Buzz
For over a century, the tragic saga of the RMS Titanic has captured the world's attention. Still, many key aspects of that fateful night in April remain shrouded in mystery. For instance, . . .
10. The Conditions Were Ideal
It’s easy to imagine the Titanic struggling against towering waves, with fog and rain obscuring the iceberg that sealed her fate. In truth, the conditions were the complete opposite. As the Titanic sailed toward disaster, the weather was unnervingly calm. With no wind or waves, the sea lay still like a perfect mirror, disturbed only by the ship itself as it smoothly moved along. This serene weather may very well have sealed her fate.
Meteorologist Edward Lawrence noted that even a gentle swell could have caused phosphorescent plankton to shift around the iceberg’s edges. These glowing organisms, when disturbed, would have clearly marked the iceberg’s presence for the lookout crew on the Titanic. Charles Lightoller, the ship’s second officer, specifically mentioned the lack of glowing plankton as a contributing factor to the disaster. The calm weather may have also kept the usual temperature fluctuations, which typically signal an approaching iceberg field, from occurring.
By the time the iceberg was finally seen, there was virtually no time left to alter the ship’s course. The 1912 inquiry into the sinking concluded that the Titanic had only 37 seconds to react, though a later assessment suggests it was just over a minute. Regardless, the ship’s fate was sealed. After the disaster, a bitter wind swept in, intensifying the cold for the passengers desperately fighting for survival.
9. The Ship Was Burning the Entire Voyage
Just before the doomed maiden voyage, a fire broke out in the Titanic’s coal bunkers. As uncovered during the British investigation into the disaster, the blaze was still raging as the ship departed for New York, presenting a potential danger to everyone aboard.
Surviving stoker J. Dilley recalled: “We didn’t manage to put that fire out, and there was talk among the stokers that we’d have to empty the massive coal bunkers once we dropped the passengers off in New York, then call the fireboats there to help us put out the flames.” This never became necessary, as Dilley stated that the fire was extinguished when the iceberg struck the hull and flooded the bunkers with seawater.
Other crew members insisted that the fire was completely put out the day before the ship collided with the iceberg. In any case, the Titanic had been burning for nearly the entire journey. While this wasn't immediately catastrophic, as the steel bunkers were designed to contain coal fires, it did elevate the voyage's risks. White Star Line's managing director, Bruce Ismay, later claimed that the ship’s owner, J.P. Morgan, pressured the crew to maintain full speed in order to “reach New York and unload all the passengers before the inevitable explosions occurred.” Morgan had initially planned to sail on the Titanic, but withdrew at the last minute.
8. The Prophetic Insight of William T. Stead
In 1886, the famed journalist William T. Stead penned a fictional tale about an Atlantic mail steamer that sank after colliding with an obstacle, with most of the passengers perishing due to a shortage of lifeboats. Stead wrote the story to highlight the inadequate maritime regulations of the time, which typically did not mandate that ships carry enough lifeboats for all passengers.
Stead revisited the subject in 1892, crafting a story centered on the White Star Line’s Majestic liner. In the story’s intense final chapter, the ship is crossing the Atlantic, packed with tourists. Suddenly:
There was a sound as if the steamer were slicing through ice, and the propellers were grinding against ice blocks. Passengers cautiously made their way to the deck. The air was damp, clammy, and bitterly cold. Every half-minute, the foghorn blared. The crashing of ice against the ship’s sides and the clattering of ice under the propellers made it nearly impossible to hear each other. Then a shout rang out: ‘Icebergs on the starboard.’
Two decades later, Stead met his own tragic end as a passenger aboard the Titanic. The ship only had 20 lifeboats, barely enough to accommodate half of the passengers on board.
7. The Captain Failed His Navigation Exam
Edward John Smith, the captain of the Titanic, has become the subject of numerous myths since the tragic night when he went down with his ship. Many believe he personally saved a child’s life before vanishing into the ocean. However, some argue that this heroic image may not tell the full story.
Captain Smith not only disregarded several ice warnings and failed to maintain a safe speed, but he also allowed lifeboats to leave the ship half-empty—the first boat to depart had only 27 passengers in seats meant for 65. Additionally, Smith never issued a clear 'abandon ship' order, leaving many passengers unaware of the dire situation they were facing.
In 2012, it was revealed that Smith had actually failed his navigation exams the first time he took them. Although he passed in 1888, that initial failure may have been a bad omen. Ironically, before the Titanic tragedy, Smith had earned the nickname 'the millionaire’s captain' because of his reputation for reliable and smooth voyages.
6. The Only Japanese Passenger
The only Japanese passenger on board was a middle-aged civil servant named Masabumi Hosono, who had been studying railway systems in Europe before boarding the Titanic to return home. As the ship began to sink, he made his way to the main deck, resolved to face his fate with dignity. With the 'women and children first' rule enforced at gunpoint, his chances of survival seemed slim, but Hosono continued to seek any opportunity for escape.
His opportunity came when a crew member called out that two spots remained in a lifeboat. After seeing another man jump in, Hosono followed. Had he known what awaited him later, he might have chosen to go down with the ship.
At the time, it was considered far more honorable for a man to die than to survive in what was perceived as a disgraceful way. When Hosono returned to Japan, he was labeled a coward and shunned by his community. He was also dismissed from his government post, though he was later reinstated. A series of negative reports about an Asian survivor in lifeboat 13 only worsened his reputation, as they were often linked to Hosono.
In 1997, Hosono's name was partially cleared when his handwritten account of the disaster was discovered among his personal belongings. In a letter to his wife, he revealed that he had been in lifeboat 10, meaning he couldn’t have been the man in lifeboat 13 after all.
5. The Genuine Titanic Necklace
James Cameron’s Titanic portrays a forbidden love story and a stunning necklace, the 'Heart of the Ocean,' which you might think was invented purely for cinematic flair. However, the true Titanic also hosted a nearly identical tale, as passenger Kate Florence Philips received a precious sapphire necklace from her secret lover, Henry Morley.
Morley was a prosperous 40-year-old confectionery shop owner from Worcester, England, while 19-year-old Kate had worked as his counter assistant. Their relationship soon moved beyond the professional realm, with Morley making plans to leave his wife and young daughter to be with Kate. The couple intended to elope aboard the Titanic and begin a new life in California. After the iceberg collision, Kate was rescued in the very last lifeboat, but Morley wasn’t so fortunate.
Exactly nine months following the disaster, Kate gave birth to a daughter named Ellen. In 1989, Ellen's story came to light when she visited the Worcester News office, searching for a photo of her father. The newspaper had previously published an article about the Titanic victims from Worcester, and the 76-year-old Ellen wept as she clutched Henry’s photograph. She also shared her mother's tale, revealing that she still owned Kate’s sapphire necklace and a cabin key from the Titanic.
In 2012, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, Ellen’s granddaughter, Beverley Farmer, and Morley’s great-granddaughter, Deborah Allen, came together for a reunion.
4. Mistakes And Theories
It is widely accepted that the iceberg was the direct cause of the Titanic sinking, but over time, many theories have emerged attempting to explain why the ship struck it in the first place. Immediately after the disaster, investigations in both Britain and the US concluded that the ship had been traveling excessively fast. Had the ship been going slower, the damage could have been mitigated, or perhaps the iceberg could have been avoided altogether. Instead, the collision ruptured six of the ship's compartments, two more than the ship could handle without sinking.
In 2010, Louise Patton, the granddaughter of second officer Charles Lightoller, proposed that the crash could have been avoided altogether if the helmsman, Robert Hitchins, had not panicked and steered in the wrong direction. Patton further claimed that her grandfather conspired to hide this error during the British and American inquiries into the disaster, fearing that revealing the truth would ruin the reputation of the White Star Line and his fellow crew members.
Two astronomers from Texas State University have proposed that a rare event, the occurrence of a supermoon, might have triggered the iceberg's movement. A supermoon happens when the Moon is at its closest approach to Earth while also being in a full moon phase. On January 4, 1912, the Moon came closer to Earth than it had in the previous 1,400 years, making it a particularly unusual event.
This supermoon event occurred just one day after the Earth’s perihelion, the point when Earth is closest to the Sun. To add to the unusual conditions, the Moon and the Sun were in alignment, generating an exceptionally strong tide. These extraordinary astronomical occurrences could have played a role in the Titanic disaster by creating extreme tides that pushed an unusually large number of icebergs into the ship's path.
3. Optical Illusions
As the Titanic sank, several distress signals were sent. A nearby ship, the Californian, appeared to ignore these signals despite multiple distress rockets lighting up the sky. The captain of the Californian was even dismissed from his post over the incident, with some speculating he deliberately overlooked the rockets. However, further research into the tragedy has suggested a more reasonable explanation—light refraction.
On the fateful night of the disaster, the Titanic sailed through a region experiencing thermal inversion, a phenomenon where cold air sits below warmer air. This condition causes light to bend unnaturally, creating illusions or mirages. Historian Tim Maltin points out that multiple ships in the area reported sightings of mirages that night. Maltin believes these unusual conditions could have led to the lookouts failing to spot the iceberg until it was too late.
A similar mirage effect would have prevented the crew of the Californian from accurately recognizing the Titanic‘s distress signals. Maltin’s research, published in 2012, came two decades after the British government had ceased its own investigations into the role of light refraction in the Titanic disaster.
2. The Titanic And The Costa Concordia
The wreck of the Italian liner Costa Concordia has prompted many to draw comparisons with the Titanic disaster. Some survivors of the Concordia claimed that Celine Dion’s iconic theme song was playing in the dining room as the ship crashed into the rocks. Interestingly, both ships met their untimely end roughly a century apart—1912 for the Titanic and 2012 for the Concordia.
There are other parallels between the two disasters. Both ships were poorly christened—the champagne bottle meant to christen the Costa Concordia failed to break upon impact. While there's a popular myth that the same occurred with the Titanic‘s christening, in truth, the Titanic wasn’t christened at all. Both catastrophes were largely attributed to human error, and both vessels shared the same top speed.
Despite these similarities, the legacies of the two captains could not be more different. Captain Smith of the Titanic is widely remembered as a heroic figure who went down with his ship, while Francesco Schettino is infamously known as the captain who made the fatal mistake of abandoning ship before all passengers had been rescued. When Schettino and the second officer left, there were still around 300 passengers aboard the Concordia.
1. Elizabeth Shutes
In the film, the smell of ice did little to prevent the Titanic from meeting its tragic fate. However, in reality, passenger Elizabeth Shutes was so disturbed by the odor of ice that she couldn’t sleep, recalling that it reminded her of an ice cave she had once explored. Fortunately, she survived and went on to write a captivating account of the sinking.
Elizabeth had boarded the Titanic to serve as a governess to 19-year-old Margaret Graham. When the ship initially shook and trembled after the collision, she wasn’t overly worried, confident that the enormous vessel would remain safe. As she settled in her cabin, everything changed with a sudden knock at her door. A friend reported seeing a massive iceberg drift by her window, certain they had collided with it. When Elizabeth inquired with a stewardess and officer, neither provided a clear explanation of the situation.
It wasn’t until the first-class passengers were ushered to the upper deck that Elizabeth fully grasped the severity of their predicament. In her memoir, she recounted that the lifeboat she was placed in carried just 36 people, far fewer than its capacity. At the time, she felt a desire to stay close to the ship, unable to believe such a large vessel could sink. Gradually, however, the Titanic vanished beneath the waves. Just when hope seemed lost, the SS Carpathia arrived, rescuing the survivors and carrying them to safety.
