168 Fun Facts About Titanic

On what date did the RMS Titanic sink?

April 15, 1912: Titanic went under in the small hours, yet garbled wireless reports had some newspapers that day announcing she was under tow with everyone safe.

In the 1997 film Titanic, what does Rose use to summon rescue?

A whistle: Rose swims to the body of a ship's officer floating nearby, takes his whistle and blows it until the boat's crew turn toward the sound.

Which Celine Dion song from the 1997 film Titanic won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

My Heart Will Go On nearly didn't exist: James Cameron wanted no pop song, so composer James Horner had Celine Dion record a demo without telling him and waited for a good mood to play it.

How many lifeboats did the RMS Titanic carry?

Twenty lifeboats, more than the law then required, yet with seats for only about half of those aboard: the rules were tied to a ship's tonnage, not to the number of people she carried.

Who captained RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage and went down with the ship?

Edward J. Smith was known as the Millionaires' Captain because wealthy travellers liked to sail with him; he was reportedly last seen at his post as the ship went down, and his body was never found.

A popular but false legend blames Titanic's sinking on which cursed cargo?

An Egyptian mummy: the supposedly cursed relic of the legend is not even a real mummy, only a painted wooden coffin lid, and it was sitting in the British Museum the whole time.

From which port did the Titanic depart for its maiden voyage?

Southampton, England was more than a departure point: about 700 of Titanic's roughly 900 crew came from the port, and most of them never came home.

In 1918 Titanic's sister ship Olympic, then a troopship, rammed and sank which kind of vessel?

A German U-boat: Olympic sighted the submarine, turned and rammed it, and she carried so many troops safely through the war that she was nicknamed Old Reliable.

What was Titanic's dummy fourth funnel mainly used for?

Ventilation: the fourth funnel drew fumes from the galleys and smoking rooms, and was added partly for looks, since four funnels made a liner seem more powerful.

In the 1997 film Titanic, what do treasure hunters find inside a safe raised from the wreck?

A sketch: it shows a young woman wearing the very jewel the salvagers are hunting, and an elderly survivor who sees it on the news gets in touch to say she is the woman in it.

Who was the wealthiest passenger aboard the Titanic?

John Jacob Astor IV helped his pregnant wife into a lifeboat and asked to go with her; told the boats were for women and children, he stepped back, and he died in the sinking.

From where could a switch close Titanic's watertight doors?

The bridge: one electric switch there shut the doors between the compartments, but the walls dividing them were not capped at the top, so rising water simply spilled over.

Approximately how many people died in the sinking of the Titanic?

About 1,500 died: the US inquiry counted 1,517 and the British 1,503, and no exact figure exists because the passenger and crew lists were muddled by aliases, misspellings and omissions.

What was the name of the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic?

RMS Carpathia was about 58 nautical miles away and steamed through the ice field at full speed, but she reached the lifeboats more than an hour after Titanic had gone under.

What was the maximum capacity of people (passengers and crew) the Titanic could carry?

The maximum capacity of the RMS Titanic, when fully loaded with passengers and crew, was 3,547 people.

What was the name of the chief naval architect who designed the Titanic and died in the sinking?

Thomas Andrews Jr. toured the flooding bow with the captain, worked out that the ship could not stay afloat, and spent his last hours urging passengers into lifebelts and boats.

Tests in the 1990s on steel raised from the Titanic wreck suggested the hull plates turned what in icy water?

Brittle: the tests suggested the cold left the plates prone to cracking, though later studies put more of the blame on weak rivets that let the hull seams spring open.

At what depth does the wreck of the Titanic lie?

Approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) is about two and a half miles down, far beyond any diver's reach, so the wreck has only ever been visited by robots and deep-diving submersibles.

By what traditional name was third class, the cheapest way to cross on Titanic, commonly known?

Steerage was the old name for the cheapest berths, yet Titanic's third class had cabins and three cooked meals a day when many ships still made such passengers bring their own food.

The sides of Titanic's four collapsible lifeboats were made of what?

Canvas: the sides folded flat for stowing, and two of the four boats were swept off the deck by the rising sea before they could be launched.

Roughly what share of third-class women died, against about 3% of first-class women?

About 54% of third-class women died (89 of 165) against 3% in first class; five of six first-class children and every second-class child survived, while 52 of 79 third-class children perished.

Before trying the newer SOS, which distress call did Titanic's wireless operators send first?

CQD came first; junior operator Harold Bride then half-joked that Jack Phillips should try the new SOS, as it might be his last chance to send it, and the two calls were alternated from then on.

Which Belfast shipbuilder built Titanic?

Harland and Wolff had built most of White Star's ships for decades and was given a free hand: its own designers drew up the plans, and the line's directors simply approved them.

On which part of the hull did the iceberg strike Titanic as she tried to turn away?

Starboard side, near the bow: the ship had begun to swing away, so the ice scraped along her flank for a few seconds and opened at least five forward compartments to the sea.

Titanic was designed to stay afloat with up to how many of her forward watertight compartments flooded?

Four: Titanic could float with her first four compartments flooded, but the iceberg opened at least five, and water then spilled over the tops of the dividing walls from one to the next.

What did the 'RMS' prefix before Titanic's name stand for?

RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship: Titanic carried mail under contract, with five postal clerks from the Royal Mail and the US Post Office sorting letters aboard so they were ready on docking.

Titanic's bridge and officers' quarters sat at the forward end of which deck?

The Boat Deck was the topmost deck, where the lifeboats hung; the captain was reportedly last seen there, at its forward end, as the bow went under.

Titanic's younger sister Britannic sank in the Aegean in 1916 after striking what?

A naval mine is believed to have sunk Britannic while she served as a wartime hospital ship; built as a luxury liner, she never carried a single fare-paying passenger.

Which Titanic passenger was accused of bribing his lifeboat's crew?

Cosmo Duff-Gordon gave each crewman in his lifeboat £5; the British inquiry accepted it was a gift to replace their lost kit, not a bribe to stop them rowing back, but the press had already dubbed it the Money Boat.

Which nearby ship saw Titanic's distress rockets but did not come to help?

SS Californian had stopped for the night at the edge of the ice field, and her only wireless operator had switched off his set and gone to bed minutes before Titanic struck the iceberg.

Which of the following was NOT a port of call for the Titanic's maiden voyage?

Dublin was never on the route: after leaving her departure port Titanic called only at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland before heading across the Atlantic.

What powered the Titanic's three propellers?

Two four-cylinder triple-expansion engines drove the wing propellers and a low-pressure Parsons turbine, fed by their exhaust steam, drove the centre one.

Which 1914 convention was a direct response to the Titanic disaster?

Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS, was signed in London in January 1914 and laid down lifeboat numbers, but war broke out before it could take effect.

Which 1955 Walter Lord book became the classic account of Titanic's sinking?

A Night to Remember grew out of Walter Lord's interviews with dozens of survivors, became a bestseller and was filmed in Britain three years later.

What was the name of the White Star Line chairman who survived the sinking of the Titanic?

J. Bruce Ismay stepped into one of the last lifeboats as it was lowered; publicly branded a coward, he retired from the company the following year.

Which bandleader kept Titanic's musicians playing as the ship went down?

Wallace Hartley died with every one of his bandsmen; weeks later nearly 500 players from seven London orchestras gave a memorial concert for them at the Royal Albert Hall.

Which actor played Cal Hockley, Rose's wealthy and jealous fiancé, in the 1997 film Titanic?

Billy Zane's Cal chases the lovers through the flooding ship with a pistol and then bluffs his way into a lifeboat by posing as a lost child's father.

In which country did James Cameron build a near-full-size Titanic set beside a giant water tank?

Mexico: Fox bought a stretch of the Baja coast near Rosarito and built a studio there, with a 17-million-gallon tank that gave the replica ship an open ocean horizon.

What was the approximate number of survivors from the Titanic disaster?

About 700 survived, counts running from 705 to 712, although the lifeboats had room for several hundred more; many of the early boats were lowered half empty.

Which American tycoon's International Mercantile Marine Co. was the parent company of the White Star Line?

J.P. Morgan had a private suite with its own promenade deck set aside on Titanic and planned to sail on the maiden voyage, but cancelled at the last minute.

Which university's main library was built in memory of Harry Widener, a young book collector lost on Titanic?

Harvard: Harry Widener, class of 1907, died in the sinking with his father, and his mother Eleanor, who was rescued, gave the university the library as his memorial.

A common idiom for futile busywork in a crisis has someone rearranging what on the Titanic?

The deck chairs: the image goes back at least to 1969, when Lady Bird Johnson's press secretary likened newcomers scrambling for White House offices to fighting for a deck chair on the Titanic.

Per a persistent claim the owners denied, what was Titanic's sister Britannic originally to be called?

The name Gigantic appeared in newspaper reports and on a poster, but White Star always denied it, and the story has never been settled either way.

Which section of the Titanic wreck was found largely intact when it was discovered?

The bow section settled largely intact, with many interiors preserved, while the stern, torn open as it sank, was found in ruins.

In the 1997 film, the elderly Rose recalls that Titanic was called the 'Ship of' what?

Dreams: Rose says Titanic was the Ship of Dreams to everyone else, but that to her it was a slave ship taking her back to America in chains.

In the 1997 film Titanic, how does Jack Dawson get his ticket?

Winning at poker: Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack lays down a full house in a dockside pub just before sailing, taking two third-class tickets from a pair of Swedes.

Which rival line's fast twins Lusitania and Mauretania pushed White Star to build bigger?

Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, launched in 1906, were built to be the fastest liners afloat; White Star chose to answer with size and comfort rather than speed.

What buoyant material filled the lifejackets issued on Titanic?

Cork: the bulky jackets kept their wearers afloat, but nearly everyone who went into the freezing water died of cold within minutes all the same.

Which street gave its nickname to Titanic's long E Deck crew passageway?

Scotland Road was the crew's nickname for the broad working corridor on E Deck, which let crew and third-class passengers walk almost the whole length of the ship.

Roughly how much coal did Titanic's furnaces burn each day at sea?

About 600 tonnes or more, and every shovelful was thrown by hand: 176 firemen worked in shifts around the clock to keep the furnaces fed.

Which line from Titanic did James Cameron shout while accepting his Oscar for Best Director?

I'm the king of the world! is Jack's cry from the ship's bow; Cameron whooped it with arms raised to end his speech, then later asked the audience for a few moments' silence for those who died in 1912.

Which company leased Titanic's radio equipment and supplied its two operators?

Marconi's company employed both operators, and Guglielmo Marconi himself had been offered free passage on Titanic but sailed three days earlier on another liner.

First-class passengers nicknamed Titanic's extra-charge à la carte restaurant after which luxury hotel?

The Ritz: the restaurant, run as a private concession, imitated the Ritz restaurant on a Hamburg America liner, and its Italian manager and almost all of his staff died in the sinking.

Which royal residence inspired the style of Titanic's First Class lounge?

The Palace of Versailles inspired the lounge's Louis XV panelling; a carved oak piece from above its entrance was recovered from the sea after the sinking and is now in a Canadian maritime museum.

Which first-class showpiece on Titanic was crowned by a glass dome and a carved clock panel?

The Grand Staircase had a clock flanked by figures of Honour and Glory crowning Time; the woodwork is gone from the wreck, leaving an open shaft that robot cameras use to enter the ship.

Which French carmaker built the brand-new car that first-class passenger William Carter shipped in Titanic's hold?

Renault: Carter's 1912 coupé de ville is the only car known for certain to have been aboard, and it was recreated for the steamy back-seat scene in the 1997 film.

Which lavishly jewelled book was among the most famous items lost when Titanic sank?

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam copy called the Great Omar had three golden peacocks with jewelled tails on its cover; a second copy made later was destroyed by wartime bombing in a London vault.

Which country's mining billionaire announced a replica liner, Titanic II, in 2012?

Australia: Clive Palmer promised a near-copy with a welded hull in place of rivets and a first sailing in 2016, but the launch date slipped again and again.

On what date was Titanic's keel laid?

Titanic's keel was laid on 31 March 1909 on the slipway beside her sister Olympic, whose keel had gone down on 16 December 1908.

Roughly how many rivets held Titanic's hull together?

About 3 million rivets held the hull together; researchers who tested some raised from the wreck argue that slag left the iron ones in the bow weak, letting seams part when the ice struck.

On what date was Titanic launched?

Titanic was launched on 31 May 1911, sliding into the River Lagan in 62 seconds before a crowd of some 100,000 people.

Whose long-standing custom meant Titanic was launched without any christening?

Her owners, the White Star Line, never held a naming ceremony for any of their ships; Titanic's hull was simply released and slid into the water in about a minute as some 100,000 people looked on.

Which feature did Titanic have in 1912 that Olympic did not yet have?

The Café Parisien was new on Titanic: a stretch of covered walkway had proved little used on Olympic, so on the second ship the space became extra staterooms and this pavement-style café.

How long did Titanic's sea trials last?

A single day was all: Titanic made a few turning circles and a short run at speed, was never pushed to her full speed, and sailed from her builders that same evening.

Which wireless operator aboard the rescue ship picked up Titanic's distress call?

Harold Cottam, the rescue ship's sole wireless operator, had not yet turned in when he caught Titanic's CQD; he woke his captain, who turned the ship around at once.

Three of roughly a dozen of which animals aboard Titanic survived the sinking?

Dogs small enough to carry were the ones saved: two Pomeranians and a Pekingese left in their owners' arms, while the larger dogs kept in the ship's kennels were lost.

Joseph Laroche, the only Black man among Titanic's passengers, came from which country?

Haiti: trained in France but kept out of steady work there by racial prejudice, Laroche was taking his French wife and two small daughters home; he saw them into a lifeboat and was lost.

Which UK labour dispute left Titanic under-booked for her maiden voyage?

A national coal strike had cancelled so many crossings that travellers put off their plans, and Titanic herself could sail on time only with coal taken from other liners laid up in port.

Which department store was co-owned by Titanic victim Isidor Straus?

Macy's co-owner Isidor Straus stayed aboard, and his wife Ida refused to take a lifeboat seat without him; both died.

Titanic victim Archibald Butt had been military aide to which two US presidents?

Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft each kept Butt as military aide; at a memorial service weeks after the sinking, Taft broke down in tears and could not finish his eulogy.

Which survivor published the 1912 account The Loss of the SS Titanic?

Lawrence Beesley, a science teacher travelling Second Class, wrote The Loss of the SS Titanic within weeks of the sinking; published in 1912, it is one of the earliest survivor accounts.

Which everyday device, modified, steered the Titan submersible lost near the Titanic wreck in 2023?

A video game controller steered Titan, one of several off-the-shelf parts aboard, yet investigators traced the implosion to the experimental carbon-fibre hull rather than the controls.

Which liner, named after an American city, nearly collided with Titanic minutes after her departure?

New York broke her moorings in the suction of the far larger Titanic and swung into the liner's path; steering clear of her delayed the maiden voyage by about an hour.

Which Titanic tender is the last White Star vessel in existence?

SS Nomadic spent decades as a floating restaurant on the Seine in Paris before she was bought in 2006 and restored as a museum ship.

Which Jesuit trainee took many of the last photographs aboard Titanic?

Francis Browne was offered a paid passage on to America by wealthy fellow diners, but his Jesuit superior wired back 'Get off that ship', so he and his photographs left at Queenstown.

Which crew member deserted at Queenstown by hiding under mail bags?

John Coffey, a stoker, was a Queenstown native: he hid among the mail bags going ashore and walked off in his home town, days before the ship sank.

Which leisure facility, a novelty at sea in 1912, did Titanic offer her First Class passengers?

A swimming pool filled with sea water sat near a gymnasium, a squash court and a Turkish bath, all meant to make First Class feel like a grand house ashore rather than a ship.

Where aboard Titanic was a fire burning from before departure into the first days of the voyage?

A forward coal bunker had been smouldering since about ten days before sailing; stokers beat it only by digging out the burning coal and feeding it to the furnaces.

About how fast was Titanic steaming when she struck the iceberg?

22 knots, not far short of her best: despite a day of ice warnings the captain never slowed, which was then the accepted practice for liners as long as the weather stayed clear.

Which lookout first spotted the iceberg and rang the warning bell?

Frederick Fleet struck the crow's-nest bell three times, then telephoned the bridge to report 'an iceberg right ahead'; the officer who answered said only, 'Thank you.'

Who ordered Titanic steered around the iceberg?

First Officer William Murdoch ordered the helm 'hard a-starboard', which under the helm orders of the day swung the bow to port; the ship began to turn, but her starboard side scraped along the ice.

What did Titanic's chief baker say he drank before surviving hours in the freezing sea?

Liqueur, 'a drop' of it by his own account: Charles Joughin rode the stern down and told the inquiry he trod water for over two hours, a feat historians doubt, since alcohol speeds chilling.

What percentage of the men aboard Titanic survived?

About 20% of the men aboard survived, against roughly three in four of the women, because the officers loading the boats put women and children first.

Which officer took lifeboat No. 14 back to search for swimmers after the sinking?

Fifth Officer Harold Lowe transferred his passengers to other boats and rowed No. 14 back, but waited until the cries died down; he pulled only four men from the water, one of whom died.

Which ship did early US press reports wrongly claim was towing Titanic to port?

SS Virginian had Titanic in tow with every passenger safe, the early stories ran, and White Star's American office called the liner unsinkable; that night it admitted she had gone down.

In the 1997 film Titanic, what is the name of the blue diamond necklace?

The Heart of the Ocean was a prop of cubic zirconia set in white gold; after the film's success its London makers were commissioned to build a real one around a 171-carat sapphire.

Which rule for ships' wireless rooms was brought in after the Titanic disaster?

A 24-hour radio watch became the rule because the nearest ship's lone operator had gone off duty shortly before Titanic began calling for help.

Which insurer paid White Star the full £1 million cover on Titanic's hull within 30 days?

Lloyd's of London had covered the brand-new hull for a premium of just £7,500, yet its underwriters paid the whole £1 million within 30 days of the loss.

Which French decoration did Titanic survivor Molly Brown receive in 1932?

The Legion of Honour recognised, among other things, Brown's volunteer relief work in France during the First World War; after the sinking she had also headed the survivors' committee.

Which British period drama opens with news that the family's heirs have died on Titanic?

Downton Abbey begins the morning after the sinking: the earl's heir and the heir's son are both lost, so the estate must pass to a distant cousin, a middle-class solicitor, and the story follows from that.

Who headed the British Board of Trade inquiry into the disaster?

Lord Mersey's inquiry blamed the collision on excessive speed among ice and called for lifeboat places for everyone aboard, which the old tonnage-based rules had never required.

Which body was set up after the disaster to monitor North Atlantic icebergs?

The International Ice Patrol grew out of warships sent to watch the ice lanes after the sinking; from 1914 the seafaring nations agreed to share the cost of a permanent American-run patrol.

Who captained the nearby ship that saw Titanic's rockets but failed to come to her aid?

Stanley Lord had stopped his ship for the night at the edge of the ice field; both inquiries judged her the vessel nearest Titanic, though neither called for criminal charges.

Who captained the ship that rescued Titanic's survivors?

Captain Arthur Rostron drove his ship through the ice at full speed to reach the lifeboats; he was later knighted and awarded the US Congressional Gold Medal.

Which stewardess survived Titanic, Britannic's sinking and Olympic's 1911 collision?

Violet Jessop left Titanic in a lifeboat; four years later she had to leap from a boat being drawn into Britannic's propellers, and survived a blow to the head.

Who was the last living Titanic survivor, dying in 2009 aged 97?

Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when her family sailed for Kansas, where her father hoped to run a tobacconist's shop; he died in the sinking and she grew up in England instead.

In which sport did Titanic survivor R. Norris Williams become a US champion?

R. Norris Williams refused amputation after hours in freezing water on swamped Collapsible A and went on to win the US tennis championship twice and Olympic gold in 1924.

Which cable ship was the first White Star sent to recover Titanic's dead?

CS Mackay-Bennett found so many bodies that her embalming supplies ran out, and 116 of the 306 she recovered were buried at sea.

What became of most Titanic victims' bodies?

Never found: the ships chartered to search the scene recovered only a few hundred victims, and passing steamers picked up a handful more.

In which Canadian port city are 150 Titanic victims buried, more than anywhere else?

Halifax was the base for the ships sent out to recover the dead, so 150 victims lie in three of its cemeteries, many unidentified beneath stones bearing only a number and the date.

Robert Ballard's search for Titanic doubled as a secret US Navy mission to inspect what?

Two sunken nuclear submarines, USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, were the Navy's real targets; Ballard surveyed them first and was allowed to hunt for Titanic in the 12 days left over.

Roughly how far apart do Titanic's bow and stern sections lie?

The bow and stern lie about 600 m (a third of a mile) apart, the stern having spun and fallen separately; the debris field between them holds the ship's scattered contents.

What is chiefly destroying the hull of the Titanic wreck?

Iron-eating bacteria, among them a species first found on the wreck and named Halomonas titanicae, feed on the hull and leave the icicle-like 'rusticles' that hang from it.

Which Titanic relic, raised in 1998, went on show in Las Vegas?

A hull section known as the Big Piece had sunk back to the seabed when a first lift failed in 1996; it came up two years later and went on show at the Luxor.

Which company operated Titan, the submersible that imploded on a June 2023 expedition to view the Titanic wreck?

OceanGate's founder Stockton Rush was aboard Titan and died with his four passengers; a US Coast Guard inquiry later called the loss preventable and blamed the company's safety practices.

Which French Titanic expert died aboard the Titan submersible?

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a former French Navy officer known as 'Mr. Titanic', had led the first expedition to bring objects up from the wreck in 1987.

James Cameron's Titanic won 11 Oscars, tying which epic's record?

Ben-Hur had held the record of 11 wins since 1960; Titanic matched it without a single acting award, as both of its nominated actresses lost on the night.

Roughly what did James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic cost to make?

$200 million made it the most expensive film yet made, and the overruns pushed Fox to bring in Paramount as a partner; Titanic then became the first film to gross $1 billion.

Which country's research ship and deep-diving submersibles took James Cameron down to film the real Titanic wreck?

Russia's research ship Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and her two Mir submersibles carried Cameron on 12 dives in 1995, and the ship and her crew appear in the film's present-day scenes.

Which film overtook Titanic in 2010 as the highest-grossing film of all time?

James Cameron beat himself: Avatar came out in 2009 and passed Titanic the following year.

Which actress played Molly Brown in James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic?

Kathy Bates played Margaret Brown, whom friends knew as Maggie: the name Molly was attached to her only after her death and fixed by a 1960 Broadway musical.

What did Molly Brown urge her lifeboat's crew to do?

Go back for survivors, she insisted, but the quartermaster in charge refused, fearing swimmers would swamp the boat; Brown took an oar herself alongside the other women.

Which instrument, owned by Titanic's bandleader, sold at auction for a record £900,000 in 2013?

A violin given to the bandleader by his fiancée, said to have been found in a case strapped to his body, took the auction house seven years to authenticate before the sale.

Which hymn is most often named as the last piece played by Titanic's band?

Nearer, My God, to Thee is the tune of legend, though wireless operator Harold Bride recalled 'Autumn', which may have been a popular waltz of the day and no hymn at all.

What kept Second Officer Lightoller afloat the night Titanic sank?

An upturned lifeboat, Collapsible B, was Lightoller's refuge after he was sucked against a ventilator shaft and blown clear by a blast of hot air as the ship went down.

Which milestone did wireless operator Jack Phillips mark the day after Titanic sailed?

His 25th birthday fell on 11 April 1912, a day out from port; four days later Phillips was still at his key sending distress calls as the ship went down, and he did not survive.

Which city's name was painted on Titanic's stern as her port of registry?

Liverpool housed White Star's head office, so the line's ships stayed registered there even after its express service moved to England's south coast in 1907.

What was spread on the slipway to ease Titanic's launch?

Soap and tallow, more than 20 tonnes of it, greased the slipway for a hull that was still an empty shell; engines, funnels and interiors were added over the following year.

Which small dog breed accounted for most of the dogs that survived the sinking of Titanic?

Pomeranian lapdogs were small enough for their owners to carry into the lifeboats, and two of them survived alongside a Pekingese named Sun Yat Sen.

Which job did Charles Joughin hold on Titanic, having survived the icy water after drinking liqueur?

Chief baker Charles Joughin claimed he trod water for about two hours before reaching an upturned lifeboat; historians doubt it, since alcohol speeds up hypothermia.

Which lookout's aid was missing from Titanic's crow's nest all voyage after a mix-up before sailing?

Binoculars never reached the lookouts, though in darkness broken only by starlight and the ship's own lights they reportedly would not have helped.

Which safety exercise, set for the Sunday morning before Titanic sank, did the captain cancel?

A lifeboat drill was called off for reasons never explained, leaving the crew with only one practice, held in port, before they had to load the boats for real.

Which condition on the night Titanic sank made icebergs harder to spot from the crow's nest?

A flat calm sea meant no waves broke against the ice to give it away, and there was no moon to light it either.

The iceberg Titanic struck is thought to have broken off a glacier on which island?

Greenland's west coast is the likely origin: researchers trace the berg to the Jakobshavn Glacier near Disko Bay, from where currents carried it into the shipping lanes.

Queenstown, the Irish port that was Titanic's last stop before the Atlantic, now goes by which name?

Cobh carried the name Queenstown from Queen Victoria's visit in 1849 until 1920, so it was under that royal name that the port saw Titanic off across the ocean.

Which sport had its own first-class court deep inside Titanic, close to the ship's post office?

Squash was played on a court down on G Deck, just above the waterline, one of the novelties offered to first-class passengers along with a gymnasium and a Turkish bath.

Titanic's younger sister Britannic sank in the Aegean in 1916 while serving as which kind of vessel?

Hospital ship Britannic struck a German mine off the Greek island of Kea and went down in 55 minutes, yet 1,036 of the 1,066 people aboard were rescued.

Which kind of enemy vessel did Titanic's elder sister ram and sink while carrying troops in 1918?

A U-boat, U-103, was preparing to torpedo the troopship when the liner was turned on it and ran it down, part of the war service that won her the nickname Old Reliable.

Which French port was Titanic's first stop after crossing the English Channel on her maiden voyage?

Cherbourg had no berth big enough for a ship of Titanic's size, so the passengers boarding there had to be ferried out to the liner by tender.

Which actress played Rose DeWitt Bukater, the unhappy fiancée of Cal Hockley, in the 1997 film Titanic?

Kate Winslet campaigned for the part after other actresses were considered, phoning James Cameron and sending him a single rose with a signed card.

Lady Duff-Gordon, a survivor who escaped Titanic in Lifeboat 1, was famous in which profession?

Fashion designer was her trade: working as Lucile, she built what became the first global couture brand, dressing royalty, nobility and stars of stage and film.

Which polar explorer was called as an expert witness at the British inquiry into the sinking of Titanic?

Ernest Shackleton testified on the strength of his years as an Antarctic explorer and ship's officer, two years before he set out on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Raise the Titanic!, a 1976 novel about salvaging the wreck whole, was written by which thriller author?

Clive Cussler wrote the adventure and came to dislike the big-budget film made from it, which flopped at the box office despite its well-known cast.

Which American food tycoon paid a deposit for a Titanic stateroom but crossed on a German liner instead?

Milton Hershey cancelled at the last minute because business needed his attention and sailed on the SS Amerika; a copy of his cheque to White Star is kept in a museum.

Which American mining heir took off his lifebelt and put on evening clothes as Titanic went down?

Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet first went from boat to boat seeing women and children safely aboard, then dressed for the end; one survivor recalled a rose in his buttonhole.

Which 1898 novella describes a liner named Titan sinking in April after striking an iceberg?

Futility was published 14 years before the real disaster, and its fictional ship likewise carried too few lifeboats for everyone aboard.

Which junior wireless operator survived Titanic on an upturned lifeboat and sold his story for $1,000?

Harold Bride was washed off the deck, scrambled onto the capsized boat and, despite injuring both feet, helped the rescue ship's operator send survivor lists.

The US Navy financed Robert Ballard's hunt for Titanic on condition he first inspected which wrecks?

Two nuclear submarines, Thresher and Scorpion, came first, and the Navy wanted their reactors checked; only the time left over could be spent looking for the liner.

Which crewed submersible took Robert Ballard down to Titanic's wreck on the first dives in 1986?

Alvin, working from the research vessel Atlantis II, took people back to the liner for the first time since she sank, the summer after cameras had found her.

Which small robot did Robert Ballard's team steer down Titanic's Grand Staircase during the 1986 dives?

Jason Junior, a remotely operated vehicle built to look inside the wreck, went down as far as B Deck and photographed chandeliers still hanging from the ceilings.

Which piece of Titanic's machinery was the first wreckage recognised on screen when the wreck was found?

A boiler appeared on the monitors after a week of fruitless searching and matched photographs taken in 1911; the main hull was found the following day.

Texan oilman Jack Grimm, who paid for early searches for Titanic, wanted which animal to pick the spot?

A monkey trained to point at a map was his plan until the scientists made him choose between them and the animal; he had earlier funded hunts for Bigfoot and Noah's Ark.

Instead of hunting for Titanic's hull with sonar, what did Robert Ballard's cameras scan the seabed for?

A trail of debris was a far bigger target, stretching a nautical mile or more against a hull only about 90 feet wide, and cameras could tell wreckage from rock where sonar could not.

Which UN agency's convention has covered the wreck of Titanic since 2012?

UNESCO's convention on underwater cultural heritage could apply only once the wreck became eligible, which happened on the 100th anniversary of the sinking.

The discovery of Titanic's wreck overturned which common assumption about how the liner went down?

It sank in one piece, people had assumed, until the wreck was found in two parts, bearing out survivors whose accounts of a break-up the official inquiries had discounted.

Which German battleship's wreck did Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard go on to find in 1989?

Bismarck was found off the coast of France by an ocean-crawling robot, and Ballard later added the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown to his list of discoveries.

Which leather items found around Titanic's wreck mark the spots where victims' bodies once lay?

Shoes lie in matched pairs on the seabed because tannin in their leather resisted decay long after flesh, bones and clothes had been consumed.

What was Thomas Andrews reportedly seen throwing overboard for swimmers to cling to as Titanic sank?

Deck chairs went over the side as makeshift floats, part of a final effort in which one stewardess saw him everywhere, thinking of everyone but himself.

Where in first class was Thomas Andrews famously said to be last seen, alone, as Titanic sank?

The smoking room sighting, arms folded and lifebelt on a nearby table, became one of the disaster's most famous stories, though other reports have him helping the evacuation afterwards.

How was Thomas Andrews related to the chairman of the shipyard that built Titanic?

His nephew he may have been, but Andrews still started at sixteen as an apprentice, with three months in the joiners' shop before he ever reached the drawing office.

What name was given to the shipyard team Thomas Andrews led aboard Titanic to fix faults at sea?

The guarantee group sailed on the maiden voyage to oversee unfinished work and fix any problems that arose; every one of them died, and none of their bodies was recovered.

Which kind of celestial object now carries the name of Titanic's builder Thomas Andrews?

An asteroid, 245158 Thomasandrews, carries the name of a man who has no grave: his body was never recovered after the sinking.

Which institution now uses the memorial hall built in Thomas Andrews's home town after Titanic sank?

A primary school named after him uses the hall in Comber, County Down, built by the townspeople as one of the earliest and most substantial memorials to a single victim.

Besides running the drafting department, which post did Thomas Andrews hold at Titanic's builders?

Managing director by 1907, he still preferred to call himself simply a shipbuilder or a director rather than claim the more formal title of naval architect.

According to his bedroom steward, what was Thomas Andrews doing all through Titanic's maiden voyage?

Noting improvements to make was his constant task, most of them cosmetic changes, and his secretary wrote that even in port he was never idle for a moment.

After inspecting the damage, roughly how long did Thomas Andrews judge that Titanic could stay afloat?

An hour or two was all he gave her once he had seen how many forward compartments were flooding, and the estimate proved accurate.

Titanic was built on Queen's Island, at a shipyard in which part of today's United Kingdom?

Northern Ireland is where the old shipyard site lies, since renamed the Titanic Quarter, and a museum to the liner opened there in 2012 beside the original slipways.

The Scottish firm behind the giant gantry used to build Titanic had earlier built which London landmark?

Tower Bridge and Scotland's Forth Bridge were both built by Sir William Arrol & Co., whose gantry over the slipways stood 228 feet high and weighed more than 6,000 tonnes.

Which animals hauled Titanic's giant centre anchor by wagon from its forge to the railway station?

Draught horses did it, twenty of them pulling the wagon two miles to Dudley station; the anchor was the largest ever forged by hand.

Into which river did Titanic's hull slide on the day the liner was launched from her slipway?

The Lagan took the hull in front of about 100,000 onlookers; to make room for such a ship, three old slipways had been demolished and two giant new ones built.

In 1912 Titanic was pulled into a structure built for ships her size, then the world's largest what?

Dry dock was where Titanic received her propellers and her final red hull coating, in a basin designed with liners of her class in mind.

On which terms did the White Star Line pay the shipyard that built Titanic and her sisters?

Cost plus a profit margin of five per cent was the arrangement, which let the yard spend whatever the ships needed and made expense a relatively low priority.

Titanic's maiden voyage slipped by three weeks while her builders were busy with which other job?

Repairing her sister ship drew men and materials away from Titanic, pushing the first sailing back from 20 March to 10 April 1912.

A floating crane able to lift 200 tonnes was brought in from which country to help build Titanic?

Germany supplied the floating crane, which worked alongside the mobile cranes carried on the enormous gantry over the slipways.

Titanic's hull plates were riveted together because which joining technique was still in its infancy?

Welding by oxy-fuel or electric arc was still too new to rely on, so each rivet was fitted by a hydraulic machine or hammered in by hand.

After the launch, Titanic's empty hull spent about a year at a berth for which stage of shipbuilding?

Fitting out meant installing the engines, funnels and superstructure and finishing the interiors, work that ended only two days before the sea trials began.

Which American oceanographic institution employed Robert Ballard when he found the wreck of Titanic?

Woods Hole, in Massachusetts, had worked with the French national oceanographic agency before, which made a joint search for the liner possible.

Which part of Titanic's hull scraped along an underwater spur of the iceberg during the collision?

The starboard side took the blow as the ice scraped past for a few seconds, while chunks knocked from the upper parts of the berg fell onto the forecastle.