Where did the Titanic come from? How many people died on the Titanic? The true story of the disaster

The cause of the collapse of the largest ocean liner At that time, the Titanic could have caught fire in a fuel storage facility.

According to British journalist Shannon Moloney, who studied the history of the ship for thirty years, the fire on board broke out even before the ship left Southampton, and for several weeks they tried unsuccessfully to put it out. During this time, the hull of the liner heated up, which is why the collision with the iceberg ended so badly.

According to The Independent newspaper, the journalist managed to take pictures taken before the start of the Titanic's voyage. Moloney found traces of soot in the area of ​​the hull, which was subsequently damaged due to a collision with an iceberg. According to experts, they most likely arose due to a fire in one of the airliner’s fuel storage facilities.

According to the researcher, the ship's owners knew about the fire, but hid this fact from passengers. The team was also ordered to remain silent about the fire. According to Shannon Moloney, as a result of the fire, the ship's hull heated to a temperature of about 1000 degrees Celsius, which made the steel, which had lost up to 75 percent of its strength, extremely brittle.

According to the journalist, when the Titanic collided with an iceberg on the fifth day of its voyage, the hull could not stand it and a huge hole appeared in the side. Therefore, the iceberg cannot be considered the sole culprit of the disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people on April 15, 1912.

Note that " " belonged to the British company White Star Line. At the time of construction it was considered the largest passenger airliner in the world, and, in addition, was considered unsinkable. On May 31, 1911, the liner was launched. "God himself cannot sink this ship!" - its captain Edward John Smith said about the ship.

A little over a year later, the Titanic set off on its first voyage. There were 2,224 people on board: 1,316 passengers and 908 crew members. On April 14, 1912, the ship collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. 711 people were saved, 1513 died...

It's not so simple with icebergs either. Typically, Greenland icebergs get stuck in shallow waters off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland and float further south only after they have been thoroughly thawed, often under the influence of the tides. However, in the case of the Titanic, several large icebergs managed to swim far to the south.

Physicist Donald Olson of the University of Texas (USA) and his colleagues investigated the hypothesis of oceanographer Fergus Wood, who argued that the icebergs were refloated by high tide in January 1912, when the Moon was unusually close to the Earth. By mid-April, the fatal ice mountain had reached the collision site.

Indeed, says Olson, on January 4, 1912, the Moon approached the Earth at its closest close quarters over the last 1400 years. The day before, the Earth came as close as possible to the Sun. The Moon and the Sun found themselves in a position where their mutual gravitational influence on the Earth increased. Obeying the power of the tide, the killer iceberg broke away from Greenland and set off on its way.

At the same time, one of the biggest mysteries associated with the death of the Titanic is the more than frivolous behavior of the captain of the liner, Edward Smith. An experienced sea wolf, who had repeatedly plied the waters of the North Atlantic, for some reason did not pay attention to the warning about approaching icebergs. Perhaps he simply did not believe the information about them.

Although the matter may be different. A hypothesis that radically changes the history of the disaster belongs to two researchers - amateur Robin Gardner (a plasterer by profession) and historian Dan Van der Wat. Having studied the archives navy Over the course of 50 years, they came to the conclusion that it was not the Titanic that actually sank, but another ship, the Olympic! The latter was built almost simultaneously with the Titanic and at the same shipyards. But from the very first days this ship was plagued by troubles. When it was launched on October 20, 1910, it crashed into a dam. The owner of the ship, Bruce Ismay, and the owner of the Harland and Wolf shipyards, Lord Pirrie, were forced to pay a considerable amount for repairs and damages, which almost bankrupted them.

While sailing, the Olympic was repeatedly involved in accidents. After that, not a single insurance company undertook to insure the “damned ship.” And then Ismay and Pirri conceived the “scam of the century” - to send the Olympic under the name of the Titanic on a voyage across the Atlantic and, when it crashed, to receive insurance for it - 52 million pounds sterling!

The owners had no doubt that their plan would succeed. To protect the passengers, they planned to send another ship along the same route, which, supposedly by chance, would pick up passengers and crew. But, in order not to arouse any suspicion, the shipowners decided that the “rescue” ship would leave the pier no earlier than a week after the start of the voyage. Alas, I only had to wait three days...

The captain of the imaginary Titanic, Edward John Smith, was ready to carry out any order from his superiors. Thus, a few hours before the tragedy, binoculars were confiscated from the observers on duty. And a few minutes before the crash, Smith allegedly ordered the plane to be turned sideways towards the iceberg. It seemed like he was trying to ensure disaster!

The further history of the Titanic (or the false Titanic) is known to us. What happened to the real Titanic? According to Gardner and van der Wat, he sailed safely under a different name, first as part of the Royal Naval Forces, then he was acquired by the White Star Line. The ship was decommissioned in 1935.

Was it “his own” death (or the ship that everyone mistook for the Titanic)? Or was he “helped” to crash? We will most likely never know. Of course, both the “conspiracy theory” and the “lunar hypothesis” are nothing more than versions. But the fact remains: the Titanic sank. And, no matter what led to its death, we are no longer able to change the tragic fate of this ship...

Did the Titanic (or the ship that everyone mistook for the Titanic) die “its own” death? Or was he “helped” to crash? We will most likely never know. Of course, both the “conspiracy theory” and the “lunar hypothesis” are nothing more than versions. But the fact remains: the Titanic sank. And, no matter what led to its death, we are no longer able to change the tragic fate of this ship...


The tragic legend of the Titanic

1. 3 million rivets were used to build the Titanic, most of which were made by hand.

2. To launch the ship, it took 23 tons of fat, locomotive oil and liquid soap to lubricate the gangway guides.

3. The designers considered the liner unsinkable. The double bottom and 16 watertight bulkheads were know-how for that time. However, the designers did not know how penetrating an iceberg could be.

4. On the Titanic there was not such a simple thing as binoculars. The captain fired his second mate Blair, and in retaliation he stole the keys to the safe, where the binoculars for the lookouts were kept.

5. The shipwreck happened on April 14, 1912. The events have been recreated down to the smallest detail. Since the very morning, ten times the crews of other liners transmitted reports that icebergs were already nearby, but the Titanic ignored these warnings. The last report arrived on the Titanic 40 minutes before the collision. But the Titanic's radio operator did not even listen to the message and interrupted the connection.

6. There were many celebrities of that time on the liner. Among them, for example, was millionaire and feminist Margaret Brown. She was famous for knowing five languages ​​and swearing in them like a shoemaker. After the collision with the iceberg, Margaret helped put people on the boats, but she was in no hurry to leave the ship. Finally, someone forcefully pushed her into a boat and sent her out to sea. Having reached another ship, the Carpathia, Margaret immediately began looking for blankets and food for the victims, compiling lists of survivors, and collecting money. By the time the Carpathia arrived in port, she had raised $10,000 for the survivors.

7. Another famous Titanic passenger, businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, put his companion in a lifeboat. He convinced her that they would see each other soon, although he understood that the situation was hopeless. Together with the valet, he returned to the cabin and changed into a tailcoat, and then sat down at a table in the central hall and began to drink whiskey. When someone suggested that they still try to escape, Guggenheim replied: “We are dressed in accordance with our position and are ready to die like gentlemen.”

8. An outstanding ticket to the Titanic's launching ceremony went under the hammer at a London auction for $56,300. A menu from the ship with a list of 40 dishes was sold in New York for $31,300. Another similar menu in London cost £76,000. The keys to the ship's room, which contained lanterns for the lifeboats, were also preserved and were sold for £59,000.

9. The liner sank to the music. The orchestra stood on deck until the very end and played the church hymn “Closer, Lord, to Thee.”

10. Russian deep-sea submersibles "Mir" in 1991 and 1995 dived to the ship, which is now at a depth of 3.8 kilometers. Then the devices shot a video that was included in the notorious James Cameron film. This year, in honor of the centenary of the sinking of the liner, our submariners again promised to dive to the Titanic.

11. UNESCO waited a hundred years to declare the wreck of the Titanic a site. cultural heritage. For such cases they have a special convention. Now UNESCO will ensure that items from the Titanic do not go to uncultured divers.

12. Released in honor of the centenary, the film Titanic 3D has already collected an impressive amount of $17.4 million in the United States. James Cameron's 1997 Titanic was a phenomenal success and the box office was huge at that time: $1.8 billion. This record was broken only 12 years later by the film Avatar.

13. The ill-fated black iceberg, or rather its photograph, was found 90 years after the sinking of the Titanic. A few days after the tragedy, a certain Stefan Regorek from Bohemia sailed past the disaster site on another liner and photographed the iceberg. After a thorough examination, it was proven that the dents on the iceberg could well have been made by a ship. So the ice block was also damaged.

14. Jack Dawson, the hero of the very film that brought Cameron fame and fortune, is a real character. True, Cameron later assured that he took the name out of thin air and that it was a coincidence. However, the real Jack Dawson was a coal miner on the Titanic. True, he was in love not with green-eyed Kate Winslet (she had not yet been born), but with the sister of his friend, who persuaded him to become a sailor. In the end, everyone died, of course.

15. Legends are still told about the Titanic. For example, lovers of mysticism point out that in 1898 the writer Morgan Robertson wrote the novel “Vanity” - about a huge transatlantic liner and its smug passengers. A lot of things coincide in the story: the name of the ship is “Titan” and even the collision with an iceberg on a cold April night.

16. Another legend says that once every six years radio operators catch a ghost SOS signal from the Titanic on the air. This was first stated by the crew of the battleship Theodore Roosevelt in 1972. The radio operator delved into the archives and found notes from his colleagues that they too had received strange radio messages allegedly from the Titanic: in 1924, 1930, 1936 and 1942. In April 1996, the Canadian ship Quebec received an SOS signal from the Titanic.

17. Although official version says that the Titanic sank an iceberg, but not everyone believes it. For example, some claimed that the Titanic was sunk by a German torpedo fired by employees of the company that built the liner to collect insurance. However, this sounds unconvincing, considering how many company employees died on April 14, 1912.

18. Titanic wasn't the only one large airliner White Star Line company. The Olympic ship began construction at the same time as the Titanic. In 1911, when embarking on its 11th voyage, the Olympic collided with the English cruiser Hawk. The latter miraculously remained afloat, while the Olympic escaped with minor damage.

19. The younger brother of the Titanic, the ship Britannic, was supposed to be named Gigantic, but after the crash of the first liner, the builders decided to moderate their ambitions. The Britannic was the most comfortable of the three ships: it had two hair salons, a children's playroom, and a gym for second-class passengers. Unfortunately, passengers did not have time to appreciate the advantages of the new liner. After the outbreak of war, she was converted into a hospital ship and soon hit a mine near Greece. True, most of the people on board were saved.

20. The last of the Titanic passengers died in 2009 at the age of 97. At the time of the shipwreck she was 2.5 months old.

At the time of construction, the Titanic was considered the largest passenger liner in the world. On the maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 14, 1912. The Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 1,316 passengers and 908 crew members on board, for a total of 2,224 people. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died.

Scientists have managed to recreate the most full map site of the Titanic tragedy. 130 thousand photographs taken by robots in the depths were used Atlantic Ocean. The map shows wreckage and belongings scattered over 15 square miles.

The remains of the Titanic were found on September 1, 1985, 13 miles from the place where, according to preliminary information, it sank at a depth of 3,800 m.


Because the stern and bow parts of the ship did not sink at the same time and now lie 1,970 feet apart, the area around 3-5 miles is littered with wreckage from the ship.

A detailed image could shed light on what happened after the 'unsinkable' liner hit an iceberg and sank.

“If we want to explore the site of the Titanic through the testimony of those who survived, we must understand the nature and physical condition of what still lies at the bottom,” said David Gallo, leader of the expedition to investigate the sinking of the ship.

This is not the first time a disaster site has been mapped. The first attempts began shortly after the sunken liner was discovered. The researchers used photographs taken by remotely operated cameras that did not venture far from the bow and stern.

Thus, all previous maps are incomplete and cover only fragments of the disaster area.

Creation of a detailed map of the wreck began in the summer of 2010 as part of a project aimed at "virtually recreating" the Titanic "and preserving its legacy for all time."

During the expedition, autonomous underwater vehicles surveyed the available surface using side-scan sonars. The wreckage was then secured vehicles remote control equipped with cameras.

Resulting in 130,000 photos high resolution were collected on a computer to represent detailed map"Titanic" and the surrounding seabed.

“The images are amazing. There you are on the ocean floor and move around the seabed. Even Titanic survivors look at it with their jaws dropped, Gallo said.

The new data will be described in detail in a two-hour documentary film on the History channel on April 15, exactly 100 years after the sinking of the Titanic.

During the show, thanks to computer simulation, an immersive experience will be reproduced. reverse direction. In the virtual hangar, the remains of the Titanic will be raised to the surface and assembled into a ship.

Particular attention was paid to the piles of debris. Oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US state of Massachusetts and the American meteorological service NOAA provided support to the researchers. Now the History Channel television company will present the results to the public.

Now computer simulations, based on photographs, are expected to show the exact course of events during this historic disaster. Perhaps new data will be obtained about defects in the design of this huge ship, which was considered a miracle of technology





Titanic - the ship that challenged higher powers. A miracle of shipbuilding and the most big ship of its time. The builders and owners of this giant passenger fleet arrogantly declared: “The Lord God himself cannot sink this ship.” However, the launched ship went on its maiden voyage and did not return. It was one of the largest disasters, forever etched in the history of navigation. In this topic I will talk about the most key points related to the Titanic. The topic consists of two parts, the first part is the history of the Titanic before the tragedy, where I will tell you about how the ship was built and went on its fateful voyage. In the second part we will visit the bottom of the ocean, where the remains of a drowned giant lie.

First, I will briefly talk about the history of the Titanic's structure. There are a lot interesting photos ship, which depicts the construction process, mechanisms and assemblies of the Titanic, etc. And then the story will tell about the tragic circumstances that were destined to happen on this fateful day for the Titanic. As always happens when major disasters, the Titanic tragedy occurred due to a series of mistakes that coincided on one day. Each of these mistakes individually would not have entailed anything serious, but all together they resulted in death for the ship.

Titanic was laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Belfast, Northern Ireland, launched on May 31, 1911, passed sea trials on April 2, 1912. The ship's unsinkability was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally watertight compartments; the space between the bottom and the second bottom flooring was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 waterproof compartments. The first photo shows the Titanic slipway, construction is just beginning.


The photo shows the laying of the Titanic's keel

In this photo, the Titanic is on the slipway next to the Olympic, its twin brother


And these are the huge steam engines of the Titanic

Giant crankshaft

This photo shows the turbine rotor of the Titanic. The huge size of the rotor stands out especially against the background of the working

Titanic propeller shaft

Ceremonial photo - the Titanic hull is completely assembled

The launching process begins. The Titanic slowly sinks its hull into the water

The giant ship almost left the slipway

Titanic's launch is successful

And now the Titanic is ready, the morning before the first official launching in Belfast

The Titanic was officially launched and transported to England. The photo shows the ship in the port of Southampton before its fateful voyage. Few people know, but during the construction of the Titanic, 8 workers died. This information is available in a selection of interesting facts about the Titanic.

This is the last photograph of the Titanic taken from the shore in Ireland.

The first days of the voyage were successful for the ship, nothing foreshadowed trouble, the ocean was completely calm. On the night of April 14, the sea remained calm, but icebergs were visible in some places in the sailing area. They did not embarrass Captain Smith... At 11:40 in the evening, a cry was suddenly heard from the observation post on the mast: “There’s an iceberg right ahead!”... Oh further events what happened on the ship is known to everyone. The “unsinkable” Titanic failed to resist water element and went to the bottom. As already mentioned, many factors turned against the Titanic that day. It was fatal bad luck that killed the giant ship and more than 1,500 people

The official conclusion of the commission investigating the causes of the sinking of the Titanic stated: the steel used to sheath the hull of the Titanic was of low quality, with a large admixture of sulfur, which made it very brittle at low temperatures. If the casing were made of high-quality, tough steel with a low sulfur content, it would significantly soften the force of the impact. The metal sheets would simply bend inward and the damage to the body would not be so serious. Perhaps then the Titanic would have been saved, or at least would have remained afloat for a long time. However, for those times this steel was considered the best; there was simply no other. This was only the final conclusion; in fact, a number of other factors occurred that did not allow us to avoid a collision with the iceberg

Let us list in order all the factors that influenced the sinking of the Titanic. The absence of any of these factors could save the ship...

First of all, it is worth noting the work of the Titanic radio operators: the main task of the telegraph operators was to serve especially wealthy passengers - it is known that in just 36 hours of work, the radio operators transmitted more than 250 telegrams. Payment for telegraph services was made on the spot, in the radio room, and at that time it was quite large, and tips flowed like a river. Radio operators were constantly busy sending telegrams, and although they received several messages about drifting ice, they did not pay attention to them

Some criticize the lookout's lack of binoculars. The reason for this lies in the tiny key to the binoculars box. A tiny key that opened the cabinet where binoculars were stored could have saved the Titanic and the lives of 1522 dead passengers. This should have happened if not for the fatal mistake of a certain David Blair. Keyman Blair was transferred from service on the “unsinkable” liner just a few days before the ill-fated voyage, but he forgot to give the key to the binocular locker to the employee who replaced him. That is why the sailors on duty at the observation tower of the liner had to rely solely on their eyes. They saw the iceberg too late. One of the crew members on watch that fateful night later said that if they had binoculars, they would have seen the ice block earlier (even if it was pitch black) and the Titanic would have had time to change course.”


Despite warnings about icebergs, the captain of the Titanic did not slow down or change the route, so confident was he that the ship was unsinkable. The speed of the ship was too high, due to which the iceberg hit the hull with maximum force. If the captain had ordered the ship's speed to be reduced in advance, upon entering the iceberg belt, then the force of the impact on the iceberg would not have been enough to break through the Titanic's hull. The captain also did not make sure that all the boats were filled with people. As a result, far fewer people were saved

The iceberg belonged to a rare type of so-called. “black icebergs” (overturned so that their dark underwater part reaches the surface), which is why it was noticed too late. The night was windless and moonless, otherwise the lookouts would have noticed the whitecaps around the iceberg. The photo shows the same iceberg that caused the sinking of the Titanic.

There were no red rescue flares on the ship to signal distress. Confidence in the ship's power was so high that no one even thought of equipping the Titanic with these missiles. But everything could have turned out differently. Less than half an hour after meeting the iceberg, the captain’s mate shouted:
Lights on port side, sir! The ship is five or six miles away! Boxhall clearly saw through his binoculars that it was a single-tube steamer. He tried to contact him using a signal lamp, but the unknown vessel did not respond. “Apparently, there is no radiotelegraph on the ship, they could not help but see us,” Captain Smith decided and ordered helmsman Rowe to signal with emergency flares. When the signalman opened the box with the missiles, both Boxhall and Rowe were dumbfounded: the box contained ordinary white missiles, not emergency red ones. “Sir,” Boxhall exclaimed in disbelief, “there are only white rockets here!” - Can't be! - Captain Smith was amazed. But, convinced that Boxhall was right, he ordered: “Shoot the whites.” Maybe they'll realize we're in trouble. But no one guessed, everyone thought it was a fireworks display on the Titanic

The cargo-passenger steamer California, on a London-Boston flight, missed the Titanic on the evening of April 14, and a little over an hour later it was covered in ice and lost speed. Its radio operator Evans contacted the Titanic at about 11 p.m. and wanted to warn about the difficult ice conditions and that they were covered in ice, but the Titanic’s radio operator Philippe, who had just had difficulty establishing contact with Cape Race, rudely interrupted him: “Leave me alone!” I'm busy working with Cape Race! And Evans “fell behind”: there was no second radio operator on the California, it was a difficult day, and Evans officially closed the radio watch at 23:30, having previously reported this to the captain. As a result, all the blame for the biased investigation into the sinking of the Titanic fell on the captain of the California, Stanley Lord, who proved his innocence until his death. He was acquitted only posthumously after Hendrik Ness, captain of the ship Samson, testified...


On the map the place where the Titanic sank

So, the night of April 14-15, 1912. Atlantic. On board the fishing vessel "Samson". "Samson" returns from a successful fishing trip, avoiding encounters with US ships. On board are several hundred slaughtered seals. The tired crew rested. The watch was kept by the captain himself and his first mate. Captain Ness was in good standing with his owners. The voyages of his ship were always successful and brought good profits. Hendrik Ness was known as an experienced and risk-taking captain, not too scrupulous about violating territorial waters or exceeding the number of animals killed. “Samson” often found himself in foreign or forbidden waters, and he was well known to US Coast Guard ships, with whom he successfully avoided close acquaintance. In a word, Hendrik Ness was an excellent navigator and a gambling, successful businessman. Here are the words of Ness, from which the whole picture of what is happening becomes clear:

“The night was amazing, starry, clear, the ocean was calm and gentle,” Ness said. “The assistant and I chatted, smoked, sometimes I went out of the control room onto the bridge, but I didn’t stay there for long - the air was absolutely freezing.” Suddenly, accidentally turning around, I saw two unusually bright stars in the southern part of the horizon. They surprised me with their brilliance and size. Shouting to the watchman to hand over the telescope, I pointed it at these stars and immediately realized that these were the masthead lights of a large ship. “Captain, I think this is a coast guard ship,” the mate said. But I thought about it myself. There was no time to figure it out on the map, but we both decided that we had entered the territorial waters of the United States. The meeting with their ships did not bode well for us. A few minutes later, a white rocket flew over the horizon, and we realized that we had been discovered and were being asked to stop. I still hoped that everything would work out and we would be able to escape. But soon another rocket took off, and after some time a third... Things turned out badly: if we had been searched, I would have lost not only all the loot, but also, possibly, the ship, and we would all have gone to prison. I decided to leave.

He ordered to turn off all the lights and give full speed. For some reason we were not followed. After some time, the border ship disappeared altogether. (This is why witnesses from the Titanic claimed that they clearly saw a large steamer in the distance, leaving them. The ill-fated California at that time was sandwiched in ice and was not visible from the Titanic at all.) I ordered a change of course to the north, we were going at full speed and only slowed down in the morning. On the twenty-fifth of April we dropped anchor off Reykjavik in Iceland and only then did we learn about the Titanic tragedy from newspapers delivered by the Norwegian consul.

During the conversation with the consul, it was as if I had been hit on the head: I thought: weren’t we at the scene of the disaster then? As soon as the consul left our board, I immediately rushed to the cabin and, looking through the newspapers and my notes, realized that the dying people saw us not as the Californian, but as us. This means that it was us who were called to help with rockets. But they were white, not red, emergency ones. Who would have thought that people were dying very close to us, and we were leaving them at full speed on our reliable and large “Samson”, which had both boats and boats on board! And the sea was like a pond, quiet, calm... We could save them all! Everyone! Hundreds of people died there, and we saved stinking seal skins! But who could know about this? But we didn’t have a radiotelegraph. On the way to Norway, I explained to the crew what happened to us and warned that all of us had only one thing left to do - remain silent! If they find out the truth, we will become worse than lepers: everyone will shy away from us, we will be kicked out of the fleet, no one will want to serve with us on the same ship, no one will give us a hand or a crust of bread. And none of the team took any oath.

Hendrik Ness spoke about what happened only 50 years later, before his death. However, no one can be directly blamed for the sinking of the Titanic. If the rockets had been red, he would certainly have rushed to help. In the end, no one had time to help. Only the steamer "Carpathia", developing an unprecedented speed of 17 knots, rushed to the aid of the dying people. Captain Arthur H. Roston ordered the preparation of beds, spare clothing, food, and quarters for the rescued. At 2 hours 45 minutes, “Carpathia” began to encounter icebergs and their fragments, large ice fields. Despite the danger of a collision, the Carpathia did not slow down. At 3 hours 50 minutes on the Carpathia they saw the first boat from the Titanic, at 4 hours 10 minutes they began to save people, and by 8 hours 30 minutes the last living person was picked up. In total, Carpathia saved 705 people. And “Carpathia” delivered all those rescued to New York. The photo shows a boat from the Titanic


Now let's move on to the second part of the story. Here you will see the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean in the form in which it remained after the tragedy. For seventy-three years the ship lay in its deep underwater grave as one of the countless evidence of human carelessness. The word "Titanic" has become synonymous with adventures doomed to failure, heroism, cowardice, shock and adventure. Societies and associations of surviving passengers were created. Entrepreneurs involved in the recovery of sunken ships dreamed of raising a superliner with all its countless riches. In 1985, a team of divers led by American oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard found it, and the world learned that under the enormous pressure of the water column giant ship fell apart into three parts. The wreckage of the Titanic was scattered over an area with a radius of 1600 meters. Ballard found bow ship, penetrating deep into the ground under its own weight. Eight hundred meters away from her lay the stern. Nearby were the ruins of the middle part of the hull. Among the wreckage of the ship, various objects of material culture of that distant time were scattered throughout the bottom: a set of kitchen utensils made of copper, wine bottles with corks, coffee cups with the emblem of the White Star shipping line, toiletries, door handles, candelabra, kitchen stoves and ceramic heads dolls with which small children played... One of the most stunning underwater images that Dr. Ballard's movie camera captured was a broken sloop beam hanging limply from the side of the ship - a silent witness to a tragic night that will forever remain on the list of world disasters. The photo shows the wreck of the Titanic, taken by the Mir submersible

Over the past 19 years, the hull of the Titanic has undergone serious destruction, the reason for which was not sea water at all, but souvenir hunters who are gradually plundering the remains of the liner. For example, the ship’s bell or mast lighthouse disappeared from the ship. In addition to direct plunder, damage to the ship is caused by time and the action of bacteria, leaving behind only rusty ruins

In this photo we see the Titanic's propeller

Huge ship anchor

One of the Titanic's piston engines

Preserved underwater cup from the Titanic

This is the same hole that formed after the encounter with the iceberg. Perhaps, in addition to weak steel, the rivets between the sheets of metal failed, and water poured into 4 compartments of the Titanic, leaving no chance of salvation. There was no point in pumping water out; it was equivalent to pumping water from ocean to ocean. The Titanic sank to the bottom, where it rests to this day. There is talk of raising the Titanic to the surface in order to set up a museum, meanwhile various souvenir lovers continue to take the ship apart piece by piece. How many more secrets does the Titanic keep? It is unlikely that anyone will answer this question in the near future.

100 years ago, on the night of April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic liner sank, carrying more than 2,200 people.

Titanic is the largest passenger ship of the early 20th century, the second of three twin steamships produced by the British company White Star Line.

The length of the Titanic was 260 meters, width - 28 meters, displacement - 52 thousand tons, height from the waterline to the boat deck - 19 meters, distance from the keel to the top of the pipe - 55 meters, maximum speed - 23 knots. Journalists compared it in length to three city blocks, and in height to an 11-story building.

The Titanic had eight steel decks, located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 meters. To ensure safety, the ship had a double bottom, and its hull was separated by 16 waterproof compartments. Watertight bulkheads rose from the second bottom to the deck. The ship's chief designer, Thomas Andrews, stated that even if four of the 16 compartments were filled with water, the liner would be able to continue its journey.

The interiors of the cabins on decks B and C were designed in 11 styles. Third class passengers on decks E and F were separated from first and second class by gates located in different parts of the ship.

Before the Titanic set out on its first and last voyage, it was especially emphasized that there would be 10 millionaires on board the ship on its first voyage, and in its safes there would be gold and jewelry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. American industrialist, heir to a mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim, millionaire with his young wife, assistant to US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft Major Archibald Willingham Butt, US Congressman Isidore Strauss, actress Dorothy Gibson, wealthy public figure Margaret Brown, British fashion designer Lucy Christiane Duff Gordon and many other famous and wealthy people of that time.

On April 10, 1912, at noon, the Titanic superliner set off on its only journey along the route Southampton (Great Britain) - New York (USA), with stops in Cherbourg (France) and Queenstown (Ireland).

During the four days' journey the weather was clear and the sea was calm.

On April 14, 1912, on the fifth day of the voyage, several ships sent reports of icebergs in the area of ​​the ship's route. The radio was broken for most of the day, and many messages were not noticed by the radio operators, and the captain did not pay due attention to others.

By evening, the temperature began to drop, reaching zero Celsius by 10 p.m.

At 23:00, a message was received from the Californian about the presence of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator interrupted the radio exchange before the Californian had time to report the coordinates of the area: the telegraph operator was busy sending personal messages to passengers.

At 23:39, two lookouts noticed an iceberg in front of the liner and reported it by telephone to the bridge. The most senior of the officers, William Murdoch, gave the command to the helmsman: “Rudder to port.”

At 23:40 "Titanic" in the underwater part of the ship. Of the ship's 16 watertight compartments, six were cut through.

At 00:00 on April 15, Titanic designer Thomas Andrews was called to the bridge to assess the severity of the damage. After reporting the incident and inspecting the ship, Andrews informed everyone present that the liner would inevitably sink.

There was a noticeable tilt on the ship's bow. Captain Smith ordered the lifeboats to be uncovered and the crew and passengers to be summoned for evacuation.

By order of the captain, the radio operators began sending distress signals, which they transmitted for two hours, until the captain relieved the telegraph operators of their duties a few minutes before the sinking of the ship.

Distress signals, but they were too far from the Titanic.

At 00:25, the coordinates of the Titanic were taken by the ship Carpathia, which was located at a distance of 58 from the site of the wreck of the liner. nautical miles, which was 93 kilometers. ordered to immediately head to the site of the Titanic disaster. Rushing to help, the ship was able to reach a record speed of 17.5 knots - with the maximum possible speed for the ship being 14 knots. To do this, Rostron ordered to turn off all appliances that consume electricity and heating.

At 01:30 the operator of the Titanic telegraphed: “We are in small boats.” By order of Captain Smith, his assistant, Charles Lightoller, who led the rescue of people on the left side of the liner, put only women and children in the boats. The men, according to the captain, were supposed to remain on deck until all the women were in the boats. First mate William Murdoch on the starboard side to the men if there were no women or children in the line of passengers gathering on deck.

At about 02:15, the Titanic's bow dropped sharply, the ship moved forward significantly, and a huge wave rolled across the decks, washing many passengers overboard.

At about 02:20 minutes the Titanic sank.

At about 04:00 in the morning, approximately three and a half hours after receiving the distress signal, the Carpathia arrived at the site of the Titanic's wreck. The ship took on board 712 passengers and crew members of the Titanic, after which it arrived safely in New York. Among those rescued were 189 crew members, 129 male passengers and 394 women and children.

The death toll, according to various sources, ranged from 1,400 to 1,517 people. According to official data, after the disaster, 60% of passengers were in first class cabins, 44% in second class cabins, 25% in third class.

The last surviving passenger of the Titanic, who traveled on board the liner at the age of nine weeks, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97. The woman's ashes were scattered over the sea from the pier in the port of Southampton, from where the Titanic set off on its last voyage in 1912.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

 

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