Goldstein Jack - 101 Amazing Facts about the Titanic

Title Page

101 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE TITANIC

Jack Goldstein & Frankie Taylor

Publisher Information

Published in 2014 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The rights of Jack Goldstein and Frankie Taylor to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright 2014 Jack Goldstein and Frankie Taylor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All information contained within this book have been researched from reputable sources. If any fact is found to be false, please contact the publishers, who will be happy to make corrections for future editions.

Introduction

Do you know how many miles beneath the surface of the waves the wreck of the titanic lies? What do scientists and historians now believe led to the iceberg only being seen at the last minute? The flares that were sent up by the crew were supposed to signal distress - but what did they actually say? All these questions and more are answered in this fascinating eBook which contains over one hundred facts about the ship and her tragic maiden voyage.

Follow Jack Goldstein on Twitter @GoldsteinBooks

Follow Frankie Taylor on Twitter @FrankieTay101

Visit Goldstein Books at www.jackgoldsteinbooks.com

General Facts - Part 1

1. The RMS Titanic was a passenger liner belonging to the White Star Line that sank in the Atlantic ocean after colliding with an iceberg.
2. More than 1500 of the 3327 passengers and crew aboard died in the tragedy.
3. The Titanic, along with her sister ship the Olympic , was designed to compete with the Lusitania and Mauretania , the two most famous ships of White Stars rivals Cunard.
4. She set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton on the 10 th of April 1912. After stopping at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland, she headed west for New York.
5. The ship collided with an iceberg at 11:40pm on the 14 th of April.
6. At 2:20am on the 15 th of April (ships time), she slipped under the waves forever 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
7. at 4:10am, a ship called the Carpathia made it to the scene of devastation to rescue any survivors.
8. The captain of the ship, Edward J Smith, had decided he was to retire after helming her maiden voyage.
9. In the first week after the ships sinking, the New York Times devoted 75 pages of coverage to the story.
10. The RMS in RMS Titanic stands for both Royal Mail Steamer and Royal Merchant Ship.

Facts and Figures - Part 1

1. The Titanic cost $7.5 million to build; thats around $176 million in todays money.
2. It took over 15,000 men to build the ship.
3. Her top speed was 23 knots; thats around 26 miles per hour.
4. The most expensive tickets on the ship cost $4,350 - thats equivalent to around $80,000 in 2014.
5. The Titanic was stocked with 20,000 bottles of beer, 1500 bottles of wine, 850 bottles of spirits and 8000 cigars.
6. Just 25% of the third class passengers survived, compared to 42% of second class and 60% of first class.
7. The Titanic was 269 metres long and 53 metres high at its tallest point.
8. The ship carried 892 crew to service its 2435 passengers.
9. She displaced 52,310 tons.
10. The ship only carried 20 lifeboats which could at maximum carrying capacity still only held around 1178 people.

Safety and Construction

1. Originally, the design for the ship specified 64 lifeboats, however she only carried 20 on her maiden voyage.
2. On the day the Titanic hit the iceberg which sunk her, a lifeboat drill for all passengers and crew was due to take place. For an unknown reason however, the captain cancelled it. Had the drill taken place, it is thought many more lives could have been saved.
3. One of the reasons many lifeboats were nowhere near to carrying their full capacities was that many people were unsure of their operation. Some thought they should only be boarded when in the water, and therefore they were lowered before being full - for example, the very first had a capacity of 65, but only carried 28 people away from the sinking ship.
4. Tragically, according to some first-hand reports, gates which separated the third class passengers from the other classes were kept locked even after the ship had hit the iceberg.
5. Construction of the Titanic began in 1909 and took just two years to complete
6. The naval architect of the ship was Thomas Andrews; he was aboard the ship on her fateful voyage and was lost to the ocean.
7. Cats were often carried aboard ships as they controlled rodents and were thought of by sailors as bringing good luck. There were no cats aboard the Titanic.
8. Not only this, but a bottle of champagne was not broken on the bow of the boat as was general custom.
9. In 1911 Shipbuilder magazine published an article detailing the ships construction, stating that when the watertight doors were closed, the Titanic would be practically unsinkable.
10. Before her maiden voyage, a test was performed to determine the Titanics stopping distance. She was accelerated to 20 knots, then the engines were reversed at full power. It took half a mile for her to come to a halt.

Did You Know?

1. When she was launched, the Titanic was the largest man-made object ever constructed on the whole of the planet
2. One of the most famous fashion designers of the age, Lady Duff Gordon, was accused of attempting to bribe the crew to row away when there were only twelve people in her lifeboat; she was however cleared of the charges.
3. There were twelve dogs aboard the ship, three of which survived - two Pomeranians and a Pekingese.
4. Ida Straus, the wife of Macys department store owner Isidor, reportedly had one foot in a lifeboat when she decided to turn back and die with her husband on the ship.
5. Only one black passenger was reported to be aboard the ship; a Haitian engineer by the name of Joseph Laroche. As with many of his fellow passengers he sadly did not survive the accident.
6. Two people - Second Officer Charles Lightoller and a passenger called Jack Thayer - both wrote books which detailed how they survived the tragedy.
7. On the 100 th anniversary of the event, Robin Gibb performed the debut of his symphonic work The Titanic Requiem, which commemorated the ship, the passengers and her crew.
8. In 2012 a first class lunch menu from the Titanic sold for 76,000.
9. The wreck of the Titanic is currently resting on the sea bed over two miles beneath the surface.
10. Before setting sail, Captain Smith had this to say: When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident... or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.

The Tragedy

1. When the iceberg was spotted, the captain did everything he could to turn the ship around, however it was too late and the hull was breached. Scraping down the side of the ship, six of the watertight compartments were wrenched open and from then she stood no chance. If only four had been opened, the Titanic would not have sunk.