The Titanic - 100th Anniversary of the Sinking

RMS Titanic was a passenger linerr that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg on April 14th 1912 during her maiden voyage fromSouthhampton to New York City. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star LIne,she was built between 1909–11 by theHarland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried over 2,200 people – 1,316 passengers and about 900 crew.

After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown, Ireland Ireland before heading westwards towards New York. On 14 April 1912, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm (ship's time). The glancing collision caused Titanic's hull plates to buckle inwards in a number of locations on her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly filled. A disproportionate number of men – over 90% of those in Second Class – were left aboard due to a "women and children first" protocol followed by the officers loading the lifeboats. Just before 2:20 am Titanic broke up and sank bow-first with over a thousand people still on board. Those in the water died within minutes from hypothermia caused by immersion in the freezing ocean. The 710 survivors were taken aboard from the lifeboats by the RMS Carpathia a few hours later.

Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, such as millionnaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Strauss, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Ireland , Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in America. Molly Brown of Colorado was also aboard the ship and managed to survive. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – a third of her total passenger and crew capacity

Menu of her last luncheon.

Did Global warming cause the accident? The answer is no. Hubris sunk this ship and a disregard for the limits of the ship upon the sea. She has structural defects that caused her flounder. Poor design and construction cause breaches that made it dangerous to sail her in such conditions. After she hit the iceberg this resulted in her compartments filling one after another until she broke apart and sank.

The disaster was greeted with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life and the regulatory and operational failures that had led to it. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to major improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which still governs maritime safety today. Many of the survivors lost all of their money and possessions and were left destitute; many families, particularly those of crew members from Southampton, lost their primary bread-winners. They were helped by an outpouring of public sympathy and charitable donations. Some of the male survivors, notably the White Star Line's chairman, J Bruce Ismay, , were accused of cowardice for leaving the ship while women and children were still on board, and they faced social ostracism.

The wreck of the Titanic remains on the seabed, gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet (3,784 m). Since its rediscovery in 1985, thousands of artefacts have been recovered from the sea bed and put on display at museums around the world. Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history, her memory kept alive by numerous.

We remember all souls who perished on this day April 14th, one hundred years ago today.

May they rest in peace.