The RMS Titanic began its journey on April 10, 1912 and sank five days later on April 15, 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg. The luxury ship was on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. It was carrying about 2,200 passengers and crew members. More than 1,500 of them died. It was one of the deadliest marine disasters of modern times. More than a century later, the facts and stories about Titanic still fascinate people. Here are the top 15 Titanic facts that will blow your mind.
Titanic facts you should know
Titanic was the pioneer of luxury sea travel. It measured 269 meters in length. The ship was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. There is a conspiracy theory that the Titanic never sank. According to the theory, it was Titanic’s sister ship Olympic that went down on April 15, 1912, and the whole thing was orchestrated to settle insurance claims.
Conspiracy theories aside, these are the Titanic facts you should know:
15- Titanic’s interiors were inspired by the Ritz hotel in London. Its first-class amenities included tea gardens, gymnasium, a Parisian cafe, a library, squash court, barbershop, elevators, smoking room, and a heated swimming pool.
14- The ship’s remains were found 73 years after it sank. The shipwreck was located 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, 12,500 feet below the surface.
13- Titanic had its own daily newspaper. It was called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
12- First-class passengers had a music book of 352 songs. The musicians were supposed to know every single song. The musicians continued to play music for two hours and five minutes as the ship kept sinking.
11- Every single engineer stayed behind to run the power to ensure that the maximum number of people could escape. All the engineers sank with the ship.
10- All the modern pictures and paintings of the ship show four funnels. The fourth funnel was added to beautify the Titanic. Only three were functional.
9- The 1997 movie Titanic shows the women and children were prioritized. That was indeed true. The survival rate for women was 74% and for children it was 52%. In contrast, only 20% men aboard the ship survived.
8- When the boat sank, the ocean water temperature was 28 degrees, which is four degrees below the freezing point.
7- The first newspapers that reported the Titanic incident claimed no lives were lost. The first report with more accurate figures was released two days later.
6- Many experts argue that the incident could have been averted if there was a binocular in the observation deck. According to reports, there was a binocular on the ship, but nobody knew who had the key to the box in which the binocular was kept.
5- The wealthiest person on the Titanic was John Jacob Astor IV, who had an estimated net worth of $85 million – equivalent to more than $2 billion today. Astor sank with the ship. He was last seen smoking a cigarette with journalist and author Jacques Futrelle.
4- The ship was equipped to carry 64 lifeboats, but it carried only 20 because people thought it was “unsinkable.” Also, a lifeboat drill was scheduled onboard Titanic on April 14, 1912. But Captain Edward John Smith canceled the drill due to unknown reasons.
3- Titanic required about 600 tons of coal every day. The ship had 176 men to hand-shovel coal into the furnaces.
2- James Cameron’s movie Titanic revolved around a love story. Well, there was a true love story onboard the ship – the story of Macy’s department store co-owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, who were first-class passengers. They had been married for 41 years before dying in each other’s arms when the ship sank, according to witnesses.
1- Fourteen years before Titanic sank, author Morgan Robertson wrote a book Futility that depicted a story terrifyingly similar to that of Titanic. Its story was about a large unsinkable ship called the Titan. The ship hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and didn’t have enough lifeboats. More than half of its passengers died. The resemblance between the Titan and Titanic is uncanny. The book was published in 1898.
