Titanic's 99th Birthday

    April 14th,....It is a date that most people
gloss over without much thought. I happen to remember it because of the significance of the moment..

    Construction of HMS Titanic actually began in April of 1907 in the ship-building port city of Belfast, Ireland. Five years and 7,000 workers finished the Titanic on April 2, 1912. The ship was the most luxurious vessel afloat at this point in history. Gold chandeliers, sterling silver flatware, and porcelain dishes with only the finest of foods gracing the tables. Over 20 boilers gave the Titanic a speed of almost thirty knots and was designed for passengers of all levels of society. American millionaires Benjamin Guggenheim, Isodor Strauss, and John Astor had to be on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. The ship was almost four football fields long, and had three propellers, each forty feet wide. She was the showpiece of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic. The first passengers boarded the Titanic at Southampton, England on April 10, 1912. After brief stops at Cherbourge, France and Queensland, Ireland, the Titanic headed for open water and a destination of New York City. It was 11:40 at night on the 14th when she struck the iceberg, and water poured in at the rate of seven tons per second. Distress calls went out immediately, but 58 miles away the 'USS California' had turned off the radio shack at 11pm. It took just two and a half hours for the 'unsinkable' to slip below the frigid waters of the Atlantic. Of the 2,206 passengers and crew, only 703 were saved due to the shortage of lifeboats on the big ship. Since it was one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic, the Titanic would rest in peace until 1985 when technology made it possible for divers to finally find her. James Cameron's great movie of 1997 has been hailed as being extremely true to the historical facts of this disaster...and remember it happened 99 years ago tonight.