Unknown facts about the sinking of the Titanic. A new version of the death of the Titanic and the most impressive facts

Almost 105 years have passed since the most famous shipwreck of the 20th century - the sinking of the passenger liner Titanic, but it seems that this story will give us reasons for conversation, investigation and inspire the creation of new films and books for a long time!

But I wonder if James Cameron will ever agree to remake romantic story about Jack and Rose, knowing that it was not an iceberg that separated them, but a fire?

Yes, this is exactly the news brought by the new year 2017! British journalist Shanan Moloney, who has more than 30 years of experience in researching the Titanic shipwreck, confirmed the earlier version of experts that the cause of the death of the ship was a fire in the fuel storage! As indisputable evidence, Moloney cites the results of studying photographs taken by electrical engineers of the Titanic before it left the Harland and Wolfe shipyard in Belfast!

Construction of the Titanic

So, the journalist reports that the fuel in the three-story storage facility began to burn even before the ceremonial departure of the liner from Southampton in April 1912. And even more, a team of 12 people tried to put out the fire for several weeks, but, alas, to no avail. The owners of the ship were informed about what had happened, but they considered the cancellation of the first voyage of the “unsinkable” to be a greater disaster for their reputation than the possible consequences. The officers were ordered not to disclose this information to passengers, but before leaving, to turn the liner the other side towards the shore!

Ticket to the Titanic

According to Moloney's version, the hull of the ship at the site of the fire heated to more than 1000 degrees Celsius, and this made it 75% more fragile. And when, on the fifth day of the voyage, the Titanic collided with an iceberg, she could not withstand the load, and a huge hole appeared on board!

Rescue of Titanic Passengers

Let's be honest, blaming the iceberg as the only reason for the large-scale loss of life and the sinking of the ship would be unfair. A much larger role in the disaster was played by the negligent crime of the owners and the fire on the eve of sailing.

Titanic at the bottom

It is known that out of 2229 crew members and passengers of the Titanic, only 713 people were saved. Today, the wreckage of the liner rests at a depth of 3,750 meters in the waters of the North Atlantic, and artifacts found by adventurers and researchers from time to time excite the memory and excitement of everyone who is not indifferent to this story.

Newspaper report about the sinking of the Titanic

But it turns out that not only the fire was an obvious reason not to set sail... When Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic a “practically unsinkable ship,” its owners seized on this phrase and everyone possible ways began to demonstrate his greatness and reliability.

Staircase under the dome in 1st grade

First of all, they broke the tradition of the fleet and did not break a bottle of champagne on the side of the ship during the first voyage - the Titanic is unsinkable, which means that subsequent voyages will be just as successful!

And troubles did not take long to arrive - before sailing far from Southampton, the Titanic almost collided with the American liner New York. The first disaster was avoided almost at the last minute!

Two of the Titanic's three propellers

Everything is known about the luxury of the interior and service on the Titanic. the smallest details. But for just one first class ticket, in modern terms, passengers paid several tens of thousands of dollars! And it is not surprising that greedy divers dream of big jackpot- on the first (and last) voyage of the Titanic, 10 millionaires set off on a journey with gold and jewelry in safes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Smoking room 1st class

It is impressive that “special cabins” were intended for such important persons, made in eleven different interior styles - from the Dutch and Adam style to the interior in the style of the French and Italian Renaissance! I wonder how many hours did it take for the richest passengers of the ship to walk all 7 km of its promenade decks?

Bedroom 1st class (B-64)

But how boring it is to re-read for the hundredth time about 40 tons of potatoes, 27 thousand bottles of mineral water and beer, 35 thousand eggs and 44 tons of meat, oysters from Baltimore and cheeses from Europe on board the Titanic. Is it a matter of finding out the most impressive facts!

Captain Smith on deck

It is sad to admit that the cost of a ticket on the liner determined the chances of salvation. It is known that out of 143 first class passengers, only 4 died. And only because they did not board the lifeboat.

One of them was Ida Strauss. The woman did not want to part with her husband Isidor Strauss, co-owner of the largest supermarket chain Macy's.

Ida and Isidore Strauss

“I will not leave my husband. We have always been together, we will die together."

Ida declared, giving up her place in lifeboat No. 8 to the maid and giving her a fur coat, adding that she no longer needed it...

Eyewitnesses claim that at the time of the death of the ship, the Strauss spouses were calm. They sat in chairs on the deck, holding each other with one hand and waving goodbye to the rescued with their free hand. By the way, the maid not only survived, but even outlived her owners by 40 years!

Orchestra musicians

The Titanic sank to the music. Until the last minutes, the orchestra stood on the deck and played the church hymn “Closer, Lord, to You.” None of the musicians survived. Well, the body of the orchestra leader, 33-year-old violinist Wallace Hartley, was found 10 days later with a violin tied to his chest!

Thanks to the inscription on the instrument, it was established that the violin was given to the musician by his fiancée, Maria Robinson. Yes, the girl was found, but Maria still decided to say goodbye to the memorable instrument and handed it over to the British Salvation Army. In 2013, the violin was sold at auction for $1.5 million!

Icy waters The Atlantic forever took with them the body of Captain Edward John Smith. Marine officer with 30 years of experience, he never completed his first transatlantic voyage, tragically sank to the bottom along with the entire crew without attempting to escape...

Captain Edward John Smith

Did you know that the last passenger of the Titanic, Elizabeth Gladys Milvina Dean, died just 8 years ago at the age of 97? At the time of the sad event, she was only 2 months and 13 days old.

The last passenger of the Titanic

But even Jack Dawson, played by our favorite Leonardo DiCaprio, a real man! And let director Cameron prove as much as he wants that this character is a figment of his imagination, on the Titanic there was actually a coal miner named Jack Dawson, who, however, was not in love according to the script with Rose, but with a friend’s sister.

But this is not all mysticism. Get ready for the most interesting thing - it is known that on April 15, 1972 (do you remember that the Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15?) the radio operator of the battleship Theodore Roosevelt received an SOS signal.

The signal from the Titanic, which was received by the passenger ship Carpathia

Not impressive yet? But he received a signal for help from the Titanic! Then the poor fellow thought that he had “moved with his mind” and hurried to the military archive, where he found that radiograms from the sunken ship had already been received in 1924, 1930, 1936 and 1942. But that’s not all - the last signal from the Titanic was received by the Canadian ship Quebec in April 1996.

Billions of people around the world watched Leonardo DiCaprio drown in the movie Titanic. This film is based on the true events that occurred around midnight on April 14, 1912 on board the luxury liner Titanic. Myths, facts, photos dedicated to this event can be found in our top 10 little known facts and amazing interesting stories about the Titanic.

For passengers traveling first class, the ticket price was $4,350, equivalent to $106,310 today. This fare was explained by the highest standards of service and increased comfort of the cabins.

9. Rescued dogs

Although there were not enough lifeboats on the Titanic to save all the people, three dogs were listed among the 712 surviving passengers. One Pekingese and two Pomeranians. And one of the passengers of the Titanic refused to leave the board without her dog and died along with her.

8. Ruined Honeymoon

If you watched the movie about the “unsinkable” liner, then you will remember the emotional scenes with Jack and Rose in the last minutes when the Titanic sank. The historical facts are as follows: 13 couples celebrated their Honeymoon on this giant ship. Unfortunately, they were likely among the 1,513 passengers who drowned.

7. The captain's fatal mistake

The captain of the Titanic, 62-year-old Edward John Smith, had extensive service. But he had extensive experience in managing sailing ships and a small amount of steamships. Due to his lack of knowledge, Smith continued to command the crew to proceed at full speed (22 knots) even when the Titanic entered a dangerous ice zone. The result is known.

6. Profit from disaster

There are several films and television shows, which more or less reliably “exploit” facts about the Titanic. Among them: “Titanic” (1943), “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964), “Secrets of the Titanic” (1986), “Ghosts of the Abyss: Titanic” (2003), “Titanic: Blood and Steel” ( year 2012). And the film about James Cameron's Titanic, shot in 1997, brought the creators a billion dollars in profit, and also won 11 Oscars, including best movie and the best award for directing.

5. A true hero

Charles Herbert Lightoller was the second mate on the Titanic and did everything possible to evacuate the women and children. The officer himself miraculously escaped by jumping from the ship and swimming to a collapsible boat floating upside down, on which there were 30 people. By morning they were picked up by sailors from the ship "Carpathia". Lightoller lived to old age- 78 years old.

4. Sundries

The Titanic hit an iceberg on its first voyage. And this is the only ocean liner that sank due to an iceberg. Additionally, former leader and founder North Korea Kim Il Sung was born on April 15, 1912 (when the Titanic sank).

3. Drank and survived

Interesting facts about the Titanic include the story of the ship's drunken chef-baker, Charles Jufin. The temperature in the Atlantic Ocean during the tragic events on the Titanic was about 0.56 degrees Celsius. Because of this, people could not survive in it for more than 15 minutes. And Dzhufin, who drank a fair amount of alcohol, froze in the water for two hours until the moment of his rescue. He proved that when drunk, not only the sea is knee-deep, but also the ocean is shoulder-deep.

2. The long search for the Titanic

It took 73 years to discover the wreck of the Titanic. This happened in 1985. The hull of the liner was divided into two parts and carried to a depth of 3784 m.

1. Cursed mummy

It is known exactly how the Titanic sank. Scientific facts are indisputable: the beautiful liner sank due to an iceberg. But there were many rumors about the cargo that the Titanic was carrying. One of them: the mummy of the seer Amenophis IV, which was taken on board by order of the British historian Lord Canterville, is to blame for the disaster. As a particularly valuable item, the box with the mummy was located near the captain's bridge.

Some time after the disaster, newspapers began publishing stories from Titanic passengers. Some of them claimed that shortly before the disaster, the captain was near the Amenophis IV box. After which his behavior became extremely strange, and there was no timely response to the message about the ice threat.

To point 13.
Let me clarify: both the RMS Olympic and subsequent ships of the Titanic and Britannic series - transatlantic liners of the White Star Line had a unique design for their time: they could remain afloat if any 2 of the 16 waterproof compartments were flooded , any 3 of the first 5 compartments, or all 4 bow compartments in a row, starting from the forepeak.
Unfortunately, no one imagined that water would flow into six bow compartments at once and, as the trim on the bow increased, it would begin to overflow through the watertight bulkheads, because usually the above-mentioned ones do not reach the quarters of the masts and consistent flooding of the compartments would begin. It was not a warship...

To point 12.
And, for example: "Hans Hedtoft", January 7, 1959? SOS - January 7, 1959, around 02:00: "Encountered an iceberg. Position 59.5 north - 43.0 west." 02 "The engine room is flooded with water." 03 "We took a lot of water into the engine room." Approximately 05 "We are drowning and need immediate assistance." That's all... No one was rescued, no bodies or debris were found. 55 passengers and 39 crew members were killed.
For reference: "Hans Hedtoft": Danish cargo-passenger ship with a displacement of 3000 tons, second voyage on the line Greenland - continental ports. It was designed for navigation in ice (double the thickness of the sides in the ice belt, double bottom, 7 waterproof compartments, special reinforcement at the bow and stern ends).

To point 9.
According to the investigation, 37.5 seconds passed between the call from lookout Frederick Fleet (10/15/1887 - 01/10/1965) and the moment the iceberg touched down. During this time, the airliner traveled 1,316 feet and deviated from course by 23 degrees (109 feet/33.22 meters to the left of the original trajectory).
By the way. Frederick Fleet was found hanged on January 10, 1965, in his Norman Street garden. The coroner's report indicated that he had suffered from mental confusion, but acquaintances believed that it was all due to his depressive state, which began after the death of his wife, and was partly caused by the fact that Fleet never got rid of the guilt he felt for the deaths of the passengers . He was buried without any honors in a pauper's grave in Hollybrook Cemetery, Southampton. There was not even a tombstone on his grave, and only in 1993 the Titanic Historical Society Inc. Using money from private donations, a memorial plaque with an engraving depicting the Titanic was installed. Another victim of the disaster, isn't it?

To point 8.
There was no "mirage". There was a “black” iceberg: when it turns over, the part that was previously in the water does not differ in color from the water. Especially on a moonless night. There was no rough sea at all, so there was no white strip of foam at the “waterline” of the iceberg either. And the lookouts didn’t have binoculars - historical fact. They just didn't see him...

To point 3.
Incorrect photo. It should have been signed like this: “The boats of the Titanic. In total, thirteen of them were found. And here they are at the 13th pier in New York, where this magnificent liner was supposed to arrive.”
...
This is a bit of a hobby of mine, in any case, I have assembled a normal library at different languages and with documents official investigation familiar. To begin with, I recommend: www.titanicinquiry.org - complete breakdowns of investigations in the States and Britain ( English language).

Therefore, let me make a value judgment that the Titanic was destroyed by the command “Stop the car - full reverse” (movement of McMaster Murdoch’s hand), which could not be carried out.

Alas, it only took more than 15 minutes to completely reverse the machines “from full forward to full reverse” (an investigative experiment at the Olympic and I won’t describe the features of steam engines) - while the airliner went through about 2 miles - about 3.7 km. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the features of the rudder group. Three propellers, one rudder blade, were driven by steam engines (reversible), the middle one - by a turbine (non-reversible). "The airliner actually lost control and, instead of circulating (in a circle with a diameter of 3850 feet), began to move in a spiral with an increasing radius tending to infinity. At the same time, if the command “Full speed ahead, full steam forward” had been given, then the on the turn course of 23 degrees, he would have been 8 seconds earlier and by the time of “37.5” he would have gone 92.6 meters to the left. True, there were nuances, like the rolling of the stern, usually solved by the “coordinate” maneuver (Vicki?), but. that's a completely different story...

Meanwhile. It has been documented that closer to midnight on April 14, 1912, there were only two oilers at the control post of the Titanic’s engines (according to the table of ranks, they were at the level of ordinary stokers, only those were trained to use a shovel, and these were trained to use an oil can). This is not surprising - after all, the previous command from the bridge was received more than three days ago...

Sorry, it was long, but I haven’t said everything yet...

1. Filming the film “Titanic”, directed by James Cameron, cost more than building the ship at the time, taking into account inflation.

2. The film “Game of Thrones” was filmed in the same hangar where the real ship “Titanic” was built.

3. Not a single person from among the creators of the Titanic left it during the disaster. They remained on board until last moment and remained calm in order to reassure other passengers.

4. The priest on board the Titanic twice refused a place on the boat; he remained on the ship in order to listen to repentance and give absolution for the sins of the people remaining on the ship.

5. In 1943, the Nazis also made a film called Titanic. It was a film about famous shipwrecks and featured anti-British propaganda.

6. On April 15, 1912 (a day later), the captain of a German ship noticed an iceberg and ordered it to be painted with red paint; he did not yet know about the sinking of the Titanic.

7. In 1945, the Royal Air Force mistakenly attacked a ship whose majority of passengers were Jewish. In 1942, this fact was used in the Nazi propaganda film Titanic. This ship drowned approximately 3 times more people than on the Titanic.

8. Two years after the Titanic sank, the Empress sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and lost 68.5% of all passengers (0.5% more than the Titanic). The newspapers were silent about this incident due to the outbreak of the First World War.

9. During the filming of the film Titanic, one of the disgruntled extras put the drug LSD in the food, for this reason James Cameron and 50 other people were hospitalized.

10. The primary reason that prompted James Cameron to start working on the film “Titanic” was the opportunity to dive to the shipwreck at the expense of the film studio, and not because he wanted to make a film.

11. The cost of a first class ticket on the Titanic was $4,375 in 1912 ($100,000 today).

12. A woman named Violet Constance Jessop survived the death of the Titanic, she also survived the death of its double, as well as the disaster of the Olympic (also a double of the Titanic).

13. Australian began financing a project to build a cruise ship - the new Titanic, which will be launched in 2016; Pre-sale tickets will begin soon.

14. The character in the movie Titanic who drinks from Jack and Rose's flask while the ship is sinking is based on the memories of one of the passengers who survived due to the effects of alcohol.

15. The founders of Macy's died on the Titanic, in the film it was an elderly couple who went to bed when the ship began to sink.

16. In 20 years, the Titanic, under the influence of a, will be completely destroyed.

17. It is said that the Titanic did not sink. Instead, the Olympic sank, it was just an insurance scam.

18. For the scene in the movie "Titanic" when main character draws a nude heroine, drawings by James Cameron were used.

19. When Robert Ballard (professor of oceanography) announced that he was planning an expedition to search for the Titanic, it was actually a cover for a secret operation to locate lost atomic bombs. submarines. Since they had successfully completed their task, they had time left that they could devote to actually searching for the Titanic.

20. Lunch for first class on board the Titanic consisted of 13 courses - each with a different accompanying meal and lasted four to five hours.

21. On the Carpathia, the first ship to arrive at the site of the Titanic tragedy, they offered to send telegrams at a cost of $1 per word; it is known that one of the rescued people spent his last dollar on a telegram for his mother with the text: “Safety.”

22. Millionaire Ben Guggenheim asked to convey the following message to his wife: I will not allow any woman to remain on board because of my cowardice.

23. The first film about the Titanic was released a month after its disaster, and was directed by one of the survivors.

24. Fifty years earlier, a ship was built almost as large as the Titanic, but with a double hull. The same thing happened to it and it did not sink only thanks to its double hull. However, none of the passengers were notified of the incident.

25. In 1998, the science fiction film Lost in Space was released, it was announced as “the appearance of an iceberg” because the film’s release coincided with the end of Titanic’s 15-week run.

26. Second mate Charles Lightoler, several years after the sinking of the Titanic, admitted that the binoculars were indeed on board, in a locked box to which no one had a key.

27. One book told the story of an "unsinkable" 800-foot cruise ship that collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on an April night, and that the ship did not have enough lifeboats, causing it to sink. most of its passengers. The ship was called “Titan”. The book was written in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic disaster.

28. Naronic, a ship owned by the same company as the Titanic, disappeared without a trace while following the same route in 1893.

29. Of the 711 Titanic passengers saved, only 58 were men.

30. Boats from the Titanic, with a capacity of 40 people, were filled with 12 people and launched into the water. They did not approach the crash site until late at night to try to rescue other passengers.

, . .

On Sunday, April 14, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. After the release of the 1997 film, almost all of humanity knew the basic details about this tragedy. But some interesting facts were not mentioned in the film. At the time of construction, the Titanic was the largest of the ships. While most companies built their boats for speed, the owners of the Titanic wanted to build a ship for luxury. At that time there were no trucks, so it took twenty horses to deliver just one anchor. More than 14,000 people worked on the ship for 50 hours working week to finish on time. I present to your attention 13 interesting facts about the Titanic that you might not know.

Dimensions

The Titanic was much smaller than most modern cruise ships. Royal Caribbean International owns the largest ship in the world, the Allure of the Seas. The Charm was built in 2008 and can accommodate up to 6,300 people, while the Titanic could only accommodate 2,435. Almost all of the Charm of the Seas' characteristics are approximately double those of the Titanic, including length, weight, and even the number of crew members.

Rescue boats

When the Titanic was designed, the design included 64 lifeboats. This amount was more than enough to save all crew members and passengers on board. Unfortunately, only some of the rescue boats were installed on the ship. The owners thought that the boats would spoil the view and irritate passengers, so they installed only 20 boats. As a result, even these boats were not completely filled due to the panic that arose. Almost all the men remained on the deck of the sinking ship, as the rule “women and children first” was in effect.

Pollution

Cruise ships pollute the water and the atmosphere, and the Titanic was no exception. 29 boilers continuously burned coal to provide electricity and propel the giant ship. 825 tons of coal were used in just one day, releasing almost 100 tons of ash into the atmosphere.

Ritz interior

No, the Titanic did not completely copy the interior of the Ritz Hotel in London, but the designers were inspired by it. The five-star hotel was one of the most luxurious places in London at the time of the Titanic's creation, and remains so to this day. The luxury cruise ship had all the facilities for a royal holiday on board, including a gym for first class passengers and a petting area for their pets.

Casualties during construction

The Titanic took 26 months to build. During this time, eight workers died and 246 injuries were reported. The very first victim was Samuel Scott, a fifteen-year-old teenager. He died as a result of a skull fracture, but the exact reasons were carefully hidden by his employer. Even the tombstone in Belfast Cemetery was erected for him only almost 100 years after his death.

Movie

The Titanic was launched on April 15, 1912, at a cost of almost seven and a half million dollars. The actual amount, adjusted for inflation, would be approximately $166 million in current currency. In 1997, the most popular movie about the Titanic was made for $200,000,000. Thus, making and filming the film was more expensive than the cost of building the ship.

Sisters

The Titanic was one of a trio of ships of the same type. The other two ships are the Olympic and the Britannic. Olympic was the first of three ships and set sail on June 14, 1911 (to New York). In September of the same year, Olympic collided with a cruiser and began repairs. After the Titanic disaster, the government issued new requirements for safety systems on cruise ships. The third ship of the same type (Britanic) hit a mine on November 21, 1916 and sank.

Bottle

Many believe that the rite of baptism is a great way to protect yourself from adversity and failure. Baptism is also practiced for courts, and this ritual is more than five thousand years old. The creators of the three cruise ships did not believe in the ceremony, and held it only for the Titanic. The problem was that the bottle of champagne did not break when it hit the side of the ship. Many still believe that the cause of the disaster was an unsuccessful baptism.

A curse

It is difficult to determine the origins of certain rumors, especially when it comes to curses. After the Titanic disaster, people began to say that the reason for everything was the curse of the people who died during construction. Others spoke of the famous Hope Diamond, which was on board during the voyage. Dozens of other reasons were also given, each of which is original in its own way.

Book about Titan

Morgan Robertson wrote The Crash of the Titan in 1898, fourteen years before the Titanic disaster in the Atlantic Ocean. The book takes place on a ship called the Titan, which also collided with an iceberg in April, as did the Titanic fourteen years after the book's publication. Most people think that the author was a psychic, since there were so many coincidences between the book and the disaster. There were almost the same number of people in the book, and there weren't enough boats for everyone.

Moon

We all know that the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, but there is a possibility that the Moon had something to do with it. On the night of the disaster, the Moon was terribly close to the Earth. According to scientists, the light of the moon could have prevented the iceberg from being detected in a timely manner. Perhaps it was this unusual event that caused the tragic event.

The rescue

Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic in 1985 using two submarines. The ship has lain underwater for more than 100 years, and researchers are now trying to save the disintegrating vessel from numerous threats, including divers who want to touch it themselves. great history. Ballard and his crew are working hard to protect and preserve the Titanic for years to come.

Iceberg

On the fateful night, the ship was sent a message warning of an iceberg. The message did not have a note of high importance, so the captain simply did not see it. The iceberg was not very large and most of it was hidden under water. The sea was very calm, which also prevented the iceberg from being discovered in a timely manner. The Titanic was traveling at a speed of 22.5 knots (equivalent to 29 miles per hour) when it struck the giant mountain of ice.