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

    Idk if this is just me being a grouch but I get really annoyed by people who go "Umm, I love my wife/gf so HECKING much, just felt like I needed to share that" into group chats.

    Like yeah, I sure hope so considering you're together and all. The performative aspect of it just confuses me, generally its not that hard to tell if two people are being romantic towards each other when they hang out and interact, so I feel like you dont need to quite literally announce it.

    But maybe this is just a difference in personality, when I'm giving compliments or telling someone I love them I usually just do so directly to them wether its in a private or public setting. And if I wanna give a stealthy compliment I'd post something like "I really like (random personality or appearance aspect I like about that person)" and assume the message got through. It would never occur to me to do this weird kinda hybrid of direct and indirect where I just say right out loud "I need everyone to know I really like this person right now!"

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

        I kinda get that, but with something like showing off pictures of their kids or talking about specific things they like about their partner, then I can at least say something and comment on it.

        With this in particular it just feels like theres nothing to really say in response, "Oh thats nice"? Just applaud? Gets me annoyed cause I feel like Im being talked at but whatever I say in response doesnt matter in the slightest. Like at least say "I love their hair so much it looks so nice" and then people can agree with that, its not like I can agree or comment on a statement of "I love this person".

        Edit: And also, people who do this specific thing have a tendency to say the same thing over and over, which is probably what annoys me the most if it starts being like a daily thing.