One of the biggest maritime tragedies in history has been romanticised in popular culture,
but the sinking of the Titanic undoubtedly changed the world forever.
On April the 15th 1912, the Titanic broke in half as it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic
ocean 370 miles south east off the coast of Newfoundland. 1514 lives were lost, and a
possible future we can never truly know.
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I am Rebecca Felgate and today
I am asking What if The Titanic Never Sank?
Huge events like this in history have more than just a butterfly effect on future goings
on.
Had historical figures like Hitler, Nelson Mandella, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill
or Donald Trump not been born, the world would be a different place, who knows what the 15
hundred and 14 people who lost their lives that morning could have become and what their
imprint on the world could have been.
Many on board were already people of note, with the ships highly publicized maiden voyage
attracting many of society’s elite.
What would have become of them, the less privileged and the crew members aboard, sadly, we can
never know, we can only speculate.
What we do know is that the Titanic’s sinking had a direct effect on the University of Harvard
. Eleanor Elkins Widener donated a large sum of money to Harvard following the death of
her son Harry, an enthusiastic young Bibliophile who perished aboard the Titanic.
With the money, Harvard built their Library.
A much more far reaching effect of the Titanic sinking was the creation of the Federal Reserve
Bank in the Unites States.
Aboard the titanic were Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Strays and David Astor, three wealthy
men in First Class who opposed the new Federal Reserve Bank, which was eventually founded
in December 1913.
Had they survived, they may have used their money and influence to oppose the formation.
The topic of the bank, its creation and impact is pretty complex and too longer a discussion
point for this video, so let’s paraphrase and simply say, without it, American finances
and federal power would be very different.
Had the RMS Titanic not sunk on her maiden voyage, White Star Line may still be in business,
providing a huge boost to the British economy.
The shipping company that produced the most famous boat in the world became defunct 20
years after the tragedy.
The founder of the Titanic was not the only hardship to fall on the business, but it definitely
contributed to its demise.
Had the Titanic not sunk, her maiden voyage would have been a roaring success, assisting
in inflating the leisure industry.
Sadly she would only have enjoyed two more glory years before the outbreak of World War
one, during which she would have been turned into a warship or a hospital ship.
This is water happened to her sister ships, The RMS Olympic and the RMS Britannic.
Sadly, the Britannic sunk just four years after the Titanic as it hit a naval mine,
however, following the tragedy of the Titanic, the majority of people on board were saved
via lifeboats.
With that in mind, the Titanic did incur some positive changes to Maritime law that may
not have happened had the ship not sunk.
The British Board of Trade prevented future disasters by stressing importance of life
boats, with enough boats to rescue the entire cohort of passengers and crew becoming mandatory.
Following the sinking of the Titanic, the Carpathia arrived two hours later to take
the 705 survivors on board.
As a result of the time taken to receive help, all later ships were scheduled to be within
rescue distance of other ships and were required to give assistance to other vessels, something
another nearby ship to the Titanic had failed to do.
A huge step forward in Maritime safety, following the sinking of the Titanic, International
Ice Patrol was formed, with a primary goal of alerting any seacraft as to the presence
of icebergs.
The sinking of the Titanic highlighted the importance of using wireless communication
systems ahead of World War 1 and 2, where they were instrumental.
The Titanic had on board at the time innovative new technology; Wireless Telegraphy.
Sadly a nearby ship that could have responded shut off their wireless for the evening, but
other boats in the water that had theirs on, including the Carpathia, were able to receive
the distress call and respond.
The Carpathia saved 705 people.
From the incident, people realised the importance of wireless
All of the above safety measures and realisations definitely improved nautical pursuits, especially
during the war, it is a shame it took a tragedy to fix the broken system.
Arguably, if it hadn’t have been for the Titanic, a similar disaster was likely to
happen…luckily it happened when it did, as had not all boats been fitted properly
during the war, many more people could have died.
Of course on a cultural level, without the sinking of the titanic, hundreds of books,
films and television shows would either not exist or would be different, for example the
plotline to Downton Abby would be altered!
Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio may never have found fame as their seminal roles would
not exist and James Cameron would never have created one of the highest grossing movies
in history.
I dread to think what would have become of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.
These are of course just some of the effects of the sinking of the Titanic and some of
the ways the world could have been altered, but truly, with so many lost lives, it is
beyond our comprehension to grasp how altered our future could have been.
A whole slice of history that could have been but never was lay unfulfilled in the watery
depths of the Atlantic, along with the broken pieces of the RMS Titanic.
Thank you guys for tuning into this video…how do you think the world would be different
had the Titanic not sunk?
Let me know in the comments section below.
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so you never miss an answer to one of Life’s Biggest Questions.
I am Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video, but for now, stay curious,
stay alert and never ever stop questioning!