1909-1912. It was built in the Harland and Wolf
shipyards in Belfast, Ireland. The Titanic was 882
1/2 feet long. The Titanic was owned by the White
Star Line, an American company. Some people
don't know that Titanic's 4th funnel is a fake.
They added the 4th funnel because it would make
the ship look more, well, 'Titanic'! As well as to
provide ventilation for the engine room and boiler
rooms below. The original plan for lifeboat
capacity was to have 84 lifeboats on board. But
White Star Officials thought that the deck space
would simply look to cluttered. So they reduced
the number of lifeboats to 16, plus 4 collapsable
boats.
Out of all of them, only 705 would survive.
On the night of April 14, 1912, the water was as
calm and smooth as glass. Icebergs were
very hard to spot in this weather. The wireless
operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride
received multiple iceberg warnings. They sent
most of them to the bridge...but not all
because they were to busy with passenger's
messages to the mainland. Later that night crow's
nest lookout Frederick Fleet spotted something.
He saw an iceberg. He immediately rang the
crow's nest bell three times and picked up the
phone. When there was a response he said
"Iceberg right ahead!" The order for the ship to go
full speed astern and the direction hard a
starboard. But it was to no avail, the Titanic struck
the iceberg. After that the Captain E.J. Smith
ordered "Women and children first" into the
lifeboats.
sinking. The last song that they played was Nearer My God to Thee. As the Titanic sank the stern of the ship rose
up out of the water. Then the lights blinked and went out. After being up out of the water the stern couldn't take the
weight so the ship slit in two between the third and fourth funnels. By now the Bow section is completely submerged.
The stern sat floating for a while and some people thought that the stern would keep floating but soon after the
stern rose up again and slowly goes into the sea at a 90 degree angle. After a night in the cold Atlantic, the ship
known as the Carpathia was the one who rescued the survivors.
In 1987 a deep sea explorer named Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He did not remove an
artifact, but he left a plaque on the stern dedicated to all who lost their lives on that ship. Many more expeditions
have been to the Titanic, and many artifacts have been recovered. Below are some pictures of the ship then and
now as well as some replicas of the ship's interior.
