wouldn't be provided with until 1913. Some of the flaws found on Olympic, such as the creaking of the aft expansion joint, were corrected on Titanic. Other differences such as Titanic's skid lights, that provide natural illumination on A-deck, were round while on Olympic they were oval. Titanic's wheelhouse was modified to be narrower and longer than Olympic's. * These and other modifications made Titanic 1,004 tonnes larger than Olympic. Passengers Some of the most prominent people in the world were traveling in first class. These included millionaire John Jacob Astor and his pregnant wife Madeleine; industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim; Macy's department store owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida; Denver millionaire Margaret "Molly" Brown; Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife, couturiere Lady Duff-Gordon; streetcar magnate George Dunton Widener, his wife Eleanor, and their 27-year-old son, Harry Elkins Widener; Pennsylvania Railroad executive John Borland Thayer, his wife Marion and their seventeen-year-old son, Jack; journalist William Thomas Stead; the Countess of Rothes; United States presidential aide Archibald Butt; author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee; author Jacques Futrelle, his wife May, and their friends, Broadway producers Henry and Rene Harris; pioneer aviation entrepreneur Pierre Maréchal; and silent film actress Dorothy Gibson. Also traveling in first class were White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay, who survived, and the ship's builder Thomas Andrews, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship. Among the second class passengers was Lawrence Beesley, a journalist who wrote one of the finest first-hand accounts of the voyage and the sinking. He left the ship on Lifeboat Both J.P. Morgan and Milton Hershey had plans to travel on the Titanic but cancelled their reservations before the voyage. Disaster There are several figures regarding the number of passengers lost. The United States senate investigation reported 1,522 people perished in the accident, while the British investigation has the number at 1490. Regardless, it ranks as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most famous. Titanic 1:45 PM - Amerika iceberg warning On the night of Sunday, April 14, the temperature had dropped to near freezing and the ocean was completely calm. Surviving 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller later wrote "the sea was like glass". There was no moon and the sky was clear. Captain Edward Smith, perhaps in response to iceberg warnings received via wireless over the last few days, had altered Titanic 11:40 PM - "Iceberg, right ahead!" At 11:40 PM while sailing south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship. Fleet sounded the ship's bell three times and telephoned the bridge. Sixth Officer Moody answered, "Yes, what do you see?", only to hear Fleet exclaiming, "Iceberg, right ahead!", to which Moody responded, "thank you", before informing First Officer Murdoch of the call. Murdoch (who had now already seen the iceberg) ordered an abrupt turn to port (left) and full speed astern, which stopped and then reversed the ship's reciprocating engines driving the wing propellers (the center shaft stopped as the turbine was not reversible. In reverse configuration the residual steam from the reciprocating engines was channeled directly to the condensers). A collision turned out to be inevitable, and the ship's starboard (right) side brushed the iceberg, buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline, creating a total of six leaks in the first five watertight compartments. The 5th compartment was breeched for only 10-15 feet. Murdoch then ordered the ship hard right rudder which swung Titanic 12:45 AM - First lifeboat lowered
2:00 AM - Waterline reaches forward boat deck At first, passengers were reluctant to leave the warm, well lit and ostensibly safe Titanic, which showed no outward signs of being in imminent danger, and board small, unlit, open lifeboats. This was one of the reasons most of the boats were launched partially empty. Also important was an uncertainty regarding the boats' structural integrity; it was feared that the boats might break if they were fully loaded before being set in the water. Captain Smith ordered the lifeboats be lowered half empty in the hope the boats would come back to save people in the water, and some boats were given orders to do just that. One boat, boat number one, meant to hold 40 people, left Titanic with only 12 people on board. It was rumored that Lord and Lady Duff Gorden bribed 7 crew members to take them and their 3 companions off the ship. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line left on Collapsable Boat C and was derided by both the American and British Inquiries for not going down with the ship. As the ship's tilt became more apparent, people started to become nervous, and some lifeboats began leaving fully loaded. "Women and children first" remained the imperative (see origin of phrase) for loading the boats. Shortly after 2:00 AM the waterline reached the bridge and forward boat deck, and all the lifeboats, save for the awkwardly located Collapsibles A and B, had been lowered. Collapsible D, with 44 of its 47 seats filled, was the last lifeboat to be lowered from the davits. The total number of vacancies was close to 475. 2:10 AM - Stern rises out of water Around 2:10 AM, the stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, and the forward boat deck was flooding. The last two lifeboats floated right off the deck as the ocean reached them: collapsible lifeboat B upside down, and collapsible lifeboat A half-filled with water. Shortly afterwards the first funnel fell forward, crushing part of the bridge and many of those struggling in the water. On deck, people scrambled towards the stern or jumped overboard in hopes of reaching a lifeboat. As the ship's stern continued to slowly rise into the air, everything not secured crashed towards the bow. The electrical system finally failed and the lights, which had until now burned brightly, went out. Titanic's second funnel broke off and fell into the water, and Titanic herself tore apart. 2:20 AM - Titanic sinks Stress on the hull caused Titanic to break apart into two large pieces, between the third and fourth funnels, and the bow section went completely under. The stern section briefly righted itself on the water before rising back up vertically. After a few moments, the stern section also sank into the ocean about two hours and forty minutes after the collision with the iceberg. White Star attempted to persuade surviving crewmen not to state that the hull broke in half. The company believed that this information would cast doubts upon the integrity of their vessels. In fact, the stresses inflicted on the hull when it was almost vertical (bow down and stern in the air) were well beyond the design limits of the structure and no legitimate engineer could have fairly criticised the work of the shipbuilders in that regard. Of a total of 2,223 people, only 706 survived; 1,517 perished. If the lifeboats were filled to capacity 1,178 people could have been saved. Of the First Class, 199 were saved (60%) and 130 died. Of the Second Class, 119 (44%) were saved and 166 were lost. Of the Third Class, 174 were saved (25%) and 536 perished. Of the crew, 214 were saved (24%) and 685 perished. 1,347 men (80%) died, and 103 women (26%) died. 53 children (about 50%) also died. Of particular note, the entire complement of the Engineering Department, remaining at their posts to keep the ship's electrical systems running, drowned. The entirety of the Ship's band were lost. Led by bandneader Wallace Hartley, they played music on the boat deck of the Titanic that night to calm the passengers. It is rumored that they played the hymm "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as their finale. The majority of deaths were caused by victims succumbing to hypothermia in the 28 °F (−2 °C) water. only one came back to the scene of the sinking to attempt to rescue survivors. Another boat helped. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up eight crewmen, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later,, after tying 3 or 4 lifeboats together on the open sea (a difficult task), Lifeboat 14, under the command of Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, went back looking for survivors and rescued four people, one of whom died afterwards. Collapsable B was upended all night and began with 30 people. By the time the Carpathia arrived the next morning, 13-14 remained. Included on this boat were the highest ranking officer to survive, Charles Lightolloer, wireless operator Harold Bride, and the chief baker, James Jougin. There were some arguments in some of the other lifeboats about going back, but many survivors were afraid of being swamped by people trying to climb into the lifeboat or being pulled down by the anticipated suction from the sinking ship, though this turned out not to be severe. Only 12 survivors were recovered from the water; As the ship sank into the depths, the two sections ended their final plunges very differently. The streamlined bow planed off approximately 2,000 feet (600 m) below the surface and slowed somewhat, landing relatively gently. The stern fell fairly straight down towards the ocean floor, possibly rotating as it sank, with the air trapped inside causing implosions. It was already half-crushed when it hit bottom at high speeds; the shock caused everything still loose to fall off. The bow section however, having been opened up by the iceberg and having sunk slowly, had little air left in it as it sank and therefore remained relatively intact during its descent. 4:10 AM - Carpathia picks up first lifeboat
Arrival of Carpathia in New York The Carpathia docked at Pier 54 at Little West 12th Street in New York with the survivors. It arrived at night and was greeted by thousands of people. The Titanic had been headed for Pier 59 at 20th Street. The Carpathia dropped off the Titanic lifeboats at Pier 59 before unloading the survivors at Pier 54. Both piers were part of the Chelsea Piers built to handle luxury liners of the day. As news of the disaster spread, many people were shocked that Titanic could sink with such great loss of life despite all of its technological advances. Newspapers were filled with stories and descriptions of the disaster and were eager to get the latest information. Many charities were set up to help the victims and their families, many of whom lost their sole breadwinner, or, in the case of third-class survivors, lost everything they owned. The people of Southampton were deeply affected by the sinking. According to the Hampshire Chronicle on April 20, 1912, almost 1,000 local families were directly affected. Almost every street in the Chapel district of the town lost more than one resident and over 500 households lost a member. Investigation, Safety Rules and The Californian
International Ice Patrol The disaster also led to the convening of the first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in London, England, on November 12 1913. On January 30 1914, a treaty was signed by the conference and resulted in the formation and international funding of the International Ice Patrol, an agency of the United States Coast Guard that to the present day monitors and reports on the location of North Atlantic Ocean icebergs that could pose a threat to transatlantic sea lane traffic. It was also agreed in the new regulations that all passenger vessels would have sufficient lifeboats for everyone on board, that appropriate safety drills would be conducted, and that radio communications would be operated 24 hours a day along with a secondary power supply, so as not to miss distress calls. In addition, it was agreed that the firing of red rockets from a ship must be interpreted as a distress signal. This treaty was scheduled to go into effect July 1 1915, but was upstaged by World War One. Ship design changes The sinking of Titanic also changed the way passenger ships were designed, and many existing ships such as Olympic were refitted for increased safety. Besides increasing the number of lifeboats on board, improvements included increasing the height of the watertight bulkheads. The bulkheads on Titanic extended 10 feet (3 m) above the waterline, and after Titanic sank the bulkheads on other ships were extended higher to make compartments fully watertight. While Titanic had a double bottom it did not have a double hull; after her sinking new ships were designed with double hulls and the double bottoms of other ships (including Olympic's) were extended up the sides of their hulls above their waterlines to give them double hulls. Lifeboats No single aspect regarding the huge loss of life from the Titanic disaster has provoked more outrage than the fact that the ship did not carry enough lifeboats for all its passengers and crew. This is partially due to the fact that an outdated trade law required a minimum of 16 lifeboats for ships of the Titanics size—meaning that the ship was legally required to carry only enough lifeboats for less than half of its capacity. Actually, White Star Line exceeded the regulations by including four more collapsible lifeboats—making room for slightly more than half the capacity. A plan was submitted for Titanic to have each of the 16 lifeboats complemented with another three lifeboats, for a total of 64 (four boats at each pair of davits instead of only one). However, J. Bruce Ismay, the President of White Star on the British end, said it would detract from the leisure space for passengers. The priority, it seems, was to give First Class passengers as much deck space as possible to stroll and enjoy the outside air. In addition, at the time, the belief in the shipbuilding industry was that lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers to another ship and disembark them, returning to a stricken liner for more passengers. The lack of lifeboats was not the only cause of the tragic loss of lives. After the collision with the iceberg, one hour was spent to evaluate the damages, recognize what was going to happen, inform first class passengers, and lower the first lifeboat. Afterward, the crew worked quite efficiently, taking a total of 80 minutes to lower all 16 lifeboats. Since the crew was divided in two teams, one on each side of the ship, an average of 10 minutes of work was necessary for a team to fill a lifeboat with passengers and lower it. Only 10 minutes after the last lifeboat was lowered, the stern rose out of water, suggesting that it would not have been possible to lower any more lifeboats, if any were remaining. Use of SOS The sinking of Titanic was not the first time the internationally recognized Morse code distress signal "SOS" was used. The SOS signal was first proposed at the International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea in Berlin in 1906. It was ratified by the international community in 1908 and had been in widespread use since then. The SOS signal was, however, rarely used by British wireless operators, who preferred the older CQD code. First Wireless Operator Jack Phillips began transmitting CQD until Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride suggested, half-jokingly, "Send SOS; it's the new call, and this may be your last chance to send it." Phillips, who perished in the disaster, then began to intersperse SOS with the traditional CQD call. Titanic
Titanic One of the most famous stories of Titanic is of the band. On 15 April, Titanic None of the band members survived the sinking, and there has been much speculation about what their last song was. Some witnesses said the final song played was the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee." However, there are three versions of this song in existence and no one really knows which version, if any, was played. Hartley reportedly said to a friend if he was on a sinking ship "Nearer, My God, to Thee" would be one of the songs he would play. Walter Lord’s book A Night to Remember popularised wireless operator Harold Bride’s account that he heard the song "Autumn" before the ship sank. It is considered Bride either meant the hymn called "Autumn" or "Songe d'Automne," a popular ragtime song of the time. Others claimed they heard "Roll out the Barrel." Hartley's body was one of those recovered and identified. Considered a hero, his funeral in England was attended by thousands. David Sarnoff An often-quoted story that has been blurred between fact and fiction states that the first person to receive news of the sinking was David Sarnoff, who would later found media giant RCA. Sarnoff was not the first to hear the news (though Sarnoff willingly promoted this notion), but he and others did man the Marconi wireless station atop the Wanamaker Department Store in New York City, and for three days relayed news of the disaster and names of survivors to people waiting outside. Faults in construction Though this topic is seldom discussed, there is some speculation on whether or not Titanic was constructed by methods considered sufficiently robust by the standards of the day. Rumored faults in the construction included problems with safety doors and missing or detached bolts in the ship's hull plating. Some people say that this was a major contributing factor to the sinking and that the iceberg, in part with the missing bolts and screws, eventually led to the demise of Titanic. Many believe that if the watertight bulkheads had completely sealed the ship's compartments (they only went 10 ft above the waterline), the ship would have stayed afloat. However, it should be noted that Titanic's hull was held together by rivets, which are intended to be a permanent way of attaching metal items together, whereas bolts can be removed and would require periodic tightening unless the nut and bolt are welded after being screwed together. Welding technology in 1912 was in its infancy, so this was not done. While issues with Titanic's rivets have been identified from samples salvaged from the wreck site, many ships of the era would have been constructed with similar methods and did not sink after being involved in collisions. There was a claim that the rivets of the Titanic had not been properly tempered, leaving them brittle and sensitive to fracture in the infamous collision. While sealing off the watertight bulkheads with watertight decks would have increased the survivability of a vessel such as Titanic, they would have by no means ensured the survival of a ship with as much underwater damage as Titanic sustained in her collision with the iceberg: it was a big iceberg. Even if the compartments themselves had remained completely watertight, the weight of water would still have pulled the bow of the ship down to the point where decks above the watertight deck would have been below the waterline. The ship would then have flooded via the portholes and sunk anyway. It should also be noted that watertight decks would have hampered access to the lower sections of the ship and would have required watertight hatches, all of which would have had to be properly sealed to maintain the barrier between the incoming water and the rest of the ship. As the increased survivability such watertight decks would have offered is questionable, they are generally considered to this day to be impractical in merchant vessels (though some military vessels, which are exposed to much greater risk of flooding by virtue of being targets for enemy mines and torpedoes, do feature such decks). It should also be noted that ''Olympic'', built to almost identical specifications by the same builders as Titanic, was involved with several collisions during the course of her operational lifetime, one of which occurred before the Titanic sank; and Olympic's hull was modified to protect her from flooding in a fashion similar to her ill-fated sister's. None of these collisions threatened to sink the ship, suggesting that the Olympic-class liners were built to be sufficiently tough and did not suffer from slipshod construction. Parochial headline There is a persistent urban legend in Scotland that the Aberdeen Press and Journal, a paper notorious for its parochial coverage, reported the sinking of the Titanic with the headline "Aberdeen Man Drowned" (or something similar). This is untrue. * Alternative theories and curses As with many famous events, many alternative theories about the sinking of Titanic have appeared over the years. Theories that it was not an iceberg that sank the ship or that a curse caused the disaster have been popular reading in newspapers and books. Most of these theories have been debunked by Titanic experts, citing inaccurate or incomplete facts on which the theories are based. In 2003 Captain L. M. Collins, a former member of the Ice Pilotage Service published The Sinking of the Titanic: The Mystery Solved proposing, based upon his own experience of ice navigation, and witness statements given at the two post-disaster enquiries, that what the Titanic hit was not an iceberg but low-lying pack ice. He based his conclusion upon three main pieces of evidence. Another theory is that the Titanic was sacrificed because, once construction had been completed, she was expected to be a potential perpetual financial loss. Supporters of this theory cite the claim that everyone concerned, the company and the officers aboard, had received iceberg warnings and yet the Titanic maintained a northern course instead of sailing to the south of the warning limit. There is even a curse legend. While the ship was being built in the Belfast shipyard, several Catholic workers reportedly walked off the job in protest when they noticed horrible blasphemies against Catholicism and the Virgin Mary spray-painted by Protestant workers on parts of the ship. One of the workers stated, "This ship will not finish its first voyage". The graffiti were noted by coal-fillers when the ship stopped at Cobh, Ireland. A similar legend states that Titanic was given hull number 390904 (which, when seen in a mirror or written using mirror writing, looks like "no pope"). This is a myth.* One popular myth states that the Titanic was carrying a cursed Egyptian mummy. The mummy, nicknamed Shipwrecker, after changing hands several times, and causing many terrible things to each of its owners, exacts its final revenge by sinking the famous ship. This myth is untrue.* Another myth says that the bottle of champagne used in christening the Titanic did not break on the first try, which in sealore is said to be bad luck for a ship. In fact, Titanic was not christened, as White Star Line's custom was to launch ships without a christening. * Rediscovery The idea of finding the wreck of Titanic and even raising the ship from the ocean floor had been perpetuated since shortly after the ship sank. No attempts to even locate the ship were successful until September 1 1985, when a joint American-French expedition, led by Jean-Louis Michel of Ifremer and Dr. Robert D. Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, sailing on the Research Vessel ''Knorr'', discovered the wreck using the video camera sled Argo. It was found at a depth of 12,500 feet (3800 m), south-east of Newfoundland at , 13 nautical miles (24 km) from where Titanic was originally thought to rest. The most notable discovery the team made was that the ship had split apart, the stern section lying 1,970 feet (600 m) from the bow section and facing opposite directions. There had been conflicting witness accounts of whether the ship broke apart or not, and both the American and British inquiries found that the ship sank intact. Up until the discovery of the wreck, it was generally assumed the ship did not break apart. In 2005, a theory was presented that a portion of Titanic The bow section had embedded itself 60 feet (18 m) into the silt on the ocean floor. Besides parts of the hull having buckled, the bow was mostly intact, as the water inside had equalized with the increasing water pressure. The stern section was in much worse condition. As the stern section sank, water pushed out the air inside tearing apart the hull and decks. The speed at which the stern hit the ocean floor caused even more damage. Surrounding the wreck is a large debris field with pieces of the ship (including a large amount of coal), furniture, dinnerware and personal items scattered over one square mile (2.6 km²). Softer materials, like wood and carpet, were devoured by undersea organisms. Human remains suffered a similar fate. Later exploration of the vessel's lower decks, as chronicled in the book Ghosts of the Titanic by Dr. Charles Pellegrino, showed that much of the wood from the Titanic's staterooms was still intact. A new theory has been put forth that much of the wood from the upper decks was not devoured by undersea organisms but rather broke free of its moorings and floated away. This is supported by some eyewitness testimony from the survivors. Also, while filming James Cameron's Titanic, the Grand Staircase set broke free of supports when it was flooded for sinking sequences of the film. This has led historian Don Lynch and historical artist Ken Marschall to believe that the Grand Staircase in fact exited the sinking ship in this way (as mentioned in DVD commentary of the film). Although the British inquiry had determined mathematically that the damage to the ship could not have comprised more than twelve inches square (30 cm × 30 cm), the popular notion was that the iceberg had cut a 300 foot (90 m) long gash into Titanic The samples of steel rescued from the wrecked hull were found to have very high content of phosphorus and sulphur (four times and two times as high as common for modern steels), with a manganese-sulphur ratio of 6.8:1 (compare with over 200:1 ratio for modern steels). High content of phosphorus initiates fractures, sulphur forms grains of iron sulphide that facilitate propagation of cracks, and lack of manganese makes the steel less ductile. The recovered samples were found to be undergoing ductile-brittle transition in temperatures of 32 °C (for longitudinal samples) and 56 °C (for transversal samples—compare with transition temperature of −27 °C common for modern steels—modern steel would become as brittle between −60 and −70 °C). The anisotropy was likely caused by hot rolling influencing the orientation of the sulphide stringer inclusions. The steel was probably produced in the acid-lined, open-hearth furnaces in Glasgow, which would explain the high content of phosphorus and sulphur, even for the times. Dr. Ballard and his team did not bring up any artifacts from the site, considering it to be tantamount to grave robbing. Under international maritime law, however, the recovery of artifacts is necessary to establish salvage rights to a shipwreck. In the years after the find, Titanic has been the object of a number of court cases concerning ownership of artifacts and the wreck site itself. Ownership and litigation On June 7, 1994, RMS Titanic Inc. was awarded ownership and salvaging rights of the wreck by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. (See Admiralty law)• RMS Titanic Inc., a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc., and its predecessors have conducted seven expeditions to the wreck between 1987 and 2004 and salvaged over 5,500 objects. The biggest single recovered artifact was a 17-ton section of the hull, recovered in 1998.• Many of these artifacts are part of travelling museum exhibitions. Beginning in 1987, a joint American-French expedition, which included the predecessor of RMS Titanic Inc., began salvage operations and, during 32 dives, recovered approximately 1,800 artifacts which were taken to France for conservation and restoration. In 1993, a French administrator in the Office of Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Equipment, Transportation, and Tourism awarded RMS Titanic Inc's predecessor title to the artifacts recovered in 1987. In a motion filed on February 12, 2004, RMS Titanic Inc. requested that the District Court enter an order awarding it "title to all the artifacts (including portions of the hull) which are the subject of this action pursuant to the law of finds" or, in the alternative, a salvage award in the amount of $225 million. RMS Titanic Inc. excluded from its motion any claim for an award of title to the 1987 artifacts. But it did request that the district court declare that, based on the French administrative action, "the artifacts raised during the 1987 expedition are independently owned by RMST." Following a hearing, the district court entered an order dated July 2, 2004, in which it refused to grant comity and recognize the 1993 decision of the French administrator, and rejected RMS Titanic Inc's claim that it should be awarded title to the artifacts recovered since 1993 under the maritime law of finds. RMS Titanic Inc. appealed to the United States court of appeals. In its decision of January 31, 2006 the court recognized "explicitly the appropriateness of applying maritime salvage law to historic wrecks such as that of Titanic" and denied the application the maritime law of finds. The court also ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the "1987 artifacts", and therefore vacated that part of the court's July 2, 2004 order. In other words, according to this decision, RMS Titanic Inc. has ownership title to the artifacts awarded in the French decision (valued $16.5 million earlier) and continues to be salvor-in-possession of the Titanic wreck. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court to determine the salvage award ($225 million requested by RMS Titanic Inc.). Current condition of the wreck Many scientists, including Robert Ballard, are concerned that visits by tourists in submersibles and the recovery of artifacts are hastening the decay of the wreck. Underwater microbes have been eating away at Titanic Ballard's book Return to Titanic, published by the National Geographic Society, includes photographs showing the deterioration of the promenade deck and alleged damage caused by submersibles landing on the ship; however, Ballard was the first person to crash a camera sled into the wreck, and also the first person to repeatedly land on its deck in a submersible. The mast has almost completely deteriorated and repeated accusations were made in print by Ballard that it had been stripped of its bell and brass light by salvagers, despite his own original discovery images clearly showing that the bell was never actually on the mast- it was recovered from the sea floor. Even the memorial plaque left by Ballard on his second trip to the wreck was alleged to have been removed; Ballard replaced the plaque in 2004. Recent expeditions, notably by James Cameron, have been diving on the wreck to learn more about the site and explore previously unexplored parts of the ship before Titanic decays completely. Comparable maritime disasters Titanic was at the time one of the worst maritime disasters in history, a comparable loss of life having never happened before on the heavily travelled North Atlantic route. It remains the worst civilian maritime disaster in British history. The biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean up to that time had been the wreck of SS ''Norge'' off Rockall in 1904 with the loss of 635 lives. However, Titanic Also similar to Titanic was ''Hans Hedtoft''. In January 1959 Hans Hedtoft, a Danish liner sailing from Greenland, struck an iceberg and sank. Hans Hedtoft was also on its maiden voyage and was boasted to be "unsinkable" because of its strong design. In 1987, MV ''Doña Paz'', sank in the Philippines after colliding with the oil tanker Vector and catching fire and claimed between 1,500 and 4,000 lives. In 2002, a Senegalese government-owned ferry MV ''Joola'' capsized off the coast of Gambia resulted in the deaths of at least 1,863 people. The worst maritime disasters happened during World War II, the most deadly of these involving German ships. The sinking of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' with an estimated death toll between 6,000 and 9,000, remains the worst disaster in shipping history in terms of loss of life in a single vessel (sunk on 30 January 1945 by a Soviet torpedo). The SS ''Cap Arcona'' (which, ironically, stood in for Titanic in the 1943 film version of the tragedy) was sunk by the Royal Air Force on May 3, 1945, with an estimated death toll of more than 7,700. The ''Goya'' was sunk with an estimated 7,000 dead, again by Soviet submarine on 16 April 1945. Titanic was not the only White Star Line ship to sink with loss of life. RMS ''Tayleur'', which has been compared to the sinking of Titanic, sank after running aground in Ireland. Tayleur was also technically innovative when it sank on its maiden voyage in 1854. Of its 558 passengers and crew, 276 were lost. The White Star Line had also previously lost the RMS ''Atlantic'' on rocks near Nova Scotia in 1873 with 546 fatalities, and SS ''Naronic'' in 1893, probably in an iceberg collision near the Titanic Popular culture The sinking of Titanic has been the basis for many novels describing fictionalised events on board the ship. Many reference books about the disaster have also been written since Titanic sank, the first of these appearing within months of the sinking. Several films and TV movies were produced, and a search for Titanic items on sites like Ebay show thousands of items that have been created that are for sale. Though the USS Constitution is considered the most famous US Navy ship, the Titanic may be one of the most famous ships of any kind. Last survivors On May 6, 2006, the last American survivor, and the last survivor to have memories of Titanic's sinking, Lillian Gertrud Asplund, died at her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Asplund, who was just 5 years old at the time, lost her father and three brothers (including her fraternal twin) in the tragedy. Her mother Selma Asplund and brother Felix, then 3, survived. Selma Asplund had died on the anniversary of the sinking in 1964. * At the time of Lillian Asplund's death, survivors Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, ten months old at the time of the sinking, and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, who was two months old, were still living, but were too young to have memories of the catastrophe. Therefore, with the death of Lillian Gertrude Asplund, firsthand experience of the Titanic's sinking has passed out of living memory. 100th Anniversary On the 15th April 2012 the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic will be commemorated around the world, by that date the Titanic Quarter, Belfast in Belfast will have been completed. The area will be regenerated and a signature memorial project unveiled to celebrate the Titanic and its links with Belfast, the city that built the great ship. Deckplans of Titanic Image:Titanic A-Deck english.png|A-Deck See also Notes | |||||||||||||||||
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