RMS Titantic

 

The RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line. On 15 April 1912, she perished in the North Atlantic Ocean after colliding with an iceberg on her first journey from Southampton to New York City. Over 1,500 of the estimated 2,224 passengers and staff aboard died, making it one of the bloodiest sinkings of a single ship at the time and the greatest peacetime sinking of a superliner or cruise ship to date. With widespread public attention in the aftermath, the accident has subsequently inspired several artistic works and served as the inspiration for the disaster film genre.

RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat when she began service and was the second of the White Star Line's three Olympic-class ocean liners. She was built in Belfast at the Harland & Wolff shipyard  Thomas Andrews, the shipyard's principal naval architect at the time, perished in the tragedy.

Titanic departed Southampton on 10 April 1912, calling at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland (now Cobh), before continuing west to New York. At 11:40 p.m. ship's time on 14 April, four days into the crossing and approximately 375 miles (600 kilometres) south of Newfoundland, she collided with an iceberg. The accident bent the hull plates inward along her starboard (right) side, exposing five of the ship's sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; she could only survive four floodings. Meanwhile, passengers and a small number of crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, the majority of which were launched half filled. Due to a "women and children first" practice for loading lifeboats, a disproportionate number of men were left onboard. At 2:20 a.m., she disintegrated and sank, with well over 1,000 people still aboard. The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived just under two hours after Titanic sank, bringing an estimated 710 people aboard.