Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Shadow of the Titanic The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived by Andrew Wilson 100 unsinkable facts about the Titanic. Her last signal rocket flared out a century ago. And the desperate cries from her decks became still a long time past. R.M.S. Titanic, perhaps the most famous ship that ever sailed, hit an iceberg, and the next morning — April 15, 1912 — sank beneath the North Atlantic waves. She took 1,517 women, men and children to the bottom of the ocean with her, including some of the most famous names of her time. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Interested in this topic? You may also want to view these photo galleries: But Titanic's voyage continues - in movies, books, TV shows and the public's fascination. Part historic chronicle, part human drama, part paranormal thriller, the tale of the doomed ship still has us in its hooks. Today her story shifts like starlight sparkling on sea ice. Accounts and numbers differ, research changes "myth" into "fact," and vice versa. But her saga won't end. So to mark the 100th anniversary of her loss, we give you 100 remembrances of the Titanic. 'The ship of dreams' 1. At the time of her launch, the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic was the largest man-made moving object on Earth. 2. The Titanic cost $7.5 million to build. 3. The White Star Line's Titanic and her sister ship Olympic were designed to compete with the famous Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania. 4. More than 15,000 men worked on the ship during its construction in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 5. The Titanic's wake was so huge that, at its launch, it sucked in another ship and almost caused a collision. 6. The Titanic featured an onboard swimming pool, a gymnasium, a squash court, and a Turkish bath and two separate libraries — one for first- class passengers, and one for second class. 7. The top speed of the Titanic was 23 knots (more than 26 miles per hour). 8. The Titanic originally was designed to carry 64 lifeboats. To save from cluttering decks, the ship ended up carrying 20 on her maiden voyage. 9. Only 706 passengers and crew would survive the disaster. Premonitions of doom. 10. Passenger and fashion writer Edith Rosenbaum cabled her secretary in Paris that she had "a premonition of trouble" about the Titanic. (She survived.) 11. Governess Elizabeth Shutes was so unnerved by the smell of the night air on April 14 that she could not fall asleep. She told fellow passengers that the smell reminded her of the air inside an ice cave she had visited. (She survived.) 12. William Edward Minahan, a doctor from Fond du Lac, Wis., had his fortune read shortly before the voyage. The fortune teller predicted his death aboard the ship. She was right. 13. The plot of Morgan Robertson's novel "Futility" bears an uncanny resemblance to the Titanic disaster. The novel tells the story of the Titan, the largest ship ever built, billed as "unsinkable," which strikes an iceberg in April and sinks. In the book, more than half the passengers die in the North Atlantic because of a lifeboat shortage. The book was published 14 years before the Titanic sank. Wisconsin on deck. 14. Capt. Edward G. Crosby, a Milwaukee veteran of the Civil War, founded a steamship company on Lake Michigan but became famous for refusing to put enough lifeboats for all the passengers on his steamers. Aboard the Titanic, he was unable to find a place on a lifeboat, and he sank with the ship. 15. Danish immigrant Claus Peter Hansen and his wife, Jennie, operated a barbershop in Racine. He went into the Atlantic waters after the collision. Jennie made it into a lifeboat and lived until 1952. 16. Louise Kink Pope was 4 years old when she went on board the Titanic. She and her mother, Luise, were loaded into a lifeboat, but her father was told to remain on deck. Instead, he jumped into the lifeboat as it was being lowered. The family survived and Pope died in Milwaukee at age 84 in 1992. 17. Ida "Daisy" Minahan, sister to William (See No. 12), caught one of the last departing lifeboats, along with Minahan's wife, Lillian. 18. In one of the most obvious "Titanic" movie goofs, Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack Dawson, claims to have gone ice fishing on Lake Wissota near Chippewa Falls. Unfortunately for scriptwriter James Cameron, Lake Wissota is a man-made reservoir that didn't exist until 1917. Leonardo DiCaprio, left, and Kate Winslet appear in a scene from "Titanic." (Photo: Paramount Pictures / Associated Press) Lifestyles of the rich . 19. The cost of the most expensive First Class Parlor ticket to New York was $4,350 — about $69,600 today. 20. The first-class dining saloon was sheathed in hand-cut mahogany paneling. 21. The first-class smoking lounge was for men only. 22. First-class passenger Eleanor Widener wore a famous multi-strand pearl necklace then valued at $250,000. 23. Many of the first-class female passengers left the Titanic still dressed in the silk evening gowns they had worn to dinner. 24. A new Renault car was part of Titanic's cargo. 25. The Titanic was stocked with 20,000 bottles of beer and stout, 1,500 bottles of wine and 8,000 cigars for use by first-class passengers. 26. The last dinner served in the first-class saloon consisted of 11 courses. 27. Buglers called first-class passengers to dinner by playing "The Roast Beef of Old England." 28. First-class passengers were given copies of "The White Star Music Book" containing 352 songs so they could make requests. The musicians had to know all the titles. 29. About 60% of the first-class passengers survived. And the rest. 30. Second-class accommodations were equivalent to first class in most other ocean liners of the time. 31. Most third-class cabins contained four to six bunks. 32. Third-class passengers could hear the loud roar of the ship's engines in their cabins at all times. 33. Only two bathtubs were available for more than 700 third-class passengers — one for men, one for women. 34. Gates separating the third-class spaces from the other classes were kept locked even after the collision, according to some firsthand reports. 35. About 42% of the second-class passengers aboard survived. 36. About 25% of the third-class passengers survived. The berg. 37. The iceberg was spawned from a glacier in Greenland. 38. One recent scientific theory holds that the moon's extremely close approach to Earth on Jan. 4, 1912, created such strong tides that it sent an array of icebergs south into the Titanic's path. 39. The Titanic's launch was delayed by six weeks because her sister ship Olympic needed repairs in the same dry dock. That delay put seasonal icebergs right in the Titanic's path. 40. Titanic Capt. Edward Smith did try to avoid ice danger by altering the ship's course to the south after receiving warnings of icebergs from other ships. 41. At 11:40 p.m., Frederick Fleet was the first person on the Titanic to see the iceberg, describing it as something "even darker than the darkness." 42. The berg was about 100 feet tall. 43. At 32 degrees, the iceberg was warmer than the water Titanic passengers fell into that night. The ocean waters were 28 degrees, below the freezing point but not frozen because of the water's salt content. The collision. 44. A recent story in Smithsonian magazine theorizes that atmospheric conditions on the night of the sinking created optical illusions that prevented the Titanic's lookouts from seeing the iceberg. 45. The Titanic's lookout was not equipped with binoculars to see icebergs in time to avoid collision. 46. First Officer William Murdoch attempted to turn the ship to swing it past the berg. 47. From the lookout's first sighting to impact with the berg took only about 37 seconds. 48. Passengers had different descriptions for how the collision felt, from "a slight tremor" to — as described in "Shadow of the Titanic" — "as though The Titanic had passed over a thousand marbles." 49. If only four of the Titanic's watertight compartments had been breached, it would have stayed afloat. The iceberg sliced through six. 50. If the ship had hit the berg head on, Titanic probably would have survived because of the strength of its bulkheads. The disaster. 51. The Titanic's crew failed to fire correct distress signals after hitting the iceberg. Random rockets were fired, but according to the British inquiry into the wreck, the message sent by the rockets' pattern never signaled "distress." Instead, the incorrect rocket pattern signaled to any ship in the area the message: "I'm having navigation problem. Please stand clear." 52. The Titanic held no passenger lifeboat drills during its voyage. 53. A nearby vessel could be seen off the port side of the Titanic, but the ship's identity remains a mystery. The ship probably was either the Californian or a sealer called the Sampson. Had it responded, the ship would have arrived in time to save many Titanic passengers. 54. The waltz "Songe d'Automne," not "Nearer My God to Thee," was almost certainly the last song played by the Titanic orchestra, although the debate about the last song continues. 55. The musicians played for two hours and five minutes as the ship sank.