The RMS Titanic, star of the White Star Line, left the wharves at Southampton for her maiden voyage at high noon on Wednesday, April 10th, 1912. On Monday, April 15th, at approximately 2:20 am, that voyage came to an end at the bottom of the ocean, 153km south of Grand Banks, Newfoundland, Canada. Of the 2228 passengers and crew on board, only 705 would survive to make the final leg of the journey to New York City.

Under pressure of losing out in the ocean passenger liner trade, the White Star Line commissioned the building of the Olympic Class of ocean liners. The emphasis was to be placed on size and luxury, not speed. The Titanic was the second of the three to be completed, and as the launch date approached, the Titanic found itself to be the center of media attention. Such fanfare brought out the wealthiest and most prominent of American and British society, and among the prominent passengers were:

• 
  John Jacob Astor - The wealthiest man on board. He was returning from his honeymoon with his 18 year-old bride. She was 5 months pregnant already, and they were returning to New York so her child could be born in America.
• Benjamin Guggenheim - Swiss emigrant to the US, a trip his family made to make its fortune. Benjamin invested the family money into research and development of new smelting techniques, and it payed off handsomely, as his interests soon far outstripped the value of those of the rest of the family. He was returning to New York and his wife after an extended stay in Paris, and was accompanied on board with his Parisian mistress.
• Molly Brown - Nouveau-riche American woman who would later become famous for her tenacity, and become known to history as the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her husband struck it rich in gold-mining in Colorado. He was a social recluse, but Molly intended to become part of the social elite, and she once stated that she knew "everyone worth knowing from Moscow to the Bosphorus." She was in Egypt with her friends the Astors when news reached her that her grandchild in Denver was gravely ill, and was returning to attend to him.
• Colonel Archibald Gracie - Independantly wealthy man from a prominent family, among whose accomplishments was the construction of the Gracie Mansion which became the home of the mayor of New York City in 1942. His family was also rather prominent in the military history of the US. Brigadier General Gracie, Archibald's father, went south to fight for the Confederacy, and lost his life at Chickamauga. Archie was a military man himself, being a Colonel for 7th Regiment, and had just written a novel on the battle of Chickamauga. He was returning from a holiday in Europe immediately following the publishing of his book, and was a member of a coterie of authors that formed itself in the First Class library during the voyage.
• Major Archibald Butt - Military advisor to former president Taft.
• Isidor Strauss - Co-founder of the Macy's department store chain. He was returning to New York with his wife, Ida.

The Titanic displaced 46,000 tons, the largest luxury liner¹ of its very brief time. It was also one of first ocean liners to come equipped with a new concept in ship design, the watertight bulkhead. The ship was divided into 16 watertight compartments from bow to stern, and no penetration, for ventilation, cabling, machinery, or anything else was permitted to allow water to pass from one of those compartments into the next. The personal access doors could be closed by remote from the bridge or by emergency float switches, thus sealing the barrier that would allow no fire or flooding to pass from one part of the ship to the next. During the media frenzy, White Star Line boasted that this feature, along with its sheer size, rendered the Titanic "unsinkable."

Timeline

Contributing Factors

The Aftermath

• J. Bruce Ismay: His survival has always been the most controversial, having stepped aboard a collapsible at a time when the men were not being boarded. Furthermore, his part in the excessive speed of the ship has brought a clear amount of blame upon his shoulders for the entire accident. He was employed by the same people who operated the Californian, and so he tried desperately to exhonerate Captain Lord and his crew at the BOT hearings.
  
  
• Thomas Andrews: The presence of the chief design engineer on board the ship at the time of the accident turned out to be one of the few positives in a blizzard of negatives. The way the ship began sinking may have failed to alert the crew as to the severity of the situation, since it slipped forward just a few degrees in the beginning, then appeared to settle, then slipped forward again by a few degrees many minutes later, and so on. Andrews' intimate knowledge of the ship and its capabilites gave the crew an estimated 45 extra minutes to evacuate the ship. Had he not been on board, hundreds more would likely have died.
  
  
  
  Furthermore, Andrews had always had safety firmly in mind. BOT regulations for lifeboat capacity at the time Titanic was being built set minimum capacities by the size of the ship, not by passenger capacity. Furthermore, ships could get a credit for life saving equipment as an incentive to incorporate watertight bulkheading, the rationale being that ships that are harder to sink were desirable. Titanic incorporated outstanding watertight integrity, and was eligible for a credit that would have cut the requirement for lifeboat capacity to 756. White Star Lines did not exercise this option, and, as a further commitment to safety, the ship was built with the new Wellin boat davit system, which would have accomodated four boats for each lifeboat station. Notes were discovered at Andrews' home where he calculated lifeboat additions that would have exceeded the maximum capacity of Titanic by 65 people, and would have fit with the davit system. He did this in anticipation of the passage of new BOT regulations calling for lifeboat space for everyone on board, but these were not passed. When the Titanic set sail with lifeboat capacity for 1178 passengers and crew, it was still 10% more than regulations required.
  
  
• Captain Stanley Lord: He contended during BOT hearings that the ship he and his crew saw firing flares could not have been the Titanic, as it appeared to be too small. However, he could not explain why another ship would have been firing distress rockets at the same time Titanic had, according to testimony received from Second Officer Lightoller. Furthermore, when word was finally received of the Titanic's fate, the Californian pursued an odd, roundabout route to arrive there. North and slightly west of Titanic's last position when word was received, Californian proceeded west through the ice field, then south, and then east through the debris field a second time. No adequate explanation has ever been received for this odd behavior.
  
  
• First Officer Murdoch: It was determined that Murdoch, who was the officer in charge at the time of the incident, had reacted in a timely and appropriate manner. It has been speculated that, had the engine room personnel been directly on hand to back the engines immediately, the situation may have been alleviated, but the engines would have taken a full 20 seconds to reverse, and only about 40 seconds passed from sighting until collision, and the engines weren't reversed, according to a few survivors from the boiler room, until the collision, and possibly not until after. Furthermore, it has been speculated that Murdoch would have received better results had he ordered the port side propeller reversed, and the starboard propeller to continue forward. However, this was not something that was practiced during sea trials. When confronted with an immediate emergency, he quite naturally fell back on his training, and during sea trials they executed sharp turns by backing up all the engines. Some have even suggested that the ship may have survived had it just rammed the iceberg head-on, compromising only the first compartment. This is ludicrous, as it would have crushed hundreds of passengers and crew in the forward part of the ship, and caused stresses on the hull all along the keel, which could have caused any number of breaches in hull integrity. Regardless of the if's and why's, Murdoch's instinct to try to avoid collision altogether was the correct one.
  
  
• Second Officer Lightoller: No blame ever came to Lightoller, the senior-most survivor of Titanic's crew. The only fault he committed was in sending lifeboats off partially filled, which would have saved hundreds more lives. He went on to have a fruitful career, and made a great contribution as a citizen in March of 1940, when he sailed his personal yacht to Dunkirk, rescuing an estimated 130 men.
  
  

Discovery

The story of the fate of Titanic has continued to captivate people since that fateful day. Curiosity about the wreckage, with lessons to be learned, and valuables to secure, gnawed at the human psyche for many years. It was speculated that an undersea earthquake in Titanic's vicinity might have buried the wreckage in silt, but man was undeterred. When technology finally caught up with curiosity, the search was on.

The first search for the lost ship was undertaken by Texas oil tycoon and would-be looter Jack Grimm. He commisioned the first search in July of 1980, but was plagued by technical problems and poor weather. He returned again in '81 and '83, but all his efforts were fruitless.

The next expedition was a joint US-French venture. The US vessel Knorr, on loan from the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute, was lead by Dr. Robert Ballard. It conducted search patterns in a geographic grid in conjunction with the French vessel Le Suroit, beginning July 5th, 1985. By the mid-August, the search had proven fruitless, and the French could afford to spend no more time in the search, and had to return home.

Dr. Ballard's team stuck with it, and they were soon rewarded. In the evening of the 31st of August, the underwater camera sled Argo first recorded pictures of the debris field from the Titanic. Excited by the prospect, the search continued on into the night. At 1:05am on the first of September, Argo photographed a boiler which could be clearly identified as a part of Titanic. The search was over. The wreckage was found 13 miles south-by-southeast of Titanic's last reported position.

Fearful of looters, Dr. Ballard's team kept the location in strictest confidence. They returned the following year with the submersible Alvin, which they piloted deep into the interior for photographs, and captured the entire debris field and the hull and stern sections.

After accomplishing this, Dr. Ballard's team did finally release the coordinates of Titanic's final resting place. Dr. Ballard's initial fears were soon realized. In a highly controversial move, the French vessel IFREMER visited the Titanic and collected many artifacts from the site. The controversy dealt with the fact that the French had had nothing remotely to do with the discovery of the Titanic, and had absolutely nothing to do with it before it sank.⁷ To add further fuel to the controversy, their submersible Nautile collided with the crow's nest, which was still intact at that time. The impact caused it to crumble to dust.

In spite of the controversy, the artifacts were well received. In August of '87, the artifacts were displayed to the American public on "Return to the Titanic... LIVE," hosted by the late Telly Savalas. The highlight of this show was to be the first opening of a safe recovered from the pursor's office. This safe had already been inspected and photographed prior to the show, and they reveal that the entire back had rusted out, and was completely empty. Just before the show, a false back was welded on, and the safe was stuffed with artifacts recovered from the site.

Then, to add even more controversy, in 1988 the backers of the French expedition advanced the silliest theory about the Titanic ever considered. They claimed that the "real" reason Titanic had sunk was due to an explosion of coal dust in a coal bunker. They based this theory on a hole discovered in the stern section of the ship. This theory was advanced despite:

• The hundreds of survivor accounts who say they saw the iceberg and/or felt the impact.
• The hole in the ship was too far aft to have been caused by an explosion in said bunker.
• The hole was too high above the waterline to have sunk the ship.

Since that time, many other expeditions have been mounted. We know quite a bit about the nature of the sinking that was hidden before. Some of the more important points:

• The sinking was attributed to a long, horrible gash along the starboard side. Sonar readings from the buried starboard bow have given the lie to this. The ship was afflicted with many small holes, as the ship bounced off the iceberg. The total area of the holes is only 12 square feet.
• The steel used to construct Titanic was rather brittle. Today's steel would have bent more easily, thus resisting complete failure better than Titanic did. Even for its day, Titanic's hull contained more sulphur than usual, which contributed to its brittleness.
• The point of failure on the hull was at the steel rivets, which, when a 90 degree sheer was applied to them, caused them to pop out like popcorn. The method of creating rivet holes at that time was known as "cold stamping," which involves a cutting machine ramming the steel when it is cold. This process creates microscopic cracks at the hole, which made it that much easier for the rivets to pop loose. Modern rivet holes are made while the steel is still hot, when riveting is used at all.