▪ Work began on The Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic in 1909

▪ It was ordered by the White Start Line

▪ It was one of three Olympic class ocean liners

▪ The RMS Olympic was made first, the RMS Titanic second and the last was HMHS Britannic

▪ At the time, they were the biggest, fastest and most luxurious ships in service

▪ The ships were constructed by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland

▪ Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches or 269.06 m long and 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 m) wide

▪ She was 104 feet (32 m) tall – just over 10 stories!

▪ The three Olympic vessels had ten decks. Passengers were allowed on eight of these desks

▪ Titanic had three main engines and one electricity generating station

▪ Each engine was vented into one of the four large stacks on the top deck.

▪ The forth stack was mostly decorative, although it did act as a vent for the kitchens

▪ The Olympic class vessels were outfitted with new technology that made them “unsinkable”

▪ The interior of the ships were divided into 16 compartments. 11 of these were watertight.

▪ In the event of an emergency, the bulkheads would close and create a seal

▪ The ship was able to house:▪ 833 passengers in first class

▪ 614 passengers in second class

▪ 1006 passengers in third class

▪ 1094 crew members

▪ At the time of the sinking, the Titanic was at full capacity with approximately 3,547 people on board

▪ The Titanic was outfitted with many modern amenities

▪ The first class passengers has access to:▪ A saltwater pool

▪ Gymnasium

▪ Squash Court

▪ Steam Room

▪ Massage room

▪ And so much more!

▪ There were also many restaurants and serveries for each class

▪ One of the most distinct features was the Grand Staircase

▪Previously, third class passengers were housed in open berth sleeping arrangements

▪The Olympic Class vessels featured cabins for the third class passengers.

▪There were cabins that could sleep between two and ten passengers

▪ The Titanic set sail with a total of 20 lifeboats

▪ These lifeboats had a total capacity of 1,178

▪ This was about one third of the total number of passengers on the ship

▪ The Titanic had more lifeboats then the regulations required

▪ At the time, lifeboats were primarily used for transporting people from one ship to another

▪Titanic’s maiden voyage began on April 10 1912

▪Passengers boarded in England, France and Ireland

▪Titanic then set sail for New York

▪On April 14th, The Titanic was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

▪The night was clear and cold

▪Just before midnight, the watchman spotted something on the right hand side of the ship

▪ It was too late for the boat to adjust course

▪Titanic struck the iceberg on the right side

▪The hull was not actually punctured

▪The iceberg had dented the hull in such a way that hull’s seams buckled and separated

▪This affected five of the watertight compartments

▪Titanic was unable to survive more then four of the watertight comparts flooding

▪Most of the passengers and crew felt the collision with the iceberg

▪ Just after midnight on April 15th, Captain Edward J Smith ordered the ship be abandoned

▪ He also started sending out distress calls

▪ The distress calls said that the boat was 25 km away from where it actually was

▪ The stewards began going door to door in an attempt to wake up the passengers and crew as the Titanic did not have a PA system

▪ The stewards went to every cabin in first class, but there were far more people in the lower two classes.

▪ No one told the passengers that the ship was sinking

▪ Passengers were resistant to believing anything was wrong as the Titanic was thought to be unsinkable

▪Many passengers thought the warnings were a joke and played soccer with the ice chunks on deck

▪As water was filling the boiler rooms, it was incredibly loud on the upper deck

▪This made the emergency instructions extremely hard to hear

▪The crew had not done any lifeboat or emergency protocol review since the Titanic had left England

▪They were dangerously unorganized and unsure of what to do in an emergency

▪Because the crew was unprepared, the lifeboats were poorly loaded.

▪ If loaded properly, an extra 500 people could have been loaded onto the boats

▪They were loaded “Women and Children First”

▪There were many injuries as the lifeboats were loaded

▪ The RMS Carpathia, and the SS Mount Temple were two of the ships that responded to the distress call.

▪ The Carpathia was a very slow ship and would have taken over four hours to respond

▪ The Mount Temple set out for the Titanic, but was stop by the ice pack

▪ The SS Californian was much closer and would have been able to help, however the radio operator had gone to bed 15 prior to the Titanic’s distress call

▪ The captain of the Californian also ignored reports of the distress flares

▪As it became more obvious that the boat was sinking and that there would not be enough lifeboats for everyone, people began to cope in various ways

▪ Ida and Isidor Straus, co-owners of Macy’s, sat down on deck chairs together after Ida refused to board a life boat “Where you go, I go”

▪Benjamin Guggenheim, an American Businessman, changed out of his life vest and sweater into his top hat and evening wear and declared he would go down with the ship like a gentleman

▪ Very few third class passengers had made it to the upper decks

▪ Many were lost in the maze of hallways and passages to the deck

▪ There is also speculation that the crew actively hindered the lower classes chance for escape in order to prevent them from rushing the lifeboats

▪ The lifeboats continued to be filled to partial capacity

▪ There were issues in launching the lifeboats

▪ One was flooded and two were almost launched on top of each other

▪The Titanic had two bands that remained on board and played until the last moments

▪ It is rumoured that they played “Nearer, My God, To Thee” but there are reports from survivors that both conflict with and support this

▪There were still approximately 1500 people left on board after all the lifeboats were launched

▪The sinking of the Titanic took approximately two hours and forty minutes from the initial collision

▪The lights flickered a few times before going dark for the final time as the boat disappeared into the ocean

▪ As the Titanic disappeared into the water, people were left in the water

▪ The water was -2 degrees Celsius

▪ At this temperature, most victims died from reactions to the freezing water within 15-30 minutes

▪ Only 13 people were helped into lifeboats even though there were 500 available seats

▪ The survivours debated whether or not to return to site of the sinking to help those in the water, but almost all decided against this for fear of the boats being overrun.

▪The survivors of the sinking of the Titanic were rescued around 4 am on April 15th

▪The RMS Carpathia was the first boat to arrive to and help the survivors

▪As the water become rough overnight, not all who boarded the lifeboats survived the night

▪Over all, approximately 1500 people died that night

▪Only 1 in 5 bodies were recovered

▪The majority of the recovered bodies were buried in one of three cemeteries in Halifax

▪The wreck of the Titanic was rediscovered in 1985

▪This was 71 years after it sank

▪The expedition was led by Robert Ballard

▪They used an underwater craft named the Argo

▪ It has cameras that recorded the ocean floor and sent the data to the ship

▪The Titanic was found near the end of the expedition

▪Ballard left everything the way he found it, but added an in memorial plaque for those who lost their life

▪Recommendations were made to carry more lifeboats, preform more lifeboat drills etc

▪These were included in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in 1914

▪Titanic has gone down in history of the Sinking of the Unsinkable

▪Since the sinking, there has been numerous works of fictions and nonfiction centering around this event

▪There was also a large amount of memorabilia ranging from postcards to candy to teddy bears

▪The first historically accurate book was published in 1955 – A Night to Remember

▪The first film was released only 29 days after the sinking

▪James Cameron’s 1997 move Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was the highest grossing movie of all time to that point

▪There have been several attempts to replicate the Titanic

▪ In 2012, The Titanic II was announced by an Australian Businessman

▪ In 2014, construction began on a Titanic replica to be featured at a resort

▪There is a prominent conspiracy theory that the Titanic never sank

▪Fact: A ship truly did sink that night and some 1500 people died

▪The potential twist? It was not the Titanic. It was the Titanic’s sister ship – The Olympic

▪Why? An insurance scam gone terribly wrong

▪White Star Line had a fierce competition with Cunard Steamship

▪Cunard was beating them at every turn with ships like the Lusitania and Mauretania

▪White Star Lines rushed into building the Olympic

▪On the Olympics' maiden voyage, she crashed into a naval ship

▪This crash was not covered by insurance and the company was already over extended building the second switch

▪Here is where the conspiracy happens

▪ It is suggested the White Star Lines switched the ships so that they could claim the Olympics’ damaged against the Titanic’s multi-million dollar insurance policy

▪ Supporters of this theory point to “evidence” like the lack of public examination during construction and the number of portholes

▪ Those who do not support the theory point to the Titanic’s well marketed and unique café and restaurant

▪ There are also difference in the steel plates near the two ships’ engines

▪ It is not likely that the conspiracy theory holds up