On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the passenger liner Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on this day in history, resulting in the world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster.

The Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 (ship's time) on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 (ship's time; 05:18 GMT) on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Titanic received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling at a speed of roughly 22 knots when her lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard side and opened six of her sixteen compartments to the sea. Titanic had been designed to stay afloat with four of her forward compartments flooded but no more, and the crew used distress flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats.

In accordance with existing practice, Titanic's lifeboat system was designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold everyone on board simultaneously; therefore, with the ship sinking rapidly and help still hours away, there was no safe refuge for many of the passengers and crew with only 20 lifeboats, including 4 collapsible lifeboats. Poor management of the evacuation meant many boats were launched before they were completely full.

Titanic sank with over a thousand passengers and crew still on board. Almost all of those who jumped or fell into the sea drowned or died within minutes due to the effects of cold shock and incapacitation. RMS Carpathia arrived about an hour and a half after the sinking and rescued all of the 710 survivors by 09:15 on 15 April, some nine and a half hours after the collision. The disaster shocked the world and caused widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of third-class passengers during the evacuation. Subsequent inquiries recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).

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  • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There's this guy I keep seeing on TikTok, an amatuer sleuth who thinks he's uncovered a serial killer, and now he's spawning other guys just like him.

    This guy thinks there's a serial killer because guys keep disappearing in Chicago and then their corpses turn up in the river. But these guys are disappearing after leaving bars that are near the river. The official story is that these drunk guys are walking, then falling in the river. But no, that's too pat. See, this guy went to one of those bars, and when he was walking home alone a car pulled up to him and offered him a ride. When he said no the car peeled off. Then, later, a different car, different driver, same behavior. Other people have seen these cars too.

    So, at this point, I think the guy is suggesting that there's at least two serial killers operating in the same place with the same MO. From the vids I've seen he doesn't come out and say that, but I don't see what else he could be implying. Then, other people on TikTok start sending him their stories. This is happening to other people. And not just in Chicago, but in major cities around the US, men are leaving bars, turning up dead in the river, and there are these mysterious cars all over. So there must be a network of killers across the country, all with the same MO, dumping murdered men in rivers. I-want-to-believe

    And, it's just so obvious what's happening. The officials are right. Guys are walking home, alone, drunk, and they fall in the river and drown. The mysterious cars? A taxi scam. Maybe they pretend to be Uber. You get in, they take you somewhere, they take your wallet. Or, if you're drunk enough, they convince you the payment for the Uber you don't remember ordering hasn't gone through and get you to swipe your card in a skimmer.

    I think in one of the videos the guy says that 14 guys have disappeared just in Chicago since January. That would be an insane amount of murder for a serial killer to get away with in so short a time. And there being multiple different mystery cars/drivers just immediately invalidates the serial killer angle anyway. Unless you're proposing some mass conspiracy, with police collusion, but to what end? Organ harvesting? Gonna need some real proof for a claim like that.

    • AlkaliMarxist
      ·
      2 years ago

      This is actually an established conspiracy theory, some guys wrote a book about it. They typically think this is a multinational cabal of serial killers doing this in major cities with lots of waterfronts all over the world. The "calling card" left behind, which links these murders and proves they are the same cult, is some kind of smiley-face graffiti found in some place connected with the murder - where the victim went missing, where the body was found - whatever.

      Obviously they cherry-pick a bunch of data, and the idea that finding graffiti of the simplest symbol in the world somewhere near the incident proves anything is obviously silly as hell.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley_face_murder_theory

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        2 years ago

        The most recent description I have seen the main cop give is that this is, quote, "the most dangerous domestic terrorist organization active today".

        They also say they have identified a dozen more grafitti symbols that this group uses, no they wont tell you what those are, but its definitely real.

        I think the funniest thing is when people say "Oh yeah that new stuff is bullshit but I still believe in the original theory" when there is only one theory. Like what, why would you believe these guys were right in 2003 or whatever, but in 2023 after 20 years of more "investigation" its suddenly bullshit?

      • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Since the police don't actually solve murders or give a shit about anything outside of brutalizing black people, I can believe a serial killer would get away with this.