The Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic
On this day · 14 April 1912
Near midnight on April 14, 1912, the Titanic grazed an iceberg and foundered hours later, killing roughly 1,500 people.
On the night of April 14, 1912, the passenger liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The collision came at about 11:40 p.m.; the berg scraped along the starboard hull below the waterline, breaching enough watertight compartments to doom the ship.
Within two hours and forty minutes the supposedly unsinkable vessel had foundered, slipping beneath the surface around 2:20 a.m. on April 15. With lifeboats for only about half the roughly 2,200 aboard, evacuation under ‘women and children first’ left many stranded.
Around 1,500 people died, most in water near freezing, around minus two degrees Celsius.
The catastrophe reshaped maritime law, prompting the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, which still governs ships today. The wreck lay undiscovered until 1985.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
