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Portrait of The sinking of the Titanic

History · The 20th century

The sinking of the Titanic

14–15 April 1912

Maritime disaster — the White Star liner lost on her maiden voyage

On the night of 14 April 1912 the White Star Line's newest liner, four days out of Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic about 400 miles south of Newfoundland. The collision opened her starboard side along five or six forward compartments, one more than she could survive, and she sank in two hours and forty minutes in the early hours of 15 April. Of roughly 2,224 people on board about 1,500 died, most of them because the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 and many were launched half-empty. The Cunard liner Carpathia reached the scene about ninety minutes after the sinking and picked up around 705 survivors. British and American inquiries followed, and the disaster produced the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and the International Ice Patrol.

How to spot them

  • ▸A maiden voyage from Southampton to New York that ended 400 miles south of Newfoundland
  • ▸Lifeboats for 1,178 people on a ship carrying about 2,224
  • ▸Wireless distress calls of CQD and SOS; the Carpathia answered, the Californian did not
  • ▸The wreck lay undiscovered until 1985, in two pieces on the sea floor
  • ▸Captain Edward Smith went down with his ship; designer Thomas Andrews was also lost

What happened

The collision at 11.40 p.m. with an iceberg sighted only 37 seconds ahead (1912)

Lookout Frederick Fleet rang three bells and telephoned the bridge: 'Iceberg, right ahead'

'Women and children first' on the boat deck (1912)

Second Officer Lightoller's strict reading of the order left boats lowered with empty seats

A ship's band said to have played on as the decks tilted (1912)

Bandmaster Wallace Hartley and all seven musicians died; every account has them playing to the end

The Cunard liner that raced through ice for four hours to pick up 705 survivors (1912)

Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia was later given the Congressional Gold Medal

A nearby ship whose wireless operator had gone to bed, and whose crew watched white rockets (1912)

The Californian, under Captain Stanley Lord, became the great controversy of both inquiries

Robert Ballard's 1985 expedition that found the wreck in two pieces at 12,500 feet (1985)

A joint French–American search using the towed sled Argo, 73 years after the sinking

Quick-fire facts

  • •Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line; she was the second of three Olympic-class liners
  • •Left Southampton on 10 April 1912, calling at Cherbourg and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland
  • •Struck the iceberg at about 11.40 p.m. ship's time on 14 April and sank at about 2.20 a.m. on 15 April
  • •Around 1,500 of the roughly 2,224 people aboard died; survival rates were far higher in first class than in third
  • •Her wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride sent both the older CQD and the newer SOS distress signals
  • •The US Senate inquiry was chaired by Senator William Alden Smith; the British inquiry by Lord Mersey
  • •The disaster led directly to the 1914 Safety of Life at Sea convention and to the International Ice Patrol
  • •Managing director J. Bruce Ismay survived by stepping into a collapsible boat and was pilloried for it
  • •Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel located the wreck on 1 September 1985, about 370 miles from Newfoundland
  • •The 1997 James Cameron film was the first to gross a billion dollars and won eleven Academy Awards

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources