- [Narrator] The turn of the 20th century
saw a golden age of industry and prosperity
in many Western countries.
One aspect of this era came to epitomize its grandeur
and ultimately its downfall, the Titanic.
Commissioned by the British shipping company,
White Star Line, the Titanic was created to satiate
demand for luxury travel between Europe and North America.
The ship's construction began in March 1909
in Belfast, Ireland.
By the time it was sent to England for provisions,
Titanic was one of the largest ships of its time.
It was about 92 feet wide and 882.5 feet long,
the length of nearly three football fields.
With a height of about 175 feet, the ship above water
was taller than most buildings.
The Titanic also included new safety features
such as 16 compartments designed to prevent
the hull from flooding.
This caused many to believe that the ship was unsinkable.
Such confidence led to the unfortunate decision
to cut the number of lifeboats on board in half
in order to make the deck look clean and elegant.
On April 10, 1912, Titanic left port in Southampton, England
and embarked on its first and last voyage.
It first stopped over in France and Ireland
and by the time it set out on a long stretch of sea
toward New York City, it had about 2,200 people on board.
Unbeknownst to all, misfortune would arise
just a few days into their voyage.
On April 14 at approximately 9:40 and 10:55 p.m.
Warnings were send to the Titanic's radio operators
of ice fields but they were never relayed to the bridge.
At about 11:40 p.m. nearly 500 miles off the coast
of Newfoundland, Canada, lookout crew on the Titanic
spotted an iceberg in the ship's path and sent word
to the bridge, but it was too late.
The iceberg grazed the right side of the ship
causing its compartments, originally deemed watertight,
to fill with water.
Titanic's radio operators
began sending out distress signals.
At 12:20 a.m. one signal reached the ship Carpathia
which began making its way to the Titanic
at maximum speed.
Around the same time, crew began loading women and children
into the few lifeboats on board.
In addition to the shortage of lifeboats,
some of the ones used were not being filled to capacity
stranding even more people on the sinking ship.
For the next two hours, the front compartments
of the Titanic filled with water causing the bow to sink
and the stern to rise out of the water.
At around 2:18 a.m., the ship snapped into two.
The bow sank first followed by the stern
a couple minutes later.
Those who went down with the ship were left
in the freezing waters.
Over an hour later, at about 3:30 a.m.,
the Carpathia arrived to pick up passengers.
Of the 2,200 people on the Titanic, only 705 survived.
Soon after the disaster, both the United States
and Great Britain conducted investigations
and developed new safety measures for ships.
They required ships to maintain a 24-hour radio watch
and have enough lifeboats for all on board.
They also helped establish the International Ice Patrol
which monitors icebergs in the North Atlantic
and warn ships of potential dangers.
For decades Titanic was lost to the sea
existing only as a ghost from a decadent past.
In 1985, nearly 75 years after the ship sank
a team led by National Geographic explorer-at-large,
Bob Ballard, discovered the shipwreck
off the coast of Canada.
Little by little scientists have reconstructed the ship
and its encounter with the iceberg giving us
a better understanding of what exactly happened
on that fateful day.