From deadly bacteria consuming the ship to no reported fatalities, here are 10 things
you didn’t know about the Titanic.
10.
The Titanic Songbook
One of the most enduring stories about what happened in the early morning of April 15th
1912 was that of the band playing on as the Titanic sank.
There were 8 musicians, led by bandmaster Wallace Hartley.
They joined the ship at Southampton and were paid one shilling a month for their trouble.
Sadly none of them survived the disaster.
If you were a member of the band aboard the Titanic, you really had to be on your toes.
You were there to provide constant entertainment for the many fancy passengers and if they
wanted a tune you had better be ready to belt one out!
This involved memorizing the White Star Line songbook.
The White Star Line was also called The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, a British shipping
firm.
We’re not talking a few ditties here.
The book contained a total of….guess!
Guess how many songs!!
352!!
The band operated as a kind of living jukebox for the rich and were quite talented!
9.
The Disaster Was Predicted
A chilling secret about the Titanic is how the disaster was predicted by 2 authors in
the previous century.
They wrote 2 novellas that described situations similar to what occurred that fateful night
in 1912.
Both men aimed to warn readers of the hazards of ocean travel and they proved to be worryingly
correct!
T. Stead wrote ‘How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic, by a Survivor’ in
1886.
Not a catchy title I know!
But the important thing is his depiction of an ocean liner travelling in the fog which
strikes another boat and sinks, causing many deaths.
The really weird thing is Stead ended up as a passenger aboard the Titanic.
Spooky, right?
We’ve heard of life imitating art but that’s just crazy.
Think that sounds incredible?
Well Morgan Robertson had another tale to tell.
He may not have perished on the Titanic but he created a story that mirrored the disaster
in some unbelievable ways.
‘The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility’ from 1898 featured a ship called the Titan,
which was called “unsinkable”, just like the Titanic.
The boat also hit an iceberg in April, the very same month.
Coincidence?
Or excellent prediction??
And now for number 8, but first while many people think the Titanic was the worst ship
disaster in history it is actually ranked 3rd in terms of loss of life.
Can you name the deadliest ship disaster in history?
Write your guess in the comments, the answer is coming up!!
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Right subs?
8.
Japanese Survivor Ridiculed
After surviving a terrible tragedy at sea you’d think people would cut you some slack,
right?
That wasn’t the case for poor Masabumi Hosono, a civil servant from Japan.
He was the only Japanese person on board the Titanic and it turned out the disaster was
just the beginning of his troubles!
Because he had allegedly disguised himself as a woman in order to get on a lifeboat,
he faced shame and abuse when he got back to his home country.
He was seen as a coward and became the focus of what the Japanese call “murahachibu”,
meaning social exclusion.
He lost his job and people even wrote letters asking him to commit suicide for dishonouring
his nation.
They would rather he’d stayed and gone down with the ship!
The government kept employing Hosono for his skills but things were never the same again.
He passed away in 1939 at the age of 68.
7.
Nazi Propaganda
When you think of movies about the Titanic, James Cameron, Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate
Winslet spring to mind, right?
Well there’s someone else you may not know about who made a film about the disaster…
Joseph Goebbels.
Yes, you heard that correctly!
Goebbels the famous Nazi shot a propaganda movie about the Titanic for Hitler.
How is the Titanic a good subject for the Nazi war effort?
Well Goebbels presented the British as villains, obsessed with trying to break the record for
crossing the Atlantic.
In doing so they ignored safety concerns and caused the tragedy because of their arrogance.
Of course, the hero of the whole thing, as you’d expect, was a German crewman.
The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda spent the current equivalent of $180 million on the
project, directed by Herbert Selpin.
Selpin was a notorious drunk and made all manner of demands, including the building
of a giant model ship which was then abandoned.
He was eventually arrested for insulting the regime and was murdered in prison.
Yeah, not a happy ending.
The Nazi version of the ‘Titanic’ was released in 1943 and soon sank without trace,
get it.
In other words it was not a box office hit.
The film was rediscovered in 2005, though snippets were used in the 1958 classic ‘A
Night To Remember’.
So that Nazi money was put to good use for a decent movie instead!
One more score for the allies, Adolf.
6.
People Died Building It
It wasn’t just the passengers on the Titanic who suffered a terrible fate.
Building the ship was also a dangerous business!
A total of 8 men died from things like falling and fracturing their skulls to being crushed
under timbers.
As well as deaths, there were 246 accidents, 28 of which were classed as serious.
The Titanic was constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland over
a period of 2 years between 1909 and 1911.
3,000 men were employed to work on the ship, so while 8 is only a fraction of that number
these are still pretty shocking statistics!
Now the goal for the accident rate is always 0.
In fact there was a horrible saying in the industry that went: “one death for every
£100,000 spent”.
The Titanic cost £1.5m so if anything, the figure of 8 was a lucky escape for the construction
team!
It was expected that 15 of them would’ve died.
There’s a thought that would cheer you up on your way to work, huh?
5.
No Binoculars
One of the most shocking details about the Titanic disaster was the speed at which it
all happened.
The iceberg was only spotted a nerve-shredding 37 seconds before impact.
Could anything have prevented the fatal collision?
Some believe if a pair of binoculars had been at hand, the whole disaster could have been
avoided.
Unfortunately there were some binoculars on board but under lock and key in the crow’s
nest.
The sailor who had the key, David Blair, left the ship and accidentally took it with him.
It’s kind of debatable whether having the binoculars would’ve made any difference
since there was no moon to light the way, among other factors.
The Titanic’s lookout was Fred Fleet and in his defense, he argued that if he’d had
binoculars they wouldn’t have hit the iceberg.
Tragically Fred Fleet committed suicide in 1965 following the death of his wife.
In 2012, the year of the centenary, he made headlines again when some sick puppies stole
wreaths from his graveside and what’s worse, left a pair of binoculars with a note apologizing
for them being a hundred years late!
We know the ship hit an iceberg but man, that’s cold…
4.
No Fatalities Reported
Over 1,500 people lost their lives on the Titanic but when news of the tragedy broke
the reporting was very different.
The American press were closer to the action and relayed the terrible news that many had
died.
However when it came to countries like the UK, they decided to go in another direction.
Because details were sketchy, sources such as the Belfast Telegraph and Daily Mail reported
no fatalities.
That’s right.
The most famous maritime disaster in history and apparently no-one was killed!
You can imagine the horror the passengers’ families must have gone through when they
finally discovered the truth.
It’s understandable in a weird way because editors were trying to keep people's’ spirits
up since they didn’t have any official numbers.
But the decision to rush the story so it got on the newsstands faster was a big miscalculation
and wound up doing more harm than good.
3.
Wreckage Disappearing
Although the wreck of the Titanic is preserved in salt water 3.8 km (2.36 miles) below the
surface of the Atlantic, it won’t stay that way much longer.
That’s because it’s being slowly eaten away by a new type of bacteria!
In fact some experts believe it has 20 years left to go max before it’s gone forever.
The wreck was found in 1985 and did you know this was actually an accident?
The US Navy were trying to locate 2 defunct Cold War submarines and stumbled upon the
legendary ship in the process.
They discovered it between the 2 submarines, pretty cool huh?
The metal-eating bacteria was identified on ‘rusticles’, long points like icicles
only made of rust and was named ‘Halomonas Titanicae’ in honour of the vessel it was,
well, chowing down on.
Thankfully James Cameron and his friends have spent many long hours capturing the wreckage
on film for posterity…!
2.
88 Years to Die
Remember when I told you about the Titanic band?
Those guys were as brave as they come.
Not only did they lose their lives, they were also said to have played music as the ship
was going down, right until their final moments when they all perished.
So you know a little bit about Wallace Hartley, but the story of Roger is quite fascinating.
Roger Bricoux was a 21-year-old who played the cello.
Now you’d think after not being seen again people would assume he was dead.
However for some reason that didn’t happen!
The battle to get Bricoux declared officially dead wasn’t resolved till 2000, 88 years
later.
It’s not quite clear why the government refused to declare him legally dead.
I mean, it seemed like a done deal right?
The poor guy was even branded a deserter because he didn’t show up to fight in World War
I!
Uh, I think being deceased kinda excuses you from military service, right…?
And for those of you who guessed, I am sad to say that the deadliest ship disaster in
history was the German ship, the MV Wilhelm Gustloff.
An estimated 9,400 refugees were killed in the disaster, making it the largest known
loss of life occurring during a single ship sinking in recorded maritime history.
1.
SS Californian
What you may not know about the Titanic is that another ship was in the vicinity when
she hit the iceberg.
The SS Californian was captained by Stanley Lord and he’d decided to hold back after
seeing ice fields in the water.
According to reports he’d actually warned the Titanic about the ice over the radio but
received a rude response in return.
You know, unsinkable and all that.
Captain Lord then went to bed before being woken by his crew, who had spotted distress
rockets being launched from the Titanic.
For some reason Lord didn’t think these were serious and believed them to be signals
rather than a call for help.
The wireless operator had been stood down for the night so they didn’t receive any
communications from the stricken ship.
Eventually another wireless operator started his shift and when he switched on the radio
all hell broke loose.
Captain Lord took the Californian out to the Titanic but by that stage another vessel,
the RMS Carpathia, had arrived to try and save passengers.
Once news broke that the Californian hadn’t immediately come to the Titanic’s aid, Lord
lost his job and spent the rest of his life battling the decision.
As for the Californian, well it was the victim of a German U-boat during World War I and,
you’ve guessed it… sank!
He was evasive about the situation when questioned and his account contradicted that of other
crew members.
This spelled disaster for Lord’s career but something good did come out of the tragic
situation.
From that point on maritime law was changed so that wireless communication at sea stayed
open round the clock.
It’s an important lesson to learn that the sea never sleeps…!
Thanks for watching!
Do you have any secrets about the Titanic you’d like to share?
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