DOCSLIB.ORG

Why Did the Titanic Sink? by History.Com, Adapted by Newsela Staff on 04.18.18 Word Count 837 Level 1070L

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Why Did the Titanic Sink? by History.Com, Adapted by Newsela Staff on 04.18.18 Word Count 837 Level 1070L Why did the Titanic sink? By History.com, adapted by Newsela staff on 04.18.18 Word Count 837 Level 1070L Image 1. A watercolor illustration of the sinking of the Titanic by German artist Willy Stower in 1912. Image from Shutterstock On May 31, 1911, around 100,000 people gathered at a dock in Belfast, Ireland, to watch the launch of the world's largest and most luxurious cruise liner, the Titanic. The mighty ship was 882 feet long and 175 feet high. It weighed more than 46,000 tons. The Titanic was considered to be an "unsinkable" ship. Yet on the night of April 14, 1912, disaster struck. Just four days after leaving Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage to New York City, the Titanic struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and sank. More than 1,500 passengers and crew lost their lives. Today, experts are still debating possible causes of this historic tragedy. Most agree that only a combination of factors can fully explain what doomed the supposedly unsinkable ship. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 1 Speed Factor From the beginning, some blamed the Titanic's skipper, Captain E.J. Smith, for sailing the massive ship at too high a high speed through iceberg-heavy waters. When the crash occurred, the ship was traveling over 25 miles an hour. Some believed Smith was foolishly trying to beat the crossing time of Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic. In 2004, however, engineer Robert Essenhigh offered a completely different explanation. Essenhigh suggested that efforts to control a fire in one of the ship's coal bunkers could have explained the Titanic's speed. Iceberg Warning Ignored Less than an hour before the Titanic hit the iceberg, another nearby ship, the Californian, radioed to say it had been stopped by a dense ice field. However, the warning didn't begin with the three- letter code "MSG," normally used for particularly important messages that needed to be seen by the captain. For that reason, the Titanic's radio operator, Jack Phillips, considered the other ship's warning non-urgent. As a result, he didn't pass it along. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 2 Wrong Turn At Sea In 2010, a new explanation for the crash was offered by Louise Patten, the granddaughter of the highest-ranking Titanic officer to survive, Charles Lightoller. Patten said she heard the story from her grandmother. According to Patten's account, one of the ship's crew members panicked after hearing the order to turn "hard-a-starboard" in order to avoid the approaching iceberg. Instead of making a sharp right turn, he turned the wrong way — directly toward the ice. Questionable Building Material In 1985, an American-French expedition finally located the sunken wreck of the Titanic. Investigators discovered that the ship had not gone down in one piece, as previously believed. Instead, it had broken apart on the ocean's surface. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 3 Materials scientists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty have cast blame on the rivets that held the hull's steel plates together. They examined rivets brought up from the wreck and found they contained a high concentration of "slag," a waste product created when metal is refined. Slag is not strong, and can easily split apart. It would only have been mixed in to lower costs. Its presence may have weakened the part of the Titanic's hull that hit the iceberg, causing it to break apart. Tricky Weather Conditions Two studies done around 2012 suggest that nature played a key role in the ship's fate. The first argued that the Earth came unusually close to both the moon and the sun that year, increasing their gravitational pull on the ocean. This resulted in record tides, which caused increased amounts of floating ice in the North Atlantic. The second study was conducted by British historian Tim Maltin. It claimed that atmospheric conditions on the night of the disaster might have caused a phenomenon called super refraction. This bending of light could have created mirages, or visual illusions, that prevented the Titanic's lookouts from seeing the iceberg clearly. It also would have made the Titanic appear closer, and smaller, to the nearby ship Californian. The Californian's crew might have assumed the Titanic was a different ship. And when the Titanic started to sink, the night's hazy conditions could have made it look as if it was merely sailing away. No Binoculars To Spot Iceberg Second Officer David Blair held the key to the storage room where the Titanic's binoculars were kept. Blair was transferred off the ship before it sailed from Southampton. As he left, he forgot to hand over the key to the officer who replaced him. After the sinking, a lookout on the Titanic said binoculars might have helped them spot and dodge the iceberg in time. Not Enough Lifeboats No matter what caused the Titanic to sink, many fewer people might have died had the ship had carried enough lifeboats. The liner left Southampton with only 20 lifeboats, which could only have carried 1,178 people. In addition, the 20 lifeboats on the ship were not used to capacity. Due to the chaos that broke out after the Titanic struck the iceberg, the lifeboats departed the ship with about 400 empty seats. More than 1,500 people were left behind to perish in the freezing ocean waters. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 4.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Coordination Failure and the Sinking of Titanic
    The Sinking of the Unsinkable Titanic: Mental Inertia and Coordination Failures Fu-Lai Tony Yu Department of Economics and Finance Hong Kong Shue Yan University Abstract This study investigates the sinking of the Titanic from the theory of human agency derived from Austrian economics, interpretation sociology and organizational theories. Unlike most arguments in organizational and management sciences, this study offers a subjectivist perspective of mental inertia to understand the Titanic disaster. Specifically, this study will argue that the fall of the Titanic was mainly due to a series of coordination and judgment failures that occurred simultaneously. Such systematic failures were manifested in the misinterpretations of the incoming events, as a result of mental inertia, by all parties concerned in the fatal accident, including lookouts, telegram officers, the Captain, lifeboat crewmen, architects, engineers, senior management people and owners of the ship. This study concludes that no matter how successful the past is, we should not take experience for granted entirely. Given the uncertain future, high alertness to potential dangers and crises will allow us to avoid iceberg mines in the sea and arrived onshore safely. Keywords: The R.M.S. Titanic; Maritime disaster; Coordination failure; Mental inertia; Judgmental error; Austrian and organizational economics 1. The Titanic Disaster So this is the ship they say is unsinkable. It is unsinkable. God himself could not sink this ship. From Butler (1998: 39) [The] Titanic… will stand as a monument and warning to human presumption. The Bishop of Winchester, Southampton, 1912 Although the sinking of the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic (thereafter as the Titanic) is not the largest loss of life in maritime history1, it is the most famous one2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Implications of Space and Mobility in James Cameronâ•Žs Titanic
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 The Implications of Space and Mobility in James Cameron's Titanic Cindy Stewart Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION THE IMPLICATIONS OF SPACE AND MOBILITY IN JAMES CAMERON’S TITANIC By CINDY STEWART A Thesis submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2013 Cindy Maria Stewart defended this thesis on October 14, 2013 The members of the supervisory committee were: Davis Houck Professor Directing Thesis Jennifer Proffitt Committee Member Michael Neal Committee Member Stephen McDowell Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii To my mom, Maria: thank you so much for all your sacrifice so that I could earn a good education, and for guiding me to make the best choices possible in my life. Also, thank you for discussing the themes of Titanic with me. To my dad, Jim, and brother, Jose: thank you for ultimately acknowledging the relevance of the issues addressed in a “chick flick” like Titanic. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my thesis director, Professor Davis Houck, for his dedication to helping me think critically about my favorite movie, Titanic. I greatly appreciate the time he has taken to discuss my thesis topic with me, and continuously prompt me with questions and ideas that furthered the improvement of this project.
    [Show full text]
  • Pat Campbell Production Designer
    Pat Campbell Production Designer Winner: BAFTA Awards Scotland 2018, Outstanding Contribution to Craft Nominated: BAFTA Craft Awards 2018, Best Production Design for THE STATE Nominated: BAFTA TV Awards 2017, Best Production Design for RILLINGTON PLACE Nominated: BAFTA Television Craft Awards 2017, Best Production Design for RILLINGTON PLACE Nominated: Art Directors Guild 2016, Excellence in Production Design Television, Movie or Limited Series for WOLF HALL Agents Lynda Mamy Assistant Eliza McWilliams [email protected] 020 3214 0999 Credits Drama Production Company Notes PRINCESS SWITCH 3 Netflix Dir: Mike Rohl Feature Film Prod: Brian Donovan 2021 A CASTLE FOR CHRISTMAS Netflix Dir: Mary Lambert Feature Film Prod: Andrew Riach 2021 United Agents | 12-26 Lexington Street London W1F OLE | T +44 (0) 20 3214 0800 | F +44 (0) 20 3214 0801 | E [email protected] Production Company Notes THE PRINCESS SWITCH: Netflix Dir: Mike Rohl SWITCHED AGAIN Prods: Vanessa Hudgens, Feature Film Brad Krevoy & Steven R. 2020 McGlothen JERUSALEM Lionsgate Dir: Neil Jordan Development Work 2019 THE ACCIDENT The Forge/Channel 4/Hulu Dir: Sandra Goldbacher 2019 Prod: Mo Williams Exec Prod: George Ormond WAR OF THE WORLDS Mammoth Screen Dir: Craig Viveiros 2018 Prod: Betsan Morris-Evans DEEP STATE Endor Productions Dir: Matthew Parkhill, Robert 2017 Connolly Prods: Hilary Bevan-Jones, Tom Nash THE STATE Heel Stone Pictures Dir: Peter Kosminsky 2017 Prod: Steve Clark-Hall Nominated for BAFTA Television Craft Award RILLINGTON PLACE BBC Grafton House Productions Dir: Craig Vivieros 2016 Prod: Phillippa Giles, Sharon Bloom Nominated for BAFTA Television Craft Award 2016 THE LIVING AND THE DEAD BBC America Dir: Alice Troughton 2016 Prod: Eliza Mellor WOLF HALL Company Pictures/BBC Dir.
    [Show full text]
  • Titanic's Crew
    TITANIC'S CREW 0. TITANIC'S CREW - Story Preface 1. TITANIC - INSIDE AND OUT 2. TITANIC'S CREW 3. MAIDEN VOYAGE 4. THE PASSENGERS 5. ICEBERGS 6. TITANIC'S WIRELESS 7. ICE WARNINGS IGNORED 8. ICEBERG RIGHT AHEAD 9. A DOOMED SHIP 10. DOOMED PASSENGERS 11. WIRELESS TRANSMISSIONS 12. RESCUE OF THE LIVING 13. RECOVERY OF THE DEAD 14. NEWSFLASH! 15. HEROES 16. A DISINTEGRATING VESSEL 17. THE REST OF THE STORY Ten teams of chain makers worked on Titanic’s anchor chains. Those chains were 3 3/8 inches in diameter. Note the cross piece on each chain link. It is called a "stud link chain." That middle bar is intended to stop the link from kinking or from deforming if it is under a heavy load. This 1911 photograph appears in Chain and Anchor Making in the Black Country, a 2006 book by Ron Moss. After she was launched on May 31, 1911 the ship was outfitted for sea duty. It took many months before those tasks were completed. She was finally ready for a sea trial on April 2, 1912. Who was in charge of Titanic? Although most of the officers were the same, the crew that managed the sea trials was different from the crew assigned to the maiden voyage. Significantly, the chief executive officer William Murdoch was replaced by the less-well-liked (but friend-of-the-captain) Henry Tingle Wilde. E.J. (Edward John) Smith was the captain. Murdoch served as 1st officer during the voyage. With the addition of Wilde to the officer staff, the crew had an extra officer on board.
    [Show full text]
  • A Night to Remember Study Guide
    A Night to Remember Study Guide Know these people: 1. Baker Joughin- chief baker, famous for being drunk and surviving 2. Benjamin Guggenheim- an American businessman, got dressed in best clothes for the sinking 3. Bruce Ismay- president of the White Star line, survived by jumping into a lifeboat 4. Captain Lord- captain of the Californian 5. Captain Smith- captain of the Titanic, went down with the ship 6. Charles Lightoller- 2nd officer, helped load lifeboats, after the boat sank helped keep Collapsible B afloat 7. Fifth Officer Lowe- went back to pick up survivors 8. First Officer William Murdoch- in charge when the Titanic hit the iceberg 9. omit 10. Jack Thayer Jr.- 1st class passenger, as the boat was sinking he jumped off the boat and survived 11. John Jacob Astor- richest man on board, smoke stack fell on him 12. Lookout Frederick Fleet- the lookout who saw the iceberg 13. Loraine Allison- only 1st class child to die 14. Margaret Brown- 1st class passenger, ‘Molly’, history calls her the “unsinkable” 15. Thomas Andrews- designer of the Titanic, last seen in the smoking room looking at a painting Know these questions: 16. How is Robertson’s book similar to the true story of the Titanic? Famous people, same size, both hit an iceberg and sank, names were similar, both labeled unsinkable, sank in April, not enough lifeboats, similar speeds 17. How did the people react to ice falling onto the ship from the iceberg? 3rd class passengers played with it 18. What things were lost in the cargo of the Titanic? Not the Mona Lisa :) 19.
    [Show full text]
  • Saving the Survivors Transferring to Steam Passenger Ships When He Joined the White Star Line in 1880
    www.BretwaldaBooks.com @Bretwaldabooks bretwaldabooks.blogspot.co.uk/ Bretwalda Books on Facebook First Published 2020 Text Copyright © Rupert Matthews 2020 Rupert Matthews asserts his moral rights to be regarded as the author of this book. All rights reserved. No reproduction of any part of this publication is permitted without the prior written permission of the publisher: Bretwalda Books Unit 8, Fir Tree Close, Epsom, Surrey KT17 3LD [email protected] www.BretwaldaBooks.com ISBN 978-1-909698-63-5 Historian Rupert Matthews is an established public speaker, school visitor, history consultant and author of non-fiction books, magazine articles and newspaper columns. His work has been translated into 28 languages (including Sioux). Looking for a speaker who will engage your audience with an amusing, interesting and informative talk? Whatever the size or make up of your audience, Rupert is an ideal speaker to make your event as memorable as possible. Rupert’s talks are lively, informative and fun. They are carefully tailored to suit audiences of all backgrounds, ages and tastes. Rupert has spoken successfully to WI, Probus, Round Table, Rotary, U3A and social groups of all kinds as well as to lecture groups, library talks and educational establishments.All talks come in standard 20 minute, 40 minute and 60 minute versions, plus questions afterwards, but most can be made to suit any time slot you have available. 3 History Talks The History of Apples : King Arthur – Myth or Reality? : The History of Buttons : The Escape of Charles II - an oak tree, a smuggling boat and more close escapes than you would believe.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Representations of Titanic in the 1950S
    A Night to Remember: Cultural Representations of Titanic in the 1950s In the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, the thought to be “unsinkable” passenger steamship, the RMS Titanic, sank to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean after her collision with an iceberg a few hours prior. With her, she took 1,503 of her passengers and left 700 to witness this event that historians would call one of the great “social dramas” of the twentieth century. Over the last 100 years, Titanic has inspired a wealth of representations across various media forms and across different national and cultural contexts. These representations have used the Titanic, both consciously and subconsciously, to reflect on, articulate, and justify a wide range of ideological positions on issues such as gender, family, class, and national identity. Thus, Titanic’s ultimate historical significance does not lie with her wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic, but instead with the reverberations of her sinking and the cultural reaction she inspired. Though Titanic’s career as an ocean liner was brief, her tenure as a cultural symbol endured. Many of the most known cultural representations of the Titanic have been films. Over the last century, a number of films have told and retold the story of Titanic, not in deference to the facts of the event but in the service of the needs of the people telling the story. An example of the most extreme case being the Nazi’s use of the ship as a subject for a 1943 propaganda film. But, the historical narrative of Titanic is also ripe for dramatic adaptation.
    [Show full text]
  • A Tall Ship: the Rise of the International Mercantile Marine
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School March 2019 A Tall Ship: The Rise of the International Mercantile Marine Jeffrey N. Brown University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Economic History Commons, History Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Scholar Commons Citation Brown, Jeffrey N., "A Tall Ship: The Rise of the International Mercantile Marine" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8341 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Tall Ship: The Rise of the International Mercantile Marine by Jeffrey N. Brown A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Julia Irwin, Ph.D. K. Stephen Prince, Ph.D. John Belohlavek. Ph.D. Christian Wells, Ph.D. Graydon Tunstall, Ph.D. Date of Approval February 22, 2019 Keywords: Steamship, J.P. Morgan, Clement Griscom, Titanic, Business, Shipping, U.S. Foreign Relations, Anglo-American Relations Copyright © 2019, Jeffrey N. Brown DEDICATION To Mom, John and Gramma. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There is a long list of people I would like to thank for their support and encouragement. First off, I want to thank my mom and step-father Sandi and John Tipps and my grandmother, Dorothy Douglas for their support.
    [Show full text]
  • How Did the Titanic Sink MA
    Reading Comprehension DIFFICULTY : MEDIUM Within the hour, at around 12:30am on 15th April, the captain (Edward J Smith) orders the lifeboats to be lowered. Once lowered, in just 10 minutes, passengers begin their escape, with women and children (from first-class only) occupying the first available spaces in the lifeboats; consequently, passengers from the second and third-class areas begin to rebel. Distressingly, the lifeboat system is only designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold Many people are unaware of the true events which led to the sinking of the Titanic over everyone on board at the same time; therefore with the water from the lower decks rising 100 years ago. At 11:40pm on Sunday 14th April 1912, the fateful ship is just four days in rapidly and the chance of help reaching them in time, there is no safe refuge for all passen- to its maiden voyage when it fatally strikes an iceberg. What led to these tragic events and gers and sadly some lifeboats are launched before being at full capacity. how did the ocean liner end up at the bottom of the Atlantic? Following that, with the rescue attempts still continuing in earnest, the real implications of the The RMS Titanic, which is the largest passenger liner in service of the time, departs South- collision begin to show as the ship’s lights go out – causing further widespread panic and worry. ampton, England on April 10, 1912 travelling to New York City, across the Atlantic Ocean. The vast amount of water mixed with electrics caused this, meaning the ship is now even When it sets sail, it has an estimated 2,224 people on board – a mixture of rich and poor harder to track down should anyone be able to respond to SOS signals.
    [Show full text]
  • Scott, Natalie (2015) Screams Underwater. Submerging The
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sunderland University Institutional Repository Scott, Natalie (2015) Screams Underwater. Submerging the Authorial Voice: A Polyphonic Approach to Retelling the Known Narrative in Berth - Voices of the Titanic, A Poetry Collection by Natalie Scott. Doctoral thesis, University of Sunderland. Downloaded from: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/6582/ Usage guidelines Please refer to the usage guidelines at http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected]. Abstract This PhD thesis is comprised of my poetry collection: Berth - Voices of the Titanic (Bradshaw Books, 2012) and a critical commentary which discusses the collection both in printed and performed contexts. Berth is a collection of fifty poems taking a range of forms, including dramatic monologue, and found, sound and concrete poems. It was published and performed to coincide with the centenary of the Titanic disaster on April 14th 2012. The collection encourages an audience to see and hear Titanic in a distinctive way, through the poetic voices of actual shipyard workers, passengers, crew, animals, objects, even those of the iceberg and ship herself. Though extensively researched, it is not intended to be a solely factual account of Titanic’s life and death but a voiced exploration of the what-ifs, ironies, humour and hearsay, as well as painful truths, presented from the imagined perspective of those directly and indirectly linked to the disaster. The critical commentary introduces the notion of factional poetic storytelling and, supported by Julia Kristeva’s definition of intertextuality, considers the extent to which Berth is an intertext.
    [Show full text]
  • Commonlit | Titanic Officer Swears Wreck Due to Company's Neglect
    Name: Class: Titanic O7cer Swears Wreck Due to Company's Neglect By United Press Leased Wire 1912 The RMS Titanic was a British passenger ship that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning of April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg. More than 1,500 passengers died. The enormous loss of life created an international scandal as the public wanted to how such a disaster could happen. As you read, take notes on how the crew members describe the tragedy. VIVID STORIES TOLD OF HOW GREAT SHIP SANK [1] (By United Press Leased Wire.) WASHINGTON, D. C., April 23 — Sworn testimony1 that neglect on the part of the White Star company to provide marine glasses2 for the lookout on the Titanic was responsible for the greatest sea disaster of modern times was the sensation this afternoon, of the investigation. Frederick Fleet, who was lookout in the crow’s 3 4 nest of the Titanic when the giant liner smashed "RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912" by F.G.O. into the iceberg, made oath that not a single Stuart is in the public domain. lookout on the Titanic was provided with marine glasses and declared that had his request for such glasses in Southampton not been refused the Titanic might yet be aGoat. “I could easily have sighted the iceberg with marine glasses in plenty of time to have the vessel steered out of the way.” said Fleet, and gave in detail the request he made in Southampton for them. Although all other liners are so provided, Fleet swore, his request was Gatly refused and he was told there were no glasses for him.
    [Show full text]
  • The Titanic in April 1912, a Very Special Ship Was Launched
    Name: Purple A Class: Date: The Titanic In April 1912, a very special ship was launched. The Titanic was the largest ship ever built. Inside, it looked like a beautiful hotel. Some people called it a ‘floating palace’. The owners of the Titanic said it was the safest ship in the world. 1 Why do you think people said the Titanic was a ‘floating palace’? Tick one box. Because it was made of gold Because it looked very beautiful and expensive 1 Because it always stayed afloat 2 Find and copy two things that made the Titanic very special. 2 Everyone thought the Titanic was safe. The Titanic had a ‘double hull’, which meant that the outside of the ship was made in two layers. If one layer got damaged, the second layer would still keep out the water. The Titanic’s first journey was from Southampton, England, to New York, USA, across the Atlantic Ocean. At first, everything went well. But just a few nights after the ship left England, disaster struck! 3 Explain how the Titanic’s ‘double hull’ was meant to make it safe. 1 4 Where was the Titanic going on its first journey? Tick one box. Southampton Atlanta New York 1 2 Even though the sea was calm, the Titanic hit a huge iceberg. The ship sank very quickly, in deep water. There were over 2000 people on board, and more than 1500 of them lost their lives. But why exactly did the ship sink? For more than 70 years, people searched for the ship.
    [Show full text]