In what year did the Titanic sink? Titanic. True facts. Titanic, Britannic and Olympic

The sinking of the Titanic claimed the lives of 1,517 of the 2,229 passengers and crew (official figures vary slightly) in one of the worst maritime disasters in world history. 712 survivors were brought aboard RMS Carpathia. After this disaster, a great outcry swept through the public affecting attitudes towards social injustice, radically changed the way passengers were transported along the North Atlantic route, the rules for the number of lifeboats carried on board passenger ships were changed and the International Ice Survey was created (where merchant ships crossing the North Atlantic on... As before, precise information about the location and concentration of ice is transmitted using radio signals). In 1985, a major discovery was made, the Titanic was discovered at the bottom of the ocean and became a turning point for the public and for the development of new fields of science and technology. April 15, 2012 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Titanic. It became one of the most famous ships in history, and her image remains in numerous books, films, exhibitions and monuments.

TITANIC WRECK IN REAL TIME

Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes!

The British passenger liner Titanic departs Southampton, England on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. The Titanic called to Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland before heading west towards New York. Four days into the passage, she struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm, 375 miles south of Newfoundland. Just before 2:20 a.m., the Titanic broke up and sank. More than a thousand people were on board at the time of the accident. Some died in the water within minutes from hypothermia in the waters of the North Antaltic Ocean. (Frank O. Brainard Collection)

The luxury liner Titanic is pictured in this 1912 photograph as she left Queenstown for New York on her ill-fated final voyage. The ship's passengers included a list of the richest people in the world, such as millionaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidore Strauss, as well as more than a thousand emigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and other countries seeking a new life in America. The disaster was met with shock and outrage around the world at the enormous loss of life and the failure of regulatory and operational parameters that led to this disaster. The investigation into the sinking of the Titanic began within days and led to significant improvements in maritime safety. (United Press International)

Crowd of workers. The Harland and Wolf shipyards in Belfast where the Titanic was built between 1909 and 1911. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, and was the largest ship afloat on her maiden voyage. The ship is visible in the background of this 1911 photo. (Photo archive / Harland & Wolff Collection / Cox)

Photo from 1912. In the photo, a luxurious dining room on board the Titanic. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an onboard gym, swimming pool, libraries, upscale restaurants and luxurious cabins. (Photo archive The New York Times / American Press Association)

Photo from 1912. Second class dining room on the Titanic. A disproportionate number of people - more than 90% of those in second class - remained on board because of the "women and children first" protocols followed by lifeboat loading officers. (Photo archive The New York Times / American Press Association)

Photo taken April 10, 1912, showing the Titanic leaving Southampton, England. The tragic sinking of the Titanic occurred a century ago, one of the reasons for the death, according to some, was the weak rivets used by the ship's builders in some parts of this ill-fated liner. (Associated Press)

Captain Edward John Smith, commander of the Titanic. He commanded the largest ship at that time making its maiden voyage. The Titanic was a massive ship - 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and weighing 52,310 tons. 53 meters separated from the keel to the top, almost 10 meters of which were below the waterline. The Titanic was higher above the water than most city buildings at the time. (The New York Times Archive)

First Mate William McMaster Murdoch is seen as a local hero in his home town of Dalbeattie, Scotland, but in the film Titanic was portrayed as a coward and a murderer. At a ceremony on the 86th anniversary of the sinking, Scott Neeson, executive vice president of the film's producers 20th Century Fox, presented a check for five thousand pounds sterling ($8,000) to Dalbeattie School as an apology for the painting to the officer's relative. (Associated Press)

It is believed that it was this iceberg that caused the Titanic disaster on April 14-15, 1912. The picture was taken aboard the Western Union ship, Mackay Bennett, under the command of Captain DeCarteret. McKay Bennett was one of the first ships to reach the site where the Titanic sank. According to Captain DeCarteret, it was the only iceberg at the site when he arrived. It is therefore assumed that he was responsible for this tragedy. A collision with an iceberg caused the Titanic's hull plates to buckle inward in a number of places on board and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments into which water instantly poured out. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. (United States Coast Guard)

Passengers and some crew members were evacuated by lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially full. This photograph of a lifeboat from the Titanic approaching the rescue ship Carpathia, was taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden and was on display in the 2003 exhibition of photographs that relate to the Titanic (bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, by Walter Lord). (National Maritime Museum/London)

Seven hundred and twelve survivors were brought aboard from lifeboats on the RMS Carpathia. This photograph taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden shows the Titanic lifeboat approaching the rescue ship, Carpathia. The photograph was part of an exhibition in 2003 at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, named after Walter Lord. (National Maritime Museum/London)

Although the Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, it lacked lifeboats enough to accommodate all those on board. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—a third of her total passenger and crew capacity. This sepia photograph depicting the recovery of the Titanic's passengers is one of the memorabilia about to go under the hammer at Christies in London, May 2012. (Paul Tracy/EPA/PA)

Press representatives interview Titanic survivors disembarking the rescue ship, Carpathians, May 17, 1912. (American Press Association)

Eva Hart is depicted as seven years old in this photograph taken in 1912 with her father, Benjamin, and mother Esther. Eve and her mother survived the sinking of the British liner Titanic on April 14, 1912, but her father died during the disaster. (Associated Press)

People stand on the street waiting for the arrival of Carpathia after the sinking of the Titanic. (Photo archive The New York Times/Wide World)

A huge crowd gathered in front of the White Star Line office on lower Broadway in New York to receive the latest news about the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. (Associated Press)

The New York Times editorial board at the time of the Titanic's sinking, April 15, 1912. (Photo archive of The New York Times)

(Photo archive of The New York Times)

Two messages that were sent from America by Lloyds insurers in London in the mistaken belief that other ships, including the Virginian, were on their way to help when the Titanic sank. These two memorable messages are due to go under the hammer at Christies in London in May 2012. (AFP/EPA/Press Association)

Laura Francatelli, and her employers Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, standing on a rescue ship, Carpathians (Associated Press/Henry Aldridge and Son/Ho)

This vintage print shows the Titanic shortly before leaving on its maiden voyage in 1912. (New York Times Archive)

A photograph released by Henry Aldridge and Son/Ho auction in Wiltshire, England, April 18, 2008 shows an extremely rare Titanic passenger ticket. They were auctioning the complete collection of the last American Titanic Survivor by Miss Lilian Asplund. The collection consists of a number of important objects, including a pocket watch, one of the few remaining tickets for the Titanic's maiden voyage and the only example of the direct emigration order the Titanic thought to exist. Lillian Asplund was a very private person, and because of the terrible event she witnessed, on a cold April night in 1912, she rarely spoke about the tragedy that claimed the lives of her father and three brothers. (Henry Aldridge)

(National Maritime Museum/London)

Breakfast menu on board the Titanic, signatures of survivors of the disaster. (National Maritime Museum/London)

The bow of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean, 1999 (Institute of Oceanology)

The image shows one of the Titanic's propellers on the ocean floor during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. Five thousand items are scheduled to go under the hammer as a single collection on April 11, 2012, 100 years after the sinking of the ship (RMS Titanic, Inc, via Associated Press)

Photo August 28, 2010, released for the premiere of the exhibition, Inc.-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, shows the starboard side of the Titanic. (Prime Exhibitions, Inc.-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic's remains almost two decades ago, returned to the site and took stock of the damage from visitors and hunters for "souvenirs" of the ship. (Institute of Oceanography and Archaeological Research Center/University of Rhode Island Grad. School of Oceanography)

The giant propeller of the sunken Titanic lies on the floor of the North Atlantic in this undated photograph. The propeller and other parts of the famous ship were seen by the first tourists to visit the wreck in September 1998.

(Ralph White/Associated Press)

A 17-ton part of the Titanic's hull rises to the surface during an expedition to the site of the tragedy in 1998. (RMS Titanic, Inc, via Associated Press)

July 22, 2009, photo of the 17-ton part of the Titanic, which was raised and restored during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. (RMS Titanic, Inc, via Associated Press)

Gold-plated American Waltham pocket watch, property of Karl Asplund, in front of a contemporary watercolor painting of the Titanic by CJ Ashford at Henry Aldridge & Son auctions in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The watch was recovered from the body of Karl Asplund who drowned on the Titanic, and is part of Lillian Asplund, the last American to survive the disaster. (Kirsty Wigglesworth Associated Press)

Currency, part of the Titanic collection, is photographed in a warehouse in Atlanta, August 2008. The owner of the largest trove of Titanic artifacts is putting the huge collection up for auction as a single lot in 2012, to mark the 100th anniversary of the world's most famous shipwreck. (Stanley Leary/Associated Press)

Photos of Felix Asplund, Selma and Karl Asplund and Lilian Asplund, at Henry Aldridge and Son auctions in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The photographs were part of Lillian Asplund's collection of Titanic-related items. Asplund was 5 years old in April 1912 when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage from England to New York. Her father and three siblings were among the 1,514 killed. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press)

Exhibits at the Titanic Artifact Exhibit at the California Science Center include binoculars, a comb, dishes and a broken incandescent light bulb, February 6, 2003. (Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images, Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times)

Spectacles among the wreckage of the Titanic were among the Titanic's choice artifacts. (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

Golden Spoon (Titanic Artifacts) (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

The chronometer from the Titanic Bridge is on display at the Science Museum in London, 15 May 2003. The chronometer, one of more than 200 artifacts salvaged from the sinking of the Titanic, was on display at the launch of a new exhibition dedicated to its ill-fated maiden voyage, along with bottles of perfume. The exhibition took visitors on a chronological journey through the life of the Titanic, from its conception and construction, to life on board, and its sinking into the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. (Alastair Grant/Associated Press)

Titanic speed meter logo and articulated lamp. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Artifacts of the Titanic are displayed in the media for preview purposes only, to announce the historical sale is complete. a collection of artifacts recovered from the Titanic wreck site and a display of highlights from the collection at sea by the Intrepid, Air & SpaceMuseum January 2012. (Chang W. Lee / The New York Times)

Cups and pocket watches from the Titanic are displayed during a Guernsey auction press conference, January 5, 2012. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images, Brendan McDermid/Reuters Michelle Boutefeu/Getty Images-2)

Spoons. RMS Titanic, Inc. is the only company authorized to remove elements from the ocean floor where the Titanic sank (Douglas Healey / Associated Press)

Gold mesh wallet. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The April 2012 edition of National Geographic magazine (available on iPad) features new images and drawings from the Titanic wreck that remains on the sea floor, gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet (3,784 m). (National Geographic)

Two propeller blades peek out from the sea darkness. This optical mosaic is assembled from 300 high-resolution images. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Understanding this tangle of metal presents endless challenges for specialists. Says one: “If you interpret this material, you must love Picasso.” (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

The Titanic's two engines lie in a gaping hole in the stern. Wrapped in “rusticles”—orange stalactites made of iron that eat bacteria—these massive structures, four stories high, were the largest moving man-made objects on Earth at the time. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

"Titanic" (eng. Titanic) is a British transatlantic steamer, the second liner of the Olympic class. Built in Belfast at the Harland and Wolfe shipyard from 1909 to 1912 for the White Star Line shipping company.

At the time of commissioning it was the largest ship in the world.

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, during her maiden voyage, she crashed in the North Atlantic, colliding with an iceberg.

Vessel information

The Titanic was equipped with two four-cylinder steam engines and a steam turbine.

The entire power plant had a capacity of 55,000 hp. With.
The ship could reach speeds of up to 23 knots (42 km/h).
Its displacement, which exceeded the twin steamer Olympic by 243 tons, was 52,310 tons.
The ship's hull was made of steel.
The hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors.
If the bottom was damaged, the double bottom prevented water from entering the compartments.

Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, a statement that was widely circulated in the press and among the public.

In accordance with outdated rules, the Titanic was equipped with 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178 people, which was only a third of the ship's maximum load.

The cabins and public areas of the Titanic were divided into three classes.

First class passengers were provided with a swimming pool, a squash court, an A la carte restaurant, two cafes, and a gym. All classes had dining and smoking lounges, open and closed promenades. The most luxurious and sophisticated were the first class interiors, made in various artistic styles using expensive materials such as mahogany, gilding, stained glass, silk and others. The third class cabins and salons were decorated as simply as possible: steel walls were painted white or lined with wood panels.

1 On April 0, 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton on its first and only voyage. After making stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, the ship entered the Atlantic Ocean with 1,317 passengers and 908 crew members on board. The ship was commanded by Captain Edward Smith. On April 14, the Titanic's radio station received seven ice warnings, but the liner continued to move almost at top speed. To avoid encountering floating ice, the captain ordered to go slightly south of the usual route.

At 23:39 on April 14, the lookout reported to the captain's bridge about an iceberg directly ahead. Less than a minute later there was a collision. Having received several holes, the ship began to sink. Women and children were put on the boats first.
At 2:20 on April 15, the Titanic sank, breaking into two parts, killing 1,496 people. 712 survivors were picked up by the steamship Carpathia.

The wreckage of the Titanic rests at a depth of 3,750 m. They were first discovered by Robert Ballard's expedition in 1985. Subsequent expeditions recovered thousands of artifacts from the bottom. The bow and stern parts are deeply buried in the bottom silt and are in a deplorable condition; raising them to the surface intact is not possible.

The wreck of the Titanic

The disaster claimed the lives, according to various sources, from 1,495 to 1,635 people. Until December 20, 1987, when the Philippine ferry Dona Paz sank, killing more than 4,000 people, the sinking of the Titanic remained the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster. Informally, it is the most famous disaster of the 20th century.

Alternative versions of the ship's death

And now - alternative versions, each of which has its adherents in the worldwide club of mystery lovers.

Fire

A fire in the coal compartment that broke out before sailing and provoked first an explosion and then a collision with an iceberg. The ship's owners knew about the fire and tried to hide it from passengers. This version was put forward by British journalist Shanan Moloney, writes The Independent. Moloney has been researching the causes of the Titanic's sinking for more than 30 years.

In particular, he studied photographs taken before the ship left the Belfast shipyard. The journalist saw black marks along the right side of the ship's hull - exactly where the iceberg hit it. Experts subsequently confirmed that the marks were likely caused by a fire that started in a fuel storage facility. “We looked at the exact location where the iceberg was stuck and it appears that part of the hull was very vulnerable at that location, and that was before it even left the Belfast shipyard,” Moloney says. A team of 12 tried to put out the flames, but they were too big to bring under control quickly. It could reach temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius, making the Titanic's hull very vulnerable in this area. And when it hit the ice, experts say, it immediately broke. The publication also added that the liner's management prohibited passengers from talking about the fire. “This is a perfect confluence of unusual factors: fire, ice and criminal negligence. No one had investigated these marks before. It changes the story completely,” says Moloney.

CONSPIRACY

Conspiracy theory: this is not the Titanic at all! This version was put forward by experts who studied the causes of the death of the ship, Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Watt, published in the book “The Mystery of the Titanic.” According to this theory, the sunken ship is not the Titanic at all, but its twin brother, the Olympic. These ships looked practically no different from each other. On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with the British Navy cruiser Hawk, causing both ships to be seriously damaged. The owners of "Olympic" suffered heavy losses, since the damage that was caused to "Olympic" was not enough for an insurance payment.

The theory is based on the assumption of possible fraud in order for the owners of the Titanic to receive insurance payments. According to this version, the owners of the Titanic intentionally sent the Olympic to an area of possible ice formation and at the same time convinced the captain not to slow down so that the ship would suffer serious damage when colliding with a block of ice. This version was initially supported by the fact that a fairly large number of objects were raised from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where the Titanic lies, but nothing was found that bore the name “Titanic.” This theory was refuted after parts were brought to the surface, on which the Titanic’s side (construction) number was stamped - 401. The Olympic had a side number of 400. In addition, the minted side number of the Titanic was discovered and on the propeller of a sunken ship. And even despite this, the conspiracy theory still has a number of followers.

German attack

1912 With the First World War two years away, the prospect of armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming increasingly likely. Germany owns several dozen submarines, which during the war will launch a merciless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America’s entry into the war will be the fact that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915, a twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Atlantic Blue Ribbon - remember?

Based on these facts, some Western publications proposed their own version of the death of the Titanic in the mid-nineties: a torpedo attack by a German submarine secretly accompanying the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

There was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started playing football with ice cubes - it would become clear later that the ship was doomed. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. The torpedo, you must admit, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!).

Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, this was two and a half hours later, when only the stern raised into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It’s unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would it? And the roar that the survivors heard was explained by the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (however, they will learn about this only after the liner is discovered at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this, too, is unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly start sinking a passenger liner two years before the start of the war? This seems dubious, to put it mildly. And to put it bluntly, it’s absurd.

A curse

Mystical version: curse of the pharaohs. It is known for certain that one of the historians, Lord Canterville, transported on the Titanic in a wooden box a perfectly preserved Egyptian mummy of a priestess - a soothsayer. Since the mummy had a fairly high historical and cultural value, it was not placed in the hold, but placed directly next to the captain's bridge. The essence of the theory is that the mummy influenced the mind of Captain Smith, who, despite numerous warnings about ice in the area where the Titanic was sailing, did not slow down and thereby doomed the ship to certain death. This version is supported by well-known cases of mysterious deaths of people who disturbed the peace of ancient burials, especially mummified Egyptian rulers. Moreover, the deaths were associated precisely with clouding of mind, as a result of which people committed inappropriate actions, and cases of suicide often occurred. Did the pharaohs have a hand in the sinking of the Titanic?

Steering error

One of the latest versions of the sinking of the Titanic deserves special attention. She appeared after the novel by the granddaughter of the second mate of the Titanic, Charles Lightoller, Lady Patten, “Weight in Gold,” was published. According to Patten's book, the ship had enough time to avoid the obstacle, but helmsman Robert Hitchens panicked and turned the wheel the wrong way.

A catastrophic mistake led to the iceberg causing fatal damage to the ship. The truth about what really happened that fateful night was kept secret by the family of Lightoller, the oldest surviving officer of the Titanic and the only survivor who knew exactly what caused the ship's sinking. Lightoller hid this information out of fear that the White Star Line, which owned the ship, would go bankrupt and his colleagues would lose their jobs. The only person to whom Lightoller told the truth was his wife Sylvia, who conveyed her husband’s words to her granddaughter. In addition, according to Patten, such a large and reliable liner as the Titanic sank so quickly because after colliding with an ice block it was not immediately stopped, and the rate of water entering the holds increased hundreds of times. The liner was not immediately stopped because White Star Line manager Bruce Ismay convinced the captain to continue sailing. He feared that the incident could cause considerable material damage to the company he headed.

Chasing the Atlantic Blue Riband

There were and still are many supporters of this theory, especially among writers, since it appeared precisely in literary circles. The Atlantic Blue Ribbon is a prestigious shipping prize awarded to ocean liners for achieving record speeds across the North Atlantic.

At the time of the Titanic, this prize was awarded to the ship Mauritania of the Cunard company, which, by the way, was the founder of this award, as well as the main competitor of the White Star Line. In defense of this theory, it is argued that the president of the company that owned the Titanic, Ismay, encouraged the captain of the Titanic, Smith, to arrive in New York a day ahead of schedule and receive an honorary prize. This supposedly explains the ship's high speed in a dangerous area of the Atlantic. But this theory can easily be refuted, because the Titanic simply physically could not have reached the speed of 26 knots at which the Cunard Mauritania set a record that, by the way, lasted for more than 10 years after the disaster in the Atlantic.

But what was it really like?

Sadly, when studying the history of the most famous maritime disaster, we have to admit that the Titanic owes its death to a long chain of fatal accidents. If at least one link of the ominous chain had been destroyed, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Perhaps the first link was the successful start of the journey - yes, that’s right. On the morning of April 10, during the departure of the Titanic from the quay wall of the port of Southampton, the superliner passed too close to the American ship New York, and a phenomenon known in navigation as ship suction arose: the New York began to be attracted to the one moving nearby. "Titanic". However, thanks to the skill of Captain Edward Smith, a collision was avoided.

Ironically, if the accident had happened, it would have saved one and a half thousand lives: if the Titanic had been delayed in port, the ill-fated encounter with the iceberg would not have happened.

This time. It should also be mentioned that the radio operators who received the message from the Mesaba ship about the ice fields of icebergs did not transmit it to Edward Smith: the telegram was not marked with a special prefix “personally to the captain”, and was lost in a heap of papers. That's two.

However, this message was not the only one, and the captain knew about the ice danger. Why didn't he slow down the ship? Chasing the Blue Ribbon is, of course, a matter of honor (and, more importantly, big business), but why did he risk the lives of passengers? It wasn't that much of a risk, really. In those years, captains of ocean liners often passed through areas dangerous with ice without slowing down: it was like crossing the road at a red light: it seems like you shouldn’t do that, but it always works out. Almost always.

To the credit of Captain Smith, it must be said that he remained faithful to maritime traditions and remained on the dying ship until the very end.

But why was the bulk of the iceberg not noticed? Here everything came together: a moonless, dark night, windless weather. If there were even small waves on the water surface, those looking ahead could see whitecaps at the foot of the iceberg. Calm and moonless night are two more links in the fatal chain.

As it turned out later, the chain was continued by the fact that the iceberg, shortly before the collision with the Titanic, turned over with its underwater, water-saturated, dark part upward, which is why it was practically invisible at night from afar (an ordinary, white iceberg would have been visible a mile away ). The watchman saw him only 450 meters away, and there was almost no time left for maneuver. Perhaps the iceberg would have been noticed earlier, but here another link in the fatal chain played a role - there were no binoculars in the “crow’s nest”. The box where they were kept was locked, and the key to it was hastily taken with him by the second mate, who had been removed from the ship just before departure.

After the lookout nevertheless saw the danger and reported the iceberg to the captain's bridge, there was a little more than half a minute left before the collision. Officer of the watch Murdoch, who was on watch, gave the order to the helmsman to turn left, while simultaneously transmitting the command “full astern” to the engine room. Thus, he made a grave mistake, adding another link in the chain that led the liner to death: even if the Titanic had crashed into an iceberg head-on, the tragedy would have been less. The bow of the ship would have been crushed, part of the crew and those passengers whose cabins were located in front would have died. But only two watertight compartments would have been flooded. With such damage, the liner would have remained afloat and could have waited for help from other ships.

And if Murdoch, having turned the ship to the left, had ordered an increase rather than a decrease in speed, the collision might not have happened at all. However, frankly speaking, the order to change the speed hardly plays a significant role here: in thirty seconds it was hardly executed in the engine room.

So, the collision happened. The iceberg damaged the ship's fragile hull along six starboard compartments.

Looking ahead, let's say that only seven hundred and four managed to escape: the next link in the chain of failures was that some sailors took too literally the captain's order to put women and children in the boats, and did not allow men there, even if there were empty seats. However, at first no one was particularly eager to get into the boats. The passengers did not understand what was happening and did not want to leave the huge, comfortably lit, such a reliable liner, and it was unclear why they should go down in a small unstable boat down to the icy water. However, pretty soon anyone could notice that the deck was tilting forward more and more, and panic began.

But why was there such a monstrous discrepancy between the places on the lifeboats? The owners of the Titanic, praising the merits of the new ship, stated that they even exceeded the instructions of the code: instead of the required 962 life-saving seats on the ship, there were 1178. Unfortunately, they did not attach any importance to the discrepancy between this number and the number of passengers on board.

It is especially sad that another passenger steamer, the Californian, stood very close to the sinking Titanic, waiting out the ice danger. A few hours ago, he notified neighboring ships that he was locked in ice and was forced to stop so as not to accidentally run into an ice block. The radio operator from the Titanic, who was almost deafened by the Morse code from the Californian (the ships were very close, and the signal of one echoed too loudly in the headphones of the other), impolitely interrupted the warning: “Go to hell, you are interfering with my work!” What was the radio operator of the Titanic so busy with?

The fact is that in those years, radio communication on a ship was more of a luxury than an urgent necessity, and this miracle of technology aroused great interest among the wealthy public. From the very beginning of the voyage, the radio operators were literally inundated with private messages - and no one saw anything reprehensible in the fact that the Titanic’s radio operators paid such attention to rich passengers who wished to send a telegram to the ground directly from the liner. So at that moment, when colleagues from other ships reported about floating ice, the radio operator transmitted another message to the continent. Radio communication was more like an expensive toy than a serious tool: ships of that time did not even have a 24-hour watch at the radio station.

On April 10, 1912, the huge ship Titanic set off on its first and last voyage, the sad story of which still sounds incredible. Just a few days later he suffered a large-scale shipwreck, and on April 15 we will celebrate the 104th anniversary of this tragedy.

Many people know about the Titanic cruise ship only what director James Cameron showed in his film of the same name.

Namely, that it was the largest ship built at that time, that it cost a lot of money to get on it, and that on its very first voyage it was wrecked when it collided with a drifting iceberg.

The Titanic is about the same length as the Empire State Building

For reference: the New York skyscraper has 103 floors. Take a moment to realize the scale of the cruise ship. Realized?

The total length of the Titanic is 269.1 m, and the roof of the Empire State Building begins at 381 m. That is, another hundred meters and the ship would be as huge as the largest skyscraper in New York.

Today such airliners exist. For example, Queen Mary 2, Independence of the Seas and Oasis class cruise ships.

The launch of the Titanic was not accompanied by traditional rituals for good luck.

That's the problem. When the ship set off on its first and last voyage, a bottle of champagne was not broken on its side.

Additionally, in the early 20th century, it was common to have cats on board because they helped control rodents. It was also believed that they bring good luck and protect the ship from troubles.

As you may have guessed, there weren't any cats on the Titanic. But there were nine dogs, two of which survived the shipwreck.

14 years before the tragedy, a novel was published describing similar events

The disaster that befell the Titanic on the night of April 14-15, 1912 was described by Morgan Robertson in his novel Futility, or the Fall of the Titan back in 1898.

There are so many coincidences with a real disaster in this literary work that it is hard to believe. Starting from the similar name of the ship (in the novel it was called "Titan") and ending with the details that prevented all passengers and crew members from escaping.

The fictional ship also had a similar design to the real Titanic, and it sank under the same circumstances - it collided with an iceberg on a cold April night. And even the area of the crash is the same - 740 km from Newfoundland in the northern waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

In addition, both in the novel and in real life, more than half of the people died because there were not enough lifeboats on the ship.

The Titanic watchmen did not have binoculars

It is not surprising that the watchmen were unable to notice the huge iceberg floating towards them in advance. After all, they didn’t even have binoculars.

And given the size of the ship, it is unlikely that they could even see anything at least a kilometer beyond its bow or stern.

It is strange that with such a scale of construction and the desire to make the ship unsinkable, they forgot about such a small but very important detail.

So it turned out that after the iceberg was noticed, only 37 seconds passed before colliding with it.

The Titanic sank in 2 hours and 40 minutes.

After colliding with the iceberg, the ship began to sink to the bottom of the ocean, first very slowly, until the water was just filling the decks, and then picking up speed more and more quickly.

In total, the whole process lasted almost three hours, but the final stage of the death of this titan took very little time - the ship reached the bottom approximately 15 minutes after the start of the dive.

The Titanic sank to the bottom at a speed of 16 km/h. Now it rests at a depth of 3750 m.

Many of the Titanic's passengers had to travel on other ships.

Not everyone boarded the ship of their own free will. The fact is that during the launch of the Titanic, workers staged a strike, which led to interruptions in the supply of coal.

Because of this, transport companies had to cancel the voyages of other ships in order to transport coal from them for the Titanic so that it could take off.

Along with the coal, passengers from ships whose flights were canceled also boarded the ship. This is bad luck.

The ship's chief baker survived because he was drunk

Charles Joughin miraculously escaped from the icy water, the temperature of which was about -2°C, because he was damn drunk.

In such cold water, few could survive for more than 15 minutes, and every fifth person died from cold shock within two minutes.

The baker managed the incredible - he drifted in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean for about two hours, and, according to him, he managed not to freeze only because he had drunk whiskey before.

Joughin said he didn't feel the cold. So next time you go on a cruise, take a couple of bottles of alcohol with you. Just in case.

About the terrible death of a luxury liner Titanic in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean everyone knows. Hundreds of people distraught with fear, heart-rending women's screams and children's crying. 3rd class passengers buried alive at the bottom of the ocean are on the lower deck, and millionaires choosing the best seats in half-empty lifeboats are on the upper, prestigious deck of the ship. But only a select few knew that the sinking of the Titanic was planned, and the death of hundreds of women and children became another fact in a cynical political game.

April 10, 1912 Southampton port, England. Thousands of people gathered at the port of Southampton to see off the liner Titanic, with 2,000 lucky people on board, set off on a romantic trip across the Atlantic. The cream of society gathered on the passenger deck - mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim, millionaire John Astor, actress Dorothy Gibson. Not everyone could afford to buy a first class ticket, $3,300 at the prices of that time, or $60,000 at the prices of today. 3rd class passengers paid only $35 ($650 in our money), so they lived on the third deck, not having the right to go upstairs, where the millionaires were located.

Tragedy Titanic still remains the largest peacetime maritime disaster. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of 1,500 people are still shrouded in mystery.

The archives of the British Navy confirm that for some reason there were half as many boats on the Titanic as needed, and the captain knew even before the collision that there were not enough seats for all the passengers.

The ship's crew ordered to rescue the 1st class passengers first. Bruce Ismay, the general director of the company, was one of the first to board the lifeboat. White Star Line", which belonged to Titanic. The boat in which Ismay was sitting was designed for 40 people, but it set sail with only twelve.

The lower deck, where 1,500 people were located, was ordered to be locked so that third-class passengers would not rush upstairs to the boats. Panic began below. People saw how water began to flow into the cabins, but the captain had an order - to save the rich passengers. The order - only women and children - came much later, and according to experts, the sailors were primarily interested in this, since in this case they became rowers on the boats and they had a chance of salvation.

Many second and third class passengers, without waiting for the boats, threw themselves overboard in life jackets. In a panic, few people understood that it was almost impossible to survive in icy water.

sinking of the Titanic

The list of third class passengers, which only recently became public, includes the name Winni Goutts (Winnie Coutts), a modest Englishwoman with two sons. In New York, the woman was waiting for her husband, who had gotten a job in America a few months earlier. It may seem incredible, but 88 years later, on February 3, 1990, Icelandic fishermen picked up a woman with that name on the shore. Wet, frozen in tattered clothes, she cried and screamed that she was a passenger Titanic and her name is Winnie Couts. The woman was taken to a psychiatric hospital and was mistaken for a crazy woman for a long time, until one of the journalists found her name in the handwritten passenger lists of the Titanic. She described the chronology of events in detail and was never confused. The mystics immediately put forward their version - they fell into the so-called space-time trap.

After the declassification of the archives " Investigation into the death of 1,500 passengers on the Titanic“On July 20, 2008, the Senate investigative commission learned that on the night of the disaster, almost 200 passengers managed to board lifeboats and sail away from the sinking ship. Some of them describe a strange phenomenon. At about one o'clock in the morning, passengers saw a large luminous object near the liner. The men thought that these were the lights of another ship." RMS Carpathia", which can save them. About 10 boats sailed towards this light, but after half an hour the lights went out. It turned out that there was no ship nearby, and the liner “ RMS Carpathia“Arrived only after 1 hour. Many eyewitnesses described strange lights observed near the site Titanic wreck. These testimonies were kept secret.

Abnormal events around sinking of the Titanic were carefully hidden for a long time. It is known that no one was able to officially confirm the identity of Winnie Couts.

In the ranking of the largest maritime disasters of the 20th century published by a popular Internet publication Titanic is by no means in last place. However, in the column “Cause of death - collision with an iceberg”, it appears in this list only once. The first and last time in the history of navigation when a ship sank due to a collision with an iceberg. Moreover, the consequences of the collision are comparable to the results of a major military operation. What is this?

The official version of the disaster is that Titanic collided with a black iceberg that had recently capsized in the water and was therefore invisible against the night sky. No one ever wondered why the iceberg was black. The lookout on duty, Frederick Fleet, saw some huge dark mass a few seconds before the collision and heard a strange, very loud grinding sound coming from under the water, not like the sound of contact with an iceberg.

80 years later, Russian researchers went down to the Titanic for the first time and confirmed that the hull of the steamship was indeed cut. Why didn't the lookouts notice anything in advance? It’s surprising, but they didn’t have binoculars, that is, technically they were in the safe, but the key to it mysteriously disappeared. And one more strange detail - Titanic the most advanced of the early 20th century was not equipped with spotlights. Such carelessness looks, at least, strange, because Titanic Telegrams arrived all day warning about icebergs cruising in the area.

Having weighed all the events and facts, it seems that the Titanic disaster was prepared on purpose, but who benefited from the death Titanic and why hundreds of innocent people were drowned. It was clear to the people behind the biggest disaster of the century that not everyone would believe in a collision with an iceberg. Until now, we are offered many versions to choose from, who will like what.

For example, in order to receive an insurance payment, they did not flood Titanic, and the same type of passenger ship Olympic, which had been in operation for a long time and by 1912 had become quite dilapidated. But in 1995, Russian scientists refuted this assumption with the help of remote-controlled modules inserted inside the sunken ship. It has been proven that it is not Olympic that lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Then a version was put into print that Titanic sank while chasing the prestigious Atlantic Blue Riband award. Allegedly, the captain wanted to arrive at the port of New York a day ahead of schedule in order to receive the prize. Because of this, the ship was sailing in a dangerous area at maximum speed. The authors of this version completely lost sight of the fact that Titanic I simply technically could not reach the speed of 26 knots, at which the previous record was set.

They also talked about the mistake of the helmsman, who misunderstood the captain’s order and, being in a stressful situation, turned the steering wheel in the wrong direction.

Maybe Titanic was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine and this disaster actually became the first episode of the First World War. Numerous underwater studies subsequently did not find even indirect signs of a possible torpedo hit, so the most plausible version of the death of the Titanic ultimately became a fire.

On the eve of departure, a fire broke out in the hold of the liner where coal was stored. They tried to put it out, but were unsuccessful. The richest people of that time, cinema stars, the press had already gathered on the pier, and an orchestra was playing. The flight could not be cancelled. The owner of the ship, Bruce Ismay, decided to go to New York and try to put out the fire along the way. That is why the captain drove at full speed, fearing with all his might that the ship was about to explode and ignored the message about icebergs.

Another oddity is the owner of the company " White Star Line", which belonged to Titanic multimillionaire John Pierpont Morgan Jr. canceled his ticket 24 hours before departure and removed from the flight a famous collection of paintings that he planned to take to New York. In addition to Morgan, 55 more first-class passengers, mostly partners and acquaintances of the millionaire - John Rockefeller, Henry Frick, and the US Ambassador to France Alfred Vandelfeld, refused to travel on the Titanic in just one day. Previously, practically no significance was attached to this fact, but only very recently scientists compared certain facts and came to the conclusion that the Titanic was the first major disaster aimed at establishing world domination.

Billionaires rule the world, whose goal is unlimited power. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are links in one chain. The sinking of the Titanic not the first and not the last planned disaster. But why did the world government decide to flood Titanic. The answer should be sought in the events of the early 20th century. It was during these years that the sharp growth of industry began - the gasoline engine, the incredible development of aviation, industrialization, the use of electricity in all industries, the experiments of Nikola Tesla, and so on. The world's financial leaders understood that scientific and technological progress could soon explode the world order on planet Earth. John Rockefeller, John Pierpont Morgan, Carl Mayer Rothschild, Henry Ford, who are the world government, understood that following the rapid growth of industry, countries would begin to develop, which in their world concept were assigned the role of only raw material appendages, and then the redistribution of property on the planet would begin, and control over the processes taking place in the world will be lost.

Every year the socialists made themselves known more and more, trade unions gained strength, crowds of protesters demanded freedom and independence. And then it was decided to remind humanity who is the boss of the world.

In the mid-90s, Russian scientists dived to the Titanic and took metal samples, which were then analyzed by specialists from an American institute. The results were truly stunning - based on the sulfur content, it was established that it was an ordinary metal. And later studies showed that the metal was not just the same as on other ships, it was of much worse quality, and in icy water it generally turned into a very brittle material. In the fall of 1993, an event occurred that put an end to the study of the causes of death Titanic. At the New York conference of American shipbuilding experts, the results of an independent analysis of the causes of the disaster were announced. Experts said they did not understand why such low quality steel was used for the hull of the world's most expensive ship. In cold water, the hull of the Titanic cracked at the first impact on a minor obstacle, while high-quality steel only deforms.

Experts believed that in this way the owners of the shipbuilding company were trying to save money, but no one thought to ask the question why the billionaire owners of the ship were cutting costs, jeopardizing their own safety. And everything is quite logical; it was a real sabotage. Brittle metal, cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and a dangerous route. All that remained was to wait for the SOS signal from the shipwrecked Titanic. During the investigation of the circumstances of the disaster, the US judicial commission proved that the northern route that the Titanic took was chosen on the orders of Bruce Ismay. He was on board the ship, but was one of the first to be evacuated and safely awaited the arrival of " RMS Carpathia", which also belonged to the company " White Star Line"and was specially located nearby to save rich passengers. But " RMS Carpathia“The order was given, it is not too close, because the disaster was supposed to be a terrifying event for the whole world.

Now we can say with confidence sinking of the Titanic it was a carefully thought-out propaganda campaign. Millions of people around the world were shocked by the fate of third class passengers buried alive; they remained walled up in their cabins.

In the eyes of the world government, third class passengers are you and me - Russia, China, Ukraine and the Middle East, and in December 2012 they are preparing a new act of intimidation for us, but what exactly? All that remains is to wait, and not for long.

watch National Geographic's reconstruction of the sinking of the Titanic

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the most modern passenger liner at that time, the Titanic, making its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, collided with an iceberg and soon sank. At least 1,496 people died, 712 passengers and crew were rescued.

The Titanic disaster quickly became overgrown with a mass of legends and speculation. At the same time, for several decades, the place where the lost ship rested remained unknown.

The main difficulty was that the location of the death was known with very low accuracy - we were talking about an area 100 kilometers in diameter. Considering that the Titanic sank in an area where the depth of the Atlantic is several kilometers, finding the ship was very problematic.

Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The bodies of the dead were going to be raised with dynamite

Immediately after the shipwreck, relatives of wealthy passengers who died in the disaster came up with a proposal to organize an expedition to raise the ship. The initiators of the search wanted to bury their loved ones and, to be honest, return the valuables that had sunk to the bottom along with their owners.

The decisive attitude of the relatives came across a categorical verdict from experts: the technology for searching and lifting the Titanic from great depths simply did not exist at that time.

Then a new proposal was received - to drop dynamite charges to the bottom at the supposed site of the disaster, which, according to the authors of the project, were supposed to provoke the ascent of the corpses of the dead from the bottom. This dubious idea also did not find support.

The First World War, which began in 1914, postponed the search for the Titanic for many years.

Interior of the veranda for first class passengers of the Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Nitrogen and ping pong balls

They started talking about searching for the liner again only in the 1950s. At the same time, proposals began to appear on possible ways to raise it - from freezing the body with nitrogen to filling it with millions of ping-pong balls.

In the 1960s and 1970s, several expeditions were sent to the area where the Titanic sank, but all of them were unsuccessful due to insufficient technical preparation.

In 1980 Texas oil tycoon John Grimm financed the preparation and conduct of the first large expedition to search for the Titanic. But, despite the availability of the most modern equipment for underwater searches, his expedition ended in failure.

Played a major role in the discovery of the Titanic ocean explorer and part-time US Navy officer Robert Ballard. Ballard, who was involved in improving small unmanned underwater vehicles, became interested in underwater archeology and, in particular, the mystery of the Titanic sinkhole back in the 1970s. In 1977, he organized the first expedition to search for the Titanic, but it ended in failure.

Ballard was convinced that finding the ship was only possible with the help of the latest deep-sea bathyscaphes. But getting these at your disposal was very difficult.

Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Doctor Ballard's Secret Mission

In 1985, having failed to achieve results during an expedition on the French research vessel Le Suroît, Ballard moved to the American vessel R/V Knorr, with which he continued the search for the Titanic.

As Ballard himself said many years later, the expedition, which became historic, began with a secret deal concluded between him and the command of the Navy. The researcher really wanted to get the Argo deep-sea research vehicle for his work, but the American admirals did not want to pay for the work of the equipment to search for some historical rarity. The ship R/V Knorr and the Argo apparatus were supposed to carry out a mission to examine the sites of the sinking of two American nuclear submarines, Scorpion and Thresher, which sank back in the 1960s. This task was secret, and the US Navy needed a person who could not only carry out the necessary work, but also be able to keep it secret.

Ballard's candidacy was ideal - he was quite famous, and everyone knew about his passion for finding the Titanic.

The researcher was offered: he could get the Argo and use it to search for the Titanic if he first found and examined the submarines. Ballard agreed.

Only the leadership of the US Navy knew about the Scorpion and Thrasher; for the rest, Robert Ballard simply explored the Atlantic and looked for the Titanic.

Robert Ballard. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

"Comet tail" at the bottom

He coped with the secret mission brilliantly, and on August 22, 1985, he was able to again begin the search for the liner that perished in 1912.

None of the most advanced technology would have ensured his success if not for the previously accumulated experience. Ballard, while examining the sinkhole sites of the submarines, noticed that they left at the bottom a kind of “comet tail” of thousands of fragments. This was due to the fact that the hulls of the boats were destroyed when sank to the bottom due to enormous pressure.

The scientist knew that during the dive on the Titanic, the steam boilers exploded, which meant that the liner should have left a similar “comet tail.”

It was this trace, and not the Titanic itself, that was easier to detect.

On the night of September 1, 1985, the Argo apparatus found small debris at the bottom, and at 0:48 the camera recorded the Titanic’s boiler. Then it was possible to discover the bow of the ship.

It was found that the bow and stern of the broken liner were located at a distance of about 600 meters from each other. At the same time, both the stern and the bow were seriously deformed when sank to the bottom, but the bow was still better preserved.

Ship layout. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

House for underwater inhabitants

The news of the discovery of the Titanic became a sensation, although many experts hastened to question it. But in the summer of 1986, Ballard carried out a new expedition, during which he not only described in detail the ship at the bottom, but also made the first dive to the Titanic on a manned deep-sea vehicle. After this, the last doubts were dispelled - the Titanic was discovered.

The liner's final resting place is located at a depth of 3,750 meters. In addition to the two main parts of the liner, tens of thousands of smaller debris are scattered along the bottom over an area of 4.8×8 km: parts of the ship’s hull, remains of furniture and interior decoration, dishes, and personal belongings of people.

The wreckage of the ship is covered with multi-layered rust, the thickness of which is constantly growing. In addition to multi-layered rust, 24 species of invertebrate animals and 4 species of fish live on and near the hull. Of these, 12 species of invertebrates clearly gravitate towards shipwrecks, eating metal and wooden structures. The interior of the Titanic was almost completely destroyed. The wooden elements were consumed by deep sea worms. The decks are covered in layers of clam shells, and stalactites of rust hang from many of the metal pieces.

A wallet recovered from the Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Are all the people left with shoes left?

During the 30 years that have passed since the discovery of the ship, the Titanic has been rapidly deteriorating. Its current state is such that there can be no talk of any lifting of the vessel. The ship will forever remain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

There is still no consensus on whether human remains were preserved on the Titanic and around it. According to the prevailing version, all human bodies completely decomposed. However, information periodically appears that some researchers have nevertheless stumbled upon the remains of the dead.

But James Cameron, director of the famous film "Titanic", whose personal account includes over 30 dives to the liner on the Russian Mir deep-sea submersibles, is sure of the opposite: “We saw shoes, boots and other footwear at the site of the sunken ship, but our team has never encountered human remains.”

Things from the Titanic are a profitable product

Since the discovery of the Titanic by Robert Ballard, about two dozen expeditions have been carried out to the ship, during which several thousand objects were raised to the surface, ranging from personal belongings of passengers to a piece of plating weighing 17 tons.

The exact number of objects recovered from the Titanic is impossible to establish today, since with the improvement of underwater technology, the ship has become a favorite target of “black archaeologists” who are trying to obtain rarities from the Titanic by any means.

Robert Ballard, lamenting this, remarked: “The ship is still a noble old lady, but not the same lady I saw in 1985.”

Items from the Titanic have been sold at auction for many years and are in great demand. So, in the year of the 100th anniversary of the disaster, in 2012, hundreds of items went under the hammer, including a cigar box that belonged to the captain of the Titanic ($40 thousand), a life jacket from the ship ($55 thousand), and a master key first class steward ($138 thousand). As for the jewelry from the Titanic, their value is measured in millions of dollars.

At one time, having discovered the Titanic, Robert Ballard intended to keep this place secret, so as not to disturb the resting place of one and a half thousand people. Perhaps he shouldn't have done this.

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