10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE TITANIC

10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE TITANIC 

108 years ago, the R.M.S. Titanic crashed into an iceberg and sank beneath the frigid waves of the North Atlantic, taking with it 1,517 of her passengers to the bottom. This was undoubtedly one of the most famous -and deadliest- shipping disasters that has ever taken place. Even today, the story of her tragedy continues to captivate the minds of people everywhere. More people are trying to find facts to understand how one of the most famous luxury liners to ever set sail --one that was dubbed to be “unsinkable”, no less-- ended up sitting in wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean during her maiden voyage. Despite there being countless interesting facts explaining the tragic disaster, scientists and historians are in agreement that no one thing was responsible for the tragic sinking of the historic ship in the North Atlantic. Rather, a series of mishaps had cooked up the perfect storm that set the Titanic on the path to her doomed fate. Oftentimes, people focus on the much-known facts surrounding the Titanic tragedy of April, 15th, 1912. And as such, the little-known important facts are slowly getting erased from the history books. Keep watching this short video to remember the Titanic and those onboard, as well as learn the 10 things you won’t find in the history books.

1 Lessons From A Decade Ago 

Library shelves around the world are stocked with plenty of books about the Titanic. But of those, two fictional novellas are especially noteworthy for their uncanny prediction of the Titanic disaster. The two fictional stories were written years before the tragic incident of 1912, but their storylines include details that mysteriously bear a remarkable resemblance to what happened during the real-life disaster involving the Titanic. And, in a truly bizarre twist of fate, one Mr. W.T. Stead, the author of one of said pieces, ultimately lost his life on the Titanic. His novella, especially, gives details of the shortcomings that would ultimately lead to the sinking of a fictional ship in the story. A similar fate would be true for the Titanic, years later. The second novella was written by Morgan Robertson 14 years before the Titanic went down. His book, “The Wreck of the Titan” follows a plot with startling details that almost seem to be a prediction of the real-life Titanic disaster. The fictional ship in Robertson’s book was called the Titan, and like the Titanic, it was hailed as the largest ship afloat at the time. And, it was reckoned to be “unsinkable,” yet proceeded to sink on a cold April night after striking an iceberg. 

2 Something About The Full Moon 

There was a full moon on January 4th, 1912 and scientists are convinced that it had a hand in Titanic’s collision with the iceberg. That wasn’t a normal full moon, though. Scientists call it the “supermoon,” the result of a rare celestial alignment in which the sun, Earth, and the moon were arranged in a straight line during the closest lunar monthly approach to the Earth. Such a celestial alignment last occurred in the A.D. 796, and Earth won’t witness another one until 2257! What happened during the “supermoon” was that the sun’s and moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth were intensified, resulting in extremely lower low tides, and extremely higher high tides. A phenomenon called a spring tide. During the highest high tides, for a very long time, giant icebergs that were held immobile at the bottom of the ocean began to melt and they were refloated. It is said that a flotilla of these massive icebergs was refloated during the unusually strong tides of January 4th, and they began to move southwards. The R.M.S. Titanic would set sail on a moonless night, but little did she know that she would be headed on a collision course with the fleet of massive icebergs that had been refloated by the “supermoon”, three and half months earlier. 

3. Full Speed Ahead! 

From the beginning, people have blamed the sinking of the Titanic on the fact that the ship’s captain was sailing her at full speed despite being made aware of the myriad of potentially dangerous icebergs. Before she tragically hit the iceberg that would sink her, R.M.S Titanic had received 6 official iceberg warnings during her brief voyage. The story goes that the ship’s captain, Edward J. Smith, was trying to better the crossing time of Titanic’s elder sister ship called the Olympic.