April 12, 1912…a Hundred Years Ago

On April 12, 1912, all that you see here was taken more than two miles down to the bottom of the ocean.
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909–11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried over 2,200 people – 1,316 passengers and about 900 crew.

Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, such as millionnaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Strauss, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in America. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – a third of her total passenger and crew capacity.

The pictures you see here were taken just days before she sailed on her maiden voyage.

She would have no other, and everything you see now rests on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, at a depth of 12,415 feet.

“Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm has bound the restless waves,
who bid the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea. “