The RMS Titanic was built by the White Star Lines and was billed as the “unsinkable” passenger ship. The Titanic, however, met its fate on April 15, 1915 when it sank to the bottom of the sea.
The crew was headed by Captain Edward Smith. At the time Smith’s monthly salary was today’s equivalent of about $15,00 a month.
The Titanic struck an Iceburg at about 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1915. The crew estimated she would sink in an hour.
The Titanic instead stayed afloat for almost three hours before she finally broke up and sank to the bottom of the ocean.
About 1,500 people died, going down with the ship to the bottom of the ocean or drowning. About 700 managed to make it to lifeboats to survive the ordeal.
Before the ship was discovered in 1985, many believed that the ship did not break up. In fact, the official investigation into the sinking “disbelieved” the eye witness accounts of survivors who claimed the ship broke up before it sank. Here is what we thought the ship looked like before it was located in 1985:
After the Titanic was discovered in 1985 on the ocean floor, researchers learned that she was being eaten alive by microbes hungry for the iron in her hull. Here is her hull today:
The Titanic’s stern today:
Here is a picture of one of the Titanic’s lifeboat davits (where the lifeboats hung):
One of her large anchors:
Her propeller jammed into the mud upon impact with the ocean floor.
A boiler that fell out of the ship when it broke up:
The head of a porcelain doll:
The Captain’s bathtub:
Shoes are strewn about all over the wreck site. These are unofficial tombstones. When the bodies of victims sank to the bottom of the sea, they were eventually eaten up by sea life. But nothing would eat their leather shoes, so the shoes stay in the same position where the bodies fell marking the site where hundreds met their fate.
