On this day: in history (1912), RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City.
The Titanic was a British passenger liner designed by the Irish shipbuilder William Pirrie and spanned 883 feet from stern to bow. Its hull was divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these compartments could be flooded without causing a critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, which made the sinking possibly one of the deadliest for a single ship up to that time. It remains to this day the deadliest peacetime sinking of a cruise ship.
Just under two hours after Titanic sank, the RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene, and took on board an estimated 710 survivors.RMS Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened. The initial reports were confusing, leading the American press to report erroneously on 15 April that Titanic was being towed to port by the SS Virginian.
The first ship to reach the site of the sinking, the CS Mackay-Bennett, found so many bodies that the embalming supplies aboard were quickly exhausted. Health regulations required that only embalmed bodies could be returned to port. Captain of the Mackay-Bennett and undertakers aboard decided to preserve only the bodies of first-class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates. As a result, many third-class passengers and crew were buried at sea. Larnder identified many of those buried at sea as crew members by their clothing, and stated that as a mariner, he himself would be contented to be buried at sea.
The last living survivor, Millvina Dean, who at only nine weeks old was the youngest passenger on board, died aged 97 on 31 May 2009.
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Created by Okey Obiabunmo
