From the launch of the “unsinkable” ship to her maiden voyage, the iceberg, Carpathia’s rescue, the convention that changed the rules of the sea, and the wreck found on the Atlantic floor more than seventy years later
Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart · Public domain · Source
On 31 May 1911 the 269 m Titanic was launched at Harland & Wolff in Belfast.
On 10 April 1912 Titanic left Southampton, called at Cherbourg and Queenstown, and on the 11th headed out into the Atlantic for New York with some 2,200 people aboard.
On the night of 14 April 1912 the British liner Titanic, on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank early the next morning. Of some 2,200 aboard, more than 1,500 died.
Answering Titanic’s distress call, Cunard’s Carpathia raced through the ice, picked up some 710 survivors from the lifeboats early on 15 April 1912 and landed them in New York on the night of the 18th.
After inquiries by the US Senate and in Britain, the first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was signed in London on 20 January 1914, requiring lifeboats for all, round-the-clock radio watch and a North Atlantic ice patrol.
On 1 September 1985 an expedition led by America’s Robert Ballard and France’s Jean-Louis Michel found the wreck of the Titanic 3,800 m down on the Atlantic floor.
Chief designer at Harland & Wolff who sailed on the maiden voyage, was first to know the ship would sink, and died helping passengers
White Star Line captain who commanded Titanic on her maiden voyage and went down with the ship
Captain of Cunard’s Carpathia, who answered Titanic’s distress call, drove his ship through the ice and rescued some 700 survivors
American oceanographer who, with France’s Jean-Louis Michel, found the wreck of the Titanic on the Atlantic floor in 1985