Facts:
No other ship has captured the world's attention, quite like the Titanic ship. Constructed to be unsinkable, this first class ocean liner set sail on April 10, 1912. The world had awaited the maiden voyage of this luxury liner for months. The White Star Line had taken great care to publicize the fantastic engineering of the Titanic and the world waited with baited breath for the ship to make her first voyage.
Passengers boarding the Titanic
As the passengers boarded the gangplank at Southampton, England for a trans-Atlantic crossing they were no doubt pleased to be a part of the maiden voyage of the invincible Titanic ship. Little did they know, however; that in just a few short days their names and the Titanic would be forever immortalized.
The Titanic ship disaster began, ironically enough as the ship was heading out to sea. The ship's builders had spared no expense in assuring that the Titanic would not only be the safest ship on the waters, but also the largest. This fact proved to be disastrous from the beginning. The larger ship managed to suck a much smaller vessel, the New York, into her wake as she began plowing through the waters with her massive propellers. The two ships came very close to colliding. This near miss may have set a few nerves on edge, but it was nothing compared to what would come later.
The Titanic Leaving Queenstown
Despite the close call, the first few days of the ship's voyage in no way indicated the tragic history of Titanic ship. Information of Titanic records indicate the ship made two ports of call, both with no incident. After the stop in Queenstown, Ireland to take on more passengers, the RMS Titanic set sail once again, headed for her destination in New York.
For four days the ship's elite passengers reveled in the brand new amenities of the Titanic ship, replete with every modern luxury known at the time. During the early part of the 20th century, it was considered quite sophisticated for wealthy families to spend portions of their time in Europe, which necessitated crossing the Atlantic at least once per year. Even to these jaded travelers, however, the Titanic ship was like no other. Nothing had been spared to insure the comfort of the first class guests. The ship was even equipped with only 20 lifeboats, so that precious deck space for the first class passengers would not be taken up by bulky lifeboats.
Down below, however, it was a different story. While the luxury liner teemed with a significant number of first class passengers, hundreds of second class and third class passengers survived the first few days of the voyage in cramped compartments. Most of these individuals were immigrant families who had scraped together every bit of money they had to travel to America aboard the grandest, and supposedly, safest ship ever built.
When the Titanic ship disaster finally reached its pinnacle on April 14th, each and every passenger on board; wealthy and poor alike; were forced to fight for their very survival. In the end only 705 persons survived the sinking of the ship, out of 2,228 passengers and crew members. 1,523 lives were lost when the Titanic ship beneath the ice cold waters of the Atlantic.
On the morning of April 15, 1912, the sinking of the Titanic the previous night shocked the world. The year had dawned bright with promise and the maiden voyage of the Titanic was a symbol of the advances mankind had made in the last few years. The ship was considered to have been so well constructed it was believed she could sustain any amount of damage and still remain afloat. Late on the night of April 14, 1912, the sinking of the Titanic proved this idea wrong in a horribly tragic way.
The causes of Titanic to sink have been the subject of much study and debate. Obviously, the instigating factor was the collision with the iceberg; however the question of 'how did it sink' is frequently the center of most questions regarding the Titanic.
In 1912 the sinking of the Titanic began late on the night of April 14th. Information on the sinking Titanic indicates that the ship approached a massive iceberg, and although efforts were made to steer clear of the large frozen mass, all efforts were to no avail. Sadly, further records of the Titanic accident history indicate that the Titanic disaster may very well have been able to have been completely avoided had officers on ship paid heed to reports received earlier regarding the frozen waters they were approaching.
Even though crew members were desperately trying to turn the ship in the other direction, when the ship collided with the berg a massive rip was torn parallel across the ship's bulk. The Titanic sinking began almost immediately, as the ship began to take on water. Surprisingly, many of the passengers remained unaware of this fact. Some passengers reported hearing and feeling a strange quivering in the ship; however, they did not attribute this to any potential problem and went on about their business.
Others had seen the iceberg has it passed their window and hurriedly donned dressing gowns and robes, anxious to discover whether or not they had truly hit the berg. At first, passengers were assured that there would only be a slight delay and were given no indication of the true severity of the situation. Passengers located at strategic points in the ship already knew the devastating truth however: the Titanic was sinking and sinking fast. An SOS was sent out to neighboring ships. The Carpathia picked up the ship's distress call and radioed back to let the ship's crew know they were on their way. It would be too late, however. By the time the Carpathia arrived, all that remained of the Titanic was a handful of lifeboats filled with shocked survivors.
Since the ship sank to her watery grave, almost one hundred years ago, a number of theories have been put forth to explain how in the year of 1912 the sinking of the Titanic could have occurred. Some theories suggest that had the ship's crew not attempted to turn the ship in the opposite direction of the iceberg and instead took the blow head-on, the collision would not have resulted in such catastrophic disaster. Consequently, neighboring ships in the area had reported earlier in the evening that the waters ahead contained numerous masses of solid ice and that approaching ships should proceed with caution. The Titanic, however, thought to be unsinkable, plowed full speed ahead. This proved to be a fatal mistake and is certainly one of the factors that led to the disaster.
How many people survived the Titanic is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding the history of this legendary ship. Of the 2,227 passengers and crew members who set sail, only 705 Titanic passengers survived.
Film:
In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic, searching for a necklace set with a valuable blue diamond called the Heart of the Ocean. Unsuccessful, they instead discover a drawing of a young woman reclining nude, wearing the Heart of the Ocean, dated the day the Titanic sank. One-hundred-and-one-year-old Rose Dawson Calvert (Gloria Stuart) learns of the drawing, and contacts Lovett to inform him that she is the woman in the drawing. She and her granddaughter Elizabeth "Lizzy" Calvert (Suzy Amis) visit Lovett and his skeptical team on his salvage ship. When asked if she knew the whereabouts of the necklace, Rose recalls her memories aboard the Titanic, revealing for the first time that she was Rose DeWitt Bukater, a passenger believed to have died in the sinking.
In 1912, the upper-class 17-year-old Rose (Kate Winslet) boards the ship in Southampton, England with her fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley (Billy Zane), the son of a Pittsburgh steel tycoon, and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Frances Fisher). Both Cal and Ruth stress the importance of Rose's engagement to Cal, since the marriage will mean the eradication of the Dewitt-Bukater debts; while they have the outward appearance of being upper-class, Rose and her mother are financially broke. Distraught and frustrated by her engagement to the controlling Cal and the pressure her mother is putting on her to go through with the marriage, Rose attempts suicide by jumping from the stern. Before she leaps, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) intervenes. Initially, Cal, his friends, and the sailors, overhearing Rose's screams, believe Jack attempted to rape her. She explains Jack saved her life, hiding her suicide attempt by explaining she slipped after trying to see the propellers. Jack supports the claim, although Hockley's manservant, former Pinkerton agent Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner), is unconvinced. Jack and Rose strike up a tentative friendship as she thanks him for his corroboration, and he shares stories of his adventures traveling and sketching. Their bond deepens when they leave a stuffy first-class formal dinner of the rapport-building wealthy for a much livelier gathering of Irish dance, music and ale in third-class.
Cal is informed of Rose's partying in steerage and, during breakfast the following morning, flips the table in rage as he angrily forbids her to meet Jack again. However, after witnessing a woman encouraging her seven-year-old daughter to behave like a "proper lady" at tea, Rose defies him and her mother, asking Jack to sketch her nude and wearing only the Heart of the Ocean, an engagement present from Cal. Afterwards, the two playfully run away from Lovejoy, going below deck to the ship's cargo hold. They enter William Carter's Renault and proceed to make love, before moving to the ship's forward well deck. Rose decides when they arrive in New York, she will leave the ship with Jack. They then witness the ship's fatal collision with an iceberg. After overhearing the ship's lookouts discussing how serious the collision is, Rose tells Jack they should warn her mother and Cal. Meanwhile, Cal discovers Rose's nude drawing and her taunting note in his safe, so he frames Jack for stealing the Heart of the Ocean by having Lovejoy plant it in Jack's pocket. Upon learning Cal intends to leave Jack to die below deck, Rose runs away from him and her mother to rescue him from imprisonment in the master-at-arms's office.
Jack and Rose return to the top deck. Cal and Jack, though enemies, both want Rose safe, so they persuade her to board a lifeboat. But after realizing that she cannot leave Jack, Rose jumps back on the ship and reunites with him in the ship's first-class staircase. Infuriated, Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose down the decks and into the flooded first-class dining saloon. When Cal runs out of ammunition, he realizes he left the Heart of the Ocean in Rose's overcoat. Cal abandons Lovejoy and returns to the boat deck, where he boards Collapsible A by pretending to look after an abandoned child, as the officer he had previously bribed into letting him onto a lifeboat throws the money in his face. When Jack and Rose return to the top deck, the lifeboats have gone, and they are washed into the freezing Atlantic waters once the ship sinks. Jack and Rose manage to grab hold of a carved oak panel, which can only support one person. Jack dies of hypothermia, but Rose is rescued when Fifth Officer Harold Lowe returns with Lifeboat 14 with five other survivors.
Rose is taken by the RMS Carpathia to New York, where she gives her name as Rose Dawson (adopting Jack's surname, leading everyone to believe Rose DeWitt Bukater died on the Titanic). She also sees Cal for the last time on Carpathia's deck, looking for her (she explains he would later kill himself following the Wall Street Crash in 1929, after he lost everything). Having completed her story, the elderly Rose goes to the stern of Lovett's ship. After she steps onto the railing, it is revealed she still has the Heart of the Ocean in her possession. She drops the diamond into the water, sending it to join the remains of the most important event of her life. The film ends with a shot of Rose in bed. Around her are pictures of her doing everything she said she would do with Jack throughout her life. The final shot of the film is a vision of the young Rose reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase of the Titanic, surrounded and applauded by those who perished on the ship, as he kisses her.
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