32 Amazing Titanic Pictures Gallery
The RMS Titanic sank over 100 years ago, but it is still the most famous ocean liner in the world. These seldom-seen Titanic pictures offer a glimpse of that fateful day in April 1912 when so many people on board lost their lives at sea.
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About the RMS Titanic
Construction of the Titanic started on March 31, 1909, with the shipbuilding taking place in Belfast. The entire process, from start to completion, took three years. Its design was massive, and by the time the ship was finished, it was christened the largest, safest, and most luxurious in the world.
The process of building the ship was incredibly labor-intensive. At its busiest point, Harland and Wolff’s shipyard had hired 14,000 people to work on the ship simultaneously.
The entire ship was 882 feet long. It had four stacks (one for show only), 29 boilers, 159 coal-fed furnaces, and two reciprocating engines. At the time of its construction, it was the most massive object ever built to float on water.
The ship also contained unparalleled luxury. First-class passengers enjoyed cafes, a smoking room, restaurants, saloons, and a reading room. They also had the opportunity to book one of 39 first-class, luxury suites. A live orchestra played during meals, and passengers had numerous options for recreation, including their out decks, shuffleboard, a gym, and squash courts.
That luxury was not available to second and third-class passengers. Second-class passengers had the chance to book private cabins with bunk beds, though they had to share bathrooms. Recreational options were more limited, but they did exist, and second-class passengers had their private decks, a smoking room, and a library.
Related: RMS Olympic and Titanic Conspiracy Theory
Third-class passengers (or steerage) had significantly worse accommodations, though even these were more comfortable than the accommodations on other ships. Cabins were shared and could contain up to ten people in one. Passengers had a dining room that served basic food, and a piano that they could play on their own. Bathrooms were shared, and only two baths were available for all of the third class passengers.
Iceberg Collision
As with most tragedies, the collision and sinking of the Titanic was the result of not just one error, but a series of them. Had a number of factors gone differently, the ship would never have hit that iceberg and would have made it to New York.
The accident occurred on its maiden voyage to New York at around 11:40 pm on the evening of April 14, 1912. It had been a cold winter in the north Atlantic Ocean. As a result, icebergs found their way further south than usual. In their state of the art radio room, the ship received seven warnings about iceberg sightings from nearby vessels. However, instead of slowing or stopping for the night, Captain Smith ordered the ship to continue steaming ahead at its typical speed of 22 knots.
The evening was unusually calm, with no moon in the sky. From a safety perspective, this posed a problem, as it meant the lookouts had no light to reflect off the icebergs. Furthermore, since the sea was so calm, it was impossible to see any waves breaking against the base of the ice.
The lookout, Fredrick Fleet, spotted the iceberg roughly a minute before impact. He might have spotted it earlier, but the ship’s binoculars were in a locked locker, and the key wasn’t on board the ship.
It is unclear if the lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, spotted the iceberg first, but they did call it into the bridge, with Fleet saying, “Iceberg right ahead!”
Second Officer William Murdoch was in command of the Bridge at the time. He ordered the ship “hard-a-starboard” and reversed the engines, attempting to turn the shift to the left to avoid a collision. However, it was too late, and the ship scraped along the edge of the iceberg.
The Aftermath
Engineers believed that the ship could remain afloat with four of its watertight compartments filled, but it soon became apparent that more than that was flooded.
Oddly, the ship’s builders did not equip it with enough lifeboats to save all of its occupants. They believed the lifeboat’s primary purpose was to ferry passengers back and forth to rescue vessels. Twenty total emergency boats were on board, but they only had space for 1,178 of the ship’s 2,222 passengers. Furthermore, many passengers did not believe that the vessel was in mortal danger. As such, they failed to get on the lifeboats, preferring the warmth of the safe ship. As a result, many of the first boats to launch had far less than their maximum capacity, ultimately costing even more lives.
It took only two hours and forty minutes for the unsinkable Titanic to fill with water and sink.
In the end, approximately 1,500 people died. The divide was stark when it came to first, second, and third-class passengers. Of the women and men from the first-class, 97% and 33% survived, respectively. That number dropped to 74% and 20% for second class passengers. Among the third-class, only 49% of women and 13% of men survived.
Thankfully, the rescue of the survivors began relatively quickly. Distress calls went out while the ship was sinking. Ultimately, the Carpathia was the first to provide aid; other ships joined shortly afterward. Saved passengers became split up among numerous vessels. Survivors sailed on to New York.
Four White Star Line ships had the grim task of recovering the bodies of the deceased. Ultimately, they only recovered 23% of those who died. Of those bodies, 150 are interred in Halifax.
Actual Footage of the Disaster
The Titanic pictures in the gallery above are amazing. But here is an incredible video that contains some of the only footage of the tragedy that occurred on April 15, 1912. The video shows the “unsinkable ship” in all her glory, the location of the disaster, rescued survivors, and the Mackay Bennet leaving Halifax to search and retrieve the dead passengers.
