Titanic - 21 facts you probably didn’t know

The 1912 giant ship built by the White Star Line, which was named as the “ship of dreams,” has a lot of emotions attached to it. While some emotions are a reflection of the fact that more than 2000 passengers perished in the tragedy when the ship sank deep under the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the 15^th of April, 1912, some emotions are more inclined towards the epic movie “Titanic” by James Cameron, where our 20 years old Jack Dawson (Leonardo Dicaprio) gives up his life to save Rose (Kate Winslet) live on.

 Image: Dailymail.co.uk

While the list of fascinating aspects associated with this beautiful ship is quite long, here are 21 interesting facts about the Titanic that you probably didn’t know—

1. The White Star Line built three ships in a row—The Olympic, the Titanic, the Britannic, and all of them sank in the Atlantic Ocean.
2. Owner of White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay had actually said that the Titanic was unsinkable and even “the god couldn’t sink the ship.”
3. The ship carried around 2,200 passengers but the number of lifeboats was only 20—which meant that they weren’t enough to even accommodate even half of the ship’s passengers in case of emergency.
4. If the captain of the ship would have been notified about the iceberg even half a minute before, the whole tragedy could have been avoided.
5. The iceberg which caused the Titanic to sink had been residing in the Atlantic since 1000 BC.
6. The budget of Cameron’s movie Titanic was more than the real budget with which the actual ship was built in 1912.
7.  The Titanic was actually a British ship but it consisted more of American passengers.
8. The ship during its launch was the largest man made moving object ever built in the planet at that time.
9. The discrimination between the first and third classes of passengers shown in the movie actually happened for real, and as a result around 60% of the first class people survived due to privileges, whereas only 25% from the third class survived.
10. The iceberg that sank the ship was around 100 feet tall.
11. The night the collision with the iceberg happened, the sky had no moon.
12. There were around 16 ice warnings that the Titanic received, out of which 7 were on the day of the tragedy, but all of them were ignored.
13. After the collision, when the ship’s crew lit up crackers in the sky to let others know about the distressed situation they were in, other people misinterpreted it to be a symbol of celebration for the ship’s maiden voyage.
14. The ship could have survived from the collision if its head hit the berg rather than turning, as its bulkheads were strong enough to bear the impact of the collision in front head.
15. The ship’s band had actually played songs during the final hours before the ship sank to keep the passengers calm, just as shown in the movie.
16. The last SOS code sent by the ship was wrong.
17. The survivors were taken by a small ship named Carpethia at around 4.10 a.m. on the morning of 15^th April, 1912.
18. Out of the deceased, only 306 bodies were discovered post the tragedy.
19. The tragedy was covered by leading print mediums, including the New York Times which had 75 of its pages covering Titanic’s sinking during the first week of the tragedy.
20. The Titanic’s maximum speed was 23 knots, which means more than 26 miles per hour.
21. A book published by Morgan Robertson 14 years prior to the tragedy had a baffling resemblance to the ship’s fate, wherein a gigantic ship called the Titan which is deemed unsinkable collides with an iceberg and sinks, causing deaths in large tolls.