The Titanic Sank in the Early Hours
On this day · 15 April 1912
The unsinkable ship went down in under three hours after a midnight iceberg strike, taking over 1,500 lives.
On its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. The largest passenger ship yet built, it was widely called unsinkable. It was not.
The liner sank less than three hours later, in the early hours of April 15, 1912. Of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew aboard, around 1,500 died, many in the freezing water near minus 2 degrees Celsius. The ship carried only 20 lifeboats, built for about 1,178 people, far fewer than the number on board.
Perhaps no other maritime disaster stirs our collective memory more.
The catastrophe triggered U.S. Senate and British inquiries and reshaped maritime safety law, including lifeboat requirements for all passengers. The wreck lay undiscovered until 1985, roughly 2.5 miles beneath the surface off Newfoundland.
Sources & references
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