Titanic Anniversary

Today marks the 98th anniversary of the sinking
of the RMS Titanic. With all the books, movies, and TV
shows about it, maybe you didn't hear. The White Star
Liner was the biggest ship ever built when it slid down
from it's drydock at Belfast, Ireland. Three thousand workers
constructed the Titanic from 1909 to March of 1912.
In the photo of Titanic being built, check out the triple
screw propellers and the rudder. To give you some prospective, there is a man standing near the bottom of the rudder. The Titanic was 882 feet long, 92 feet across, and 175 feet tall from the keel to the top of her
funnels. There were 9 different decks and her 120 furnaces
consumed 650 tons of coal per day. The mammoth ship had
a cruising speed of 21 knots, but could reach 23 knots at top
speed. At total capacity, the Titanic could accommodate 3,547
crew and passengers, but on this maiden voyage she was
carrying 2,223. The shortcoming was the lifeboats, which
had room for only 1,178.
Titanic would make the trip from Southampton, England to
New York City on her first trip as a passenger liner. Just before midnight on the night of April 14, 1912 the massive
ship struck an iceberg and ripped a 230 foot hole in the side
of the ship. Water rushed in at the rate of 7 tons per second.
The Titanic would go to the bottom in less than three hours.
The 28 degree water means that most of the casualties that
night died of hypothermia. The "women and children first"
attitude of the day resulted in most of the male passengers
going down with the ship. Only 706 passengers survived, making
it the worse maritime disaster of all time. Among the passengers
lost in the catastrophe that night were millionaire John J. Astor,
Industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's owner Isidor
Straus, Broadway Producer Henry Harris, and movie actress
Dorothy Gibson. Millionaire banker J.P. Morgan was scheduled
to be on the ship, but canceled out at the last minute. The last
know survivor of the Titanic was Millvina Dean, who died in May
of 2009. She was nine weeks old at the time of the sinking.
In the final moments of life, the Titanic sent out the distress call
and shot off signal flares, but the closest ship was the Cunard
Liner Carpathia, who was 58 miles away and took four hours
to reach the Titanic. Overwhelmed by the number of survivors,
the Carpathia could not take on any bodies, but other ships
arrived within days of the event and reported bodies still
floating from the aftermath.