April 15, 2025 • 42 mins
Today marks the 113th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, so we're bringing back this classic episode! For some reason our hearts keep going on and on for the Titanic. But what was life actually like on the ship? Why were there so many electric horses on board? How bad did third class passengers have it? And did Hollywood really produce a silent movie about the disaster just two weeks after it occurred? Will and Mango investigate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's that? Will see?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You remember a couple of weeks ago when the artist
banks He pulled that incredible prank on the entire auction world.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, that was when it was painting just self destructed
in front of everyone. Wasn't it worth over a million dollars?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It was actually one point four million dollars? And the
crazy part is they say it's probably worth even more
now and the person who had bid on it, you know,
has agreed to pay that price.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's crazy. I mean, I guess it does make it
more unique, but it's still really weird how much people
will pay for things.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
No, it definitely is. And actually I find this kind
of thing fascinating. I mean, it's it's always interesting to
see what people will pay big money for at auction.
So I was recently looking at this list of the
things people have bid on over the years that are
related to the Titanic disaster, and one thing that went
for even more than that Banksy painting is the violin
(00:51):
played by William Hartley as the Titanic sank. Now, many
of us have heard this legend before, and it's of
course impossible to verify, you know, every piece of it.
But the idea is that Hartley, who was the band leader,
that he asked his seven musicians to keep playing as
the ship was going down, And so some tell the
story that he led his crew in playing Near My
(01:11):
God to thee and you know, that may not be
completely true. It does appear that the musicians did maintain
their composure and they continued playing something what we don't
know exactly what it was, but that violin that Hartley
played sold back in twenty thirteen for one point seven
million dollars. And I guess it's really no surprise because,
(01:33):
you know, more than one hundred years after the tragic event,
we're still fascinated by it. So today we'll try to
better understand why that is, you know, and ask some
of the questions like what did people know about the
Titanic before it set sail, what was life like on board,
and what were some of the strange ways people chose
to remember the ship after the disaster. So let's get started, Hey,
(02:16):
their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
mangesh Hot Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass wearing a button that just says proud member
of the just Mysstic club. That's our friend and producer
Tristan McNeil. Now a lot of people don't know this,
but Tristan very nearly booked himself on a trip on
the Titanic back in nineteen twelve. Thankfully, the plan fell
(02:40):
apart at the very last minute, you know, on account
of his not having been born yet, so ultimately he
missed the boat.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Which is just such a lucky break. But you know,
Tristan isn't alone in telling tall tales about how he
narrowly escaped death on the Titanic. In fact, just five
days after the sinking, there are already press reports about
the so called US Missed It Club and how it
already had six nine hundred four members. And so this
was obviously tongue in cheek, but it was also kind
of true. Like a suspiciously large number of people had
(03:10):
come forward claiming they'd missed the boat because they'd been
running late that morning, or they'd gotten sick or whatever,
but everyone knew most of the stories were completely made up.
Like in one of the press reports I mentioned, they
had a sarcastic quote from a guy who said, quote,
I count it lucky that I didn't have the money
to go abroad this year. If all of us who
just missed it had got aboard the Titanic, she would
(03:30):
have sunk at the Liverpool Dock from the overload.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I'm glad the public didn't fall for all these stories.
I mean, it's such a strange compulsion in the first place,
you know, to lie like that because I don't know,
because you want to attach yourself to a tragedy. But
I guess that goes to show how captivated people were
by the story of the Titanic. And the really amazing
thing is that more than one hundred years later, many
of us are still just as captivated. So at this
(03:57):
point the disaster, it feels like it's taken on kind
of a mythical status in world culture, and it's become
one of those stories that everybody seems to know. In fact,
I read in Smithsonian that Titanic is actually the third
most recognized word in the world, just below God and
Coca cola. And you know, while it's true that interest
in the story has ebbed and flowed over time, it's
(04:19):
still something that we always seem to come back to
So today we'll take a look at why that is
and why Titanic still fascinates us all these years later,
and help answer that. We'll talk about the impact the
tragedies had on the world, both in the short term
and the long term, and we'll also dig a little
deeper into life aboard the ship, which you know, includes
(04:39):
the surprising stories of a few standout passengers. It's definitely
a lot to cover, so let's get to it. But
where do you want to start, Mango, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Thought we could start with one of the biggest reasons
that people have stayed invested in the Titanic, and that's
just the ship itself. So most of us know that
at the time it was the largest ocean liner ever constructed,
and more broadly, the large just men made moving object
in the world. It was about eight hundred and eighty
feet long and one hundred and seventy five feet tall,
which means the ship was as long as three football
(05:09):
fields and as tall as a seventeen story building. Isn't
that insane?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a massive ship for
its time, no question about that, But it wouldn't really
be that impressive today though, right I mean, we have
cruise ships that are more than four times that size now,
so it does make me wonder, like why the size
of the Titanic still captures people's interest.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So I think it's partly the perception that the Titanic
was kind of tempting fate in a way, like the
fact that the ship held that title as the world's
largest and then it ended up sinking on its maiden voyage.
It feels like this cautionary tale about man's hubris in
some people's minds, Like it's almost like a Tower of
Babbel situation or something where man kind of overreached and
then was made to suffer for it. And I think
(05:51):
that still resonates for people, especially since we've heard so
many stories now about how luxurious and decadent the ship was,
especially compared to others at the time.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, Well, before we get to that fateful night
with the iceberg, I do want to spend a little
more time on board and talk about a few of
those deck in it details that you alluded to. So,
for example, the Titanic was one of the first ships
to have electric lights in all of its rooms. It
also had way more amenities than most other ships, and
so just looking at the list, here among those were
(06:20):
four elevators, a heated swimming pool, two libraries, two barber shops,
a squash court, a Turkish bath, and even it's on
onboard newspaper called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So I hadn't heard about the paper. I'm guessing that
means that they had a printing press on board.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I mean there was a small print shop on
the D deck, and of course this was close to
the butcher's shop in case you're wondering.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Now I know where i'd get my PASTROMI on that.
That's right, But I mean, it really does feel like
they thought about everything. My favorite Titanic amenity, though it
is probably the onboard gymnasium, Like it had all the
best equipment, naturally, including old standards like rowing machines, weights,
punching bags, but it also had this cutting edge gear,
like they had two static bicycles with two foot dials
(07:07):
attached to show the distance that had been traveled. And
there were also a few electric horses, which were these
big mechanical saddles meant to mimic riding a horse.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I mean, does that even count as exercise? It kind
of feels like it would be less of a workout
for the rider than for the horse, or I guess
the saddle in this case.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I mean, I think it was supposed to streadden your
core or maybe some leg muscles, But either way, I
doubt any of the passenger has worked up that much
of a sweat. Like, if you look at pictures from
floating gyms on the Titanic and other ships of the era,
most of the passengers are exercising while they're wearing their
full get up, So it's like a bunch of really
sedate and calm looking people in these three piece suits
(07:48):
or like big Edwardian dresses and hats, and they're just
kind of half heartedly pedling on the bikes or whatever.
It's pretty lazy looking.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, I've actually seen some of these pictures, and honestly,
my guess is that it's the first time in a
gym for most of them, because nobody looks like they
know what they're doing at all.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I mean, it's a good thing that they had a
personal trainer on board the Titanic. This is real. His
name was Thomas McCauley, and it was this guy's job
to show passengers how to use the equipment, and even
to provide one on one training sessions. And it seems
like McCauley took his job super seriously because the night
the ship sank, he actually chose to stay at his
post in the gym and go down with the ship.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Wait, seriously, I mean, I don't want to speak ill
of the dead, but that sort of seems a little
bit unnecessary. I mean, we did talk about how the
band chose to continue playing as the ship sank, and
to me though, that makes sense because it was a
way to sacrifice and to calm the passengers, or to
give them at least some sense of peace. But I mean,
why keep the gym open. I can't imagine anybody was thinking, like,
(08:51):
I think, I'll just get in a few more reps
before whatever happens here happens.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. Probably not, But if anyone was trying to burn
like a few calories for the road, I really wouldn't
blame them. I mean, the meals on board the Titanic
were pretty epic, at least for the first class passengers,
and so the dinners were gourmet affairs with up to
thirteen courses, each of which came with its own paired wine.
There was also a pre dinner cocktail service that was
(09:15):
added as a concession to American passengers. Apparently European passengers
weren't fans of this idea because they thought mixed drinks
ruined your palette before eating. But from start to finish,
these elaborate meals could last as long as four or
five hours, and because the first class menu was actually
later recovered, we actually know exactly what the wealthiest Titanic
passengers had for dinner the night the ship went down,
(09:37):
and it was an incredible spread. The feast started with
raw oysters and a selection of ordeuvres, followed by a
choice of two soups. Then came a lightly pushed Atlantic
salmon topped with a rich moose. For the fourth and
fifth courses, passengers chose from such rich entrees as a
filet mignon or a lamb with mint sauce. And then
(09:58):
at the halfway point of the meal, this is only
halfway through the meal, you get a palate cleanser. It's
it's a punch romaine, which I guess is a boozy
mix of wine, rum and champagne. And then once you've
regained your appetite, the feasting resumes. There's a roast squab course,
cold asparagus vinaigrette fois gras, and then there's dessert, which
(10:19):
includes peaches and charcheris, jelly, chocolate, Vanilla Claire's French ice cream,
and then to close off the meal, there's a variety
of fruits, nuts, and cheeses with coffee, port cigars, and cordials.
It's pretty amiable.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
It feels like they just accidentally went ahead and cooked
everything for the week for one meal. I don't even
know how these people would get up and walk after
eating all of this stuff. I don't feel like I
could make it through a single meal.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I know, but if you did want to try, there
are actually places all over the world that now offer
dinners that recreate that last meal that the first class
passengers ate on the ship. And it's kind of a
cob but some people claim it's a great way to
humanize the tragedy or understand the history of the ethics acide. Like,
the biggest drawback is probably the price of these dinners. So,
(11:06):
for instance, there's one restaurant in Houston. It offers a
ten course menu for one thousand dollars per person. There's
also a version of this on a luxury hotel in
Hong Kong, where the price is doubled because it reportedly
serves this vintage nineteen oh seven bottle of wine that's
actually salvage from the wreck of the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I like this idea that it somehow humanizes the tragedy
by just sitting there, stopping yourself with all of this.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And drinking fancy old wine. Don't forget.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, well, I guess so. I guess they know exactly
what it was like to be on the Titanic then,
But that feels a little too rich for my blood.
I feel like maybe i'd spring for a recreation of
maybe like the third class dinner. I mean, that's got
to be a lot cheaper, right, Like. I imagine they were
a bit more down to earth at the second and
third class tables, right, So, I think.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's a really funny idea, But not as much as
you think, right. Like, So, the first and second class
dining rooms actually shared a galley, so there was probably
a good bit of crossover when it comes to what
was served, kind of like business a first class on
a plane or something, But the main difference would have
been that second class diners wouldn't have had all the
crazy wine pairings a few of the other frills that
the first class people enjoyed, and honestly, even third class
(12:16):
passengers didn't have it too bad when it came to food.
So there was a lot less lamb with mint sauce
and a lot more roast beef and boiled potatoes. But
you actually wouldn't hear that many people complaining about it.
At the time, most ocean liners required third class passengers
to bring their own food to last the entire voyage,
which would have made the Titanic's prepared meals seem really
decadent to most people. I mean, the same can't be
(12:39):
said for the accommodations, though there were actually only two
bathtubs for all seven hundred third class passengers to share.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh gosh, well, maybe let's not dwell on that. But
getting back to the food, it's hard for me to
even wrap my head around the amount of work that
must have gone into feeding this many people and multiple
times a day. Like there were twenty two hundred people
aboard the Titanic, you've got thirteen hundred passengers, nine hundred
crew members, so just doing the math like three meals
(13:08):
a day. That's sixty six hundred meals that the kitchens
had to crank out every twenty four hours, and it
must have been a pretty colossal effort.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It definitely was. So I read this interview with Dana McCauley.
She co wrote a book called Last Dinner on the Titanic,
and she says the Titanic's kitchen crew included one hundred
thirteen cooks, fifteen first cooks who supervised things, twelve pastry chefs,
six bakers, five butchers, and five sous chefs. And you know,
you think about that, that's not even mentioning the dozens
(13:36):
of waiters or bus boys that each meal required.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty huge staff. But I'm
actually a bit surprised that it's not even bigger when
you consider how many people they were feeding and just
the level of sheer variety on those menus that you
talked about. But you know, since you mentioned the Titanic's bakers,
I want to take a second and talk about the
ship's chief baker. He was a guy named Charles Joffin,
and he was a survi of the wreck and live
(14:01):
for decades afterward. But he was also examined as part
of a British inquiry after the accident, and the picture
he paints during his testimony is really pretty amazing. So,
after the Titanic hits the iceberg, sorry for the spoiler there,
but Charles immediately gets to work and he starts rounding
up all the bread he can find to help bolster
(14:21):
the provisions and all the lifeboats. Now he ends up
sending something like forty pounds of bread loaves to the
upper decks, and then he heads back to his cabin
where he proceeds to steal himself with what he called,
quote a drop of liqueur, and I have a feeling
it was a little more than a drop, and honestly,
in that situation, who can blame him. But then Charles
(14:42):
heads to the a deck and he starts helping to
load the lifeboats. Now this is something I hadn't heard before,
but apparently many of the passengers were reluctant to leave
the ship, Like in the first hour or so after
the collision, when only the lower decks were flooding. At
that point, a lot of the people tried to wave
off the danger and actually refused to get on. These lifeboats.
(15:03):
So Charles knew better in this situation. And so when
he found women and children just squatting on the deck
refusing to budge, he and other crew members began picking
up these stubborn passengers and actually throwing them into the lifeboats.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then when these last lifeboats were filled and lowered,
Charles went back down to his cabin, had himself another
drop of liqueur, and went right back on the deck. Now,
at this point, the ship was sinking in earnest and
it was clear that the majority of the passengers were
still on board. So he was helpful to the very
last minute, and he tossed some fifty odd deck chairs
(15:38):
into the water so that people would have something to
cling on to when the ship inevitably went under.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That really is inspiring. Also, can I just say how
perfect an activity he chose given his circumstances, Like checking
deck chairs into the ocean is exactly the thing you
should do if you're trapped on a sinking ship and
you've had a few drinks.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
No, it does seem pretty fitting in that scenario. But
here's where really achieves legend status in my eyes, Like
he was actually still abore the Titanic when it split
in half. In fact, he reportedly climbed over the railing
rode the ship down as it sank, and when asked
during his inquiry if he had been dragged under with
the ship, Charles just replied, I do not believe my
(16:18):
head went underwater at all. It may have been wetted,
but no more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Okay, So this guy's my near hero.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Well, and that's really saying something because there are a
ton of stories about passengers behaving bravely while the ship
went down, And of course these days a lot of
people say chivalry is dead, but that definitely wasn't the
case aboard the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, that's true. I think most people know the famous
policy about evacuating women and children first, and that really
was an explicit order that Captain Smith gave the night
the Titanic sank. But what I never knew before this
week is that Titanic actually proved the exception in that
regard rather than the rule, because it turns out that
in most maritime disasters, men have had a significantly higher
(16:59):
survival rate than women and children.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Really, I don't think I would have guessed that, but right, well,
I have a ton of questions to ask, and at
some point we do need to talk about the crash itself.
But before we get to any of that, let's take
a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and
(17:28):
we're talking about the enduring legacy of the RMS Titanic.
All right, mego, So before the break, you were saying
that when disaster strikes at sea that men generally fare
better than women and children. So can you explain what
you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Sure? So this comes from this sweetest study where researchers
looked at eighteen maritime disasters that happened between eighteen fifty
two and twenty eleven, and what they found was that
women and children survived in greater numbers than men in
only two of the eighteen cases. It was for the
HMS Brokenstock in fifty two and the Titanic in nineteen twelve.
(18:03):
In all other cases, men came out ahead, with an
average survival rate of thirty seven percent, compared to twenty
seven percent for women and just fifteen percent for children.
And that was the only surprise to come out of
the study either, because it turns out the crew members
actually have the highest survival rate. They come out with
a whopping sixty one percent. And you know, this romantic
(18:23):
idea of captains choosing to go down with the ships, right,
that apparently doesn't happen as often as we assume, because
even captains tend to have a higher survival rate than passengers.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But you're saying that wasn't the case the night the
Titanic sank.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Exactly So with Titanic, women actually had a seventy five
percent survival rate compared to just seventeen percent for men.
And it's the same with children. Half the kids aboard
the Titanic survived the ordeal.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
All right, So do we know why that is? Like,
what made the Titanic so different? Was its crew just
like that much better at following the correct procedure or
what happened there?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's the thing. The whole women and children first was explicit,
and it wasn't this like ridden rule at the time.
And in fact, as we see with those other sixteen cases,
the real policy is closer to first come, first server,
or even every man for himself. But that's one way
in which Birkenstock and Titanic stick out from the others,
because in both those cases, the captains gave this direct
(19:17):
order that women and children should be evacuated first.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So if that's the case, then the higher survival rates
for women and children it's really thanks more to the
captains and crew like, not necessarily the passengers of the
Titanic being chivalrous, was really more the captain.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So that is one way to look at it. But
on the other hand, we do have plenty of reports
of crew members and even passengers who chose to remain
on board and help others rather than take up space
and lifeboats. I mean, supposedly there were just people on
deck just standing and smoking cigars drinking brandy while others
fled for their lives. And while that might sound kind
of silly or naivetas, I think those guys absolutely knew
(19:55):
what they were doing. They were willing to die in
order to give other people a shot at living, all.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Right, So then what do we make of this, Like,
are we saying the passengers of Titanic and I guess
Birkenstock just happened to be more selfless than you know,
people in these other ship wrecks, And me, I feel
like there's got to be more to it than that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I read the study from an Australian economist. His name's
David Savage, and he actually suggested that Titanic's passengers behave
more altruistically simply because they had the time to do so.
Like if you think about the wreck of the Lusitania,
which was this other luxury liner from the era, which
I'm sure you've heard of, it had a similar number
of passengers and survivals to the Titanic. But whereas the
(20:34):
Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, Titanic took nearly
three hours. And that's why Savage suggests that the longer
timeline allowed social norms to assert themselves aboard the Titanic.
So instead of giving into the panic self interest as
passengers aboard the Lusitania and most of the other ships did,
the people aboard the Titanic had enough time to tamp
(20:54):
down their self preservation instincts and really act in favor
of the group instead. And you know, I have to
wonder if that, in itself is one of the reasons
that people are still so affected by the Titanic story today. Like,
if you think about it, this was one of those
rare tragedies where the people involved actually had the time
to think about their circumstances and how they wanted to
spend their final moments, and that's not really a luxury
(21:17):
that many have had in major disasters in the last century.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Well, and think about how much worse things could have
gone if the passengers didn't have that extra bit of time.
I mean, as it stands, there were only about seven
hundred survivors from Titanic, which means roughly fifteen hundred people
lost their lives that night, and if there'd been mass panic,
it's likely that even more people would have died in
the process.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, though I do question how much better things really
could have been. Like, at the end of the day,
the ship just didn't have anywhere near the number of
lifeboats it would have technically taken to save everyone on board.
And that's what the ship at half capacity like the
Titanic technically could have fit another eleven hundred people on board,
which undoubtedly would have made it an even bigger tragedy.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, that's true. And you know, people often point to
those lack of lifeboats aboard the Titanic as another example
of the hubris of the ship's owners and creators. And
you know, to a certain extent that makes sense. Like
one of the stories I hear a lot is how
the ship could have easily carried twice the amount of
lifeboats that it had, only the designers didn't want to
(22:22):
ruin the esthetics by cluttering the deck with more boats.
I mean, it's just absurd. And well, that may be true,
it's worth noting that Titanic was completely up to code
when it came to lifeboats. In fact, it was actually
more compliant than it even had to be, because instead
of having sixteen lifeboats as the Board of Trade required,
the ship actually had twenty.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean that sounds ridiculous, Like a ship as big
as the Titanic was only required to have sixteen lifeboats.
How is that even possible? Like didn't they know how
many people were going to be on board?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well they did, But the thing is like the number
of passengers wasn't actually a factor, and the hermiting this.
So prior to Titanic, the number of lifeboats needed was
based solely on a ship's weight. So whether the ship
the size of the Titanic was sailing half full or
completely empty, it would have still been required to carry
just sixteen lifeboats. Now, the good news is that Titanic
(23:17):
shined a light on how little sense this made and practice,
and so thanks to that public scrutiny and sended enquiries
that took place in the days after the disaster, regulations
definitely changed and the number of lifeboats started to be
determined by the number of people on board, not by
how much a ship weighed, which just seems weird that
we even have to say that, because who else would
(23:39):
be getting on these lifeboats other than the people on
the ship.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Definitely a smart change, And you know, there were actually
a couple other positive things to come out of the
Titanic tragedy. For example, maritime agencies began using round the
clock wireless monitoring to keep track of ships and to
make sure that few distress calls were missed, and that's
a that made a huge difference during World War One,
when large ships were frequent targets for enemy torpedoes. In fact,
(24:05):
the ship that rescued the Titanic, I think it was
called the Carpathia. It was sunk six years later by
a torpedo fired from a German U boat. But thanks
to the lessons from Titanic, the Carpathia had plenty of
lifeboats in a direct line to call for help. And
as a result of this preparedness, not a single crew
member or passenger drowned that day.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That's pretty amazing. And you know, actually we neglected to
mention what's probably my favorite advancement to come out of Titanic,
and that's the creation of what's called the International Ice Patrol. Now,
this was established the very next year after the Titanic sank,
and the organization has spent the last one hundred plus
years just patrolling the North Atlantic and tracking the movement
(24:46):
of icebergs. And so, you know, the way that it
worked in the early days is that a patrol ship
would just head out into the open ocean, find the
southernmost iceberg and then just kind of keep an eye
on it for the rest of the season. And so
it would follow the iceberg wherever it went and then
just report those movements so that the other boats would
know how to steer.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Clear, which is awesome. And you said this is something
that still goes on today.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, the Patrol is actually part of the US Coast
Guard now and so these days they mostly do their
scouting by plane, but satellites are also a factor now
and of course, sometimes the team will still take a
ship out and babysit the icebergs. Really kind of the
old fashioned way.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well, I know, we also wanted to talk about some
of the impact that Titanic's had on culture, both in
the US and abroad. But before we do that, let's
take one more quick break. Okay, Well, so let's talk
(25:49):
about the first time Titanic fever gripped society, which, of
course was back when news of the ships sinking first broke.
And the guy who actually got the scoop was this
journalist named Carlos Heard, who happened to be in just
the right place at just the right time.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Wait, don't tell me he was actually a passenger on
the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Was he? No? But super close. He was actually one
of the original passengers on board the Carpathia before it
was re routed to aid in the rescue operation. So
during the four day trip to New York, Carlos was
able to interview many of the Titanic survivors and then
turn those accounts into a five thousand word story.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
So is it true like the public didn't know anything
about the disaster until his story came out?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well, where did the collision reach the mainland thanks to
wireless messages sent from both the Titanic and the Carpathia.
But these communications were short on details, and they came
nowhere close to capturing the full scope of the tragedy.
And while there was plenty of time to fill people
in during the voyage to New York, like, the captain
of the Carpathia actually banned everyone on board from sharing
any information with the media aside from a list of
(26:50):
which passengers had survived and which had perished.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And so did people honor his wishes?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Definitely not, because when the Carpathia had finally arrived at port,
it was immediately surrounded by small boats that had been
chartered by over eager news companies. According to the Smithsonian quote,
reporters shouted through megaphones on their tugboats offered terrific sums
of money for information exclusives, but Captain Rostron said he
would shoot any pressman who dared venture aboard his ship.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
All right, Well, so then how did carlos Herd get
his story out? Because I'm going to have to imagine
he and others were stuck on the boat for a while.
Once they got to New York and especially if they
were so besieged by the press.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
That is true, which is why Carlos had to get
creative if he was going to crack one of the
biggest stories of the decade. And this is incredible. So
you know, he sent the secret wireless message to a
friend at a New York newspaper telling him to charter
a tugboat, and then the guy sailed to the Carpathia
that evening. Then behind the captain's back, Carlos stuffed his
story into a waterproof bag and discreetly tossed it onto
(27:51):
this waiting boat. And later that very night, the New
York Evening World published his story. It was the first
include accurate details about what had happened.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, and it's wild to look back and see just
how fast the story spread and kind of took root
in people's minds after that, and all in the days
before television or really even the radio craze for that matter.
And for instance, I was reading how manufacturers rushed to
produce Titanic merchandise and the days following the crash, so
in a matter of weeks, the market was flooded with
(28:21):
all sorts of commemorative products from postcards and dinner plates
to music boxes, whiskey jiggers. I was even reading about
this German toy company called stef that released a limited
edition Titanic teddy bear shortly after the ship sank. And
it's really weird, like it was actually called the Morning
Bear because it was made to look like it was
(28:41):
grieving the victims, like it had all black fur and
these red rimmed eyes to make it look like the
bear had been crying, and it's just gross, to be
honest with you. And apparently the idea had come from
a report about the Titanic senior engineer William Moves, who
went down with the ship and supposedly he had a
stiff teddy Bear on board with him, so the company
(29:03):
decided to release a memorial bear in his honor. And
the craziest part is that today the stif Morning Bears
typically go for upwards of twenty grand a piece at auction.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That is insane. So one of the biggest surprises in
preparing for today's episode was really that, like seeing just
how quickly people began to capitalize on Titanic, And I
think one of the best examples of that is the
fact that exactly one month after the ship went down,
the very first movie about Titanic premiered in theaters.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wait did you say one month after? Like I obviously
knew the nineteen ninety seven movie wasn't the first to
tackle the subject, But I mean, I can't see any
way that something could have come out that quickly one
month after such a real life tragedy.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, and you haven't even heard the wildest part yet,
because this movie, which was called Saved from the Titanic,
actually starred a young silent film actress named Dorothy Gibson,
and Dorothy and her mother were both survivors of the
real Titanic. I mean, can you even imagine like living
through a nightmare like that and then re enacting the
whole thing just.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Two weeks later? I mean, I can't imagine that, nor
would I want to. But what on earth made her
want to do this?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So Dorothy afferently did not want to do the movie
at all, but she got talked into it by her
producer slash boyfriend, who is I guess this unscrupulous Hollywood
mogul type like his name was Jules Brullator. He had
put together this news reel and The Titanic that proved
to be this huge hit, so he figured that a
dramatization of the event, starting an actual survivor would make
(30:32):
a great next act, and so, with the help of
a thousand dollars engagement ring, he made his pitch to Dorothy,
and she ultimately agreed to make this one real film
about her experience. But as you can imagine, it was
not easy. For the sake of realism, she chose to
wear the same evening dress, coat and shoes that she'd
worn the night Titanic sank, and Dorothy reportedly burst into
(30:55):
tears multiple times during the shooting, and once the film
had wrapped, she walked away from the movie business for good.
She stated simply that she felt quote dissatisfied.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I mean, I can't blame her for wanting to get
away from an industry that would push her into reliving
a trauma like that. But yeah, honestly though, I mean,
I have to admit I would be curious to see
the movie, and.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The truth is, you're not the only one. So Save
from the Titanic is actually one of the holy grails
for silent movie buffs. And that's because two years after
it was made, this massive fire broke out at the
studio and all the known prints were destroyed, so nobody's
seen the movie since its original run in theaters over
one hundred years ago. And as much as I wish
the film could have been preserved for posterity, it's kind
(31:40):
of poetic that no one can make her reenact that
experience ever again.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a certain kind of
justice in that, But I mean what I find ironic
is that there are plenty of people today who will
go to great links and great expense to sort of
relive the experience of the Titanic. I mean, you mentioned
earlier how people pay big money to recreate the ships
lavish meals, and there are also companies that offer one
hundred thousand dollars submarine voyages to see the actual Titanic
(32:07):
wreckage in all its glory. And I actually I read
about an American couple that even got married and a
tiny sub docked on the bow of the tiny shipwreck.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So I'm sure that made for some pretty amazing wedding pictures.
But it does seem a little disrespectful to me, right,
like it's effectively this mass grave.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Well, I mean You're not the only one to point
that out. And in fact, listen to what the company
that put on the undersea wedding said in its defense.
It said, what's got to be remembered is that every
time a couple gets married in church, they have to
walk through a graveyard to get to the altar.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah. I mean, plenty of people get married in churches
that have on site cemeteries, but in those cases the
graveyard isn't the selling point like it is with the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Well, I think the Titanic tourism stuff probably comes from
that same place as those just missed it stories we
talked about at the top of the show, and that
kind of weird desire that people feel to tie themselves
to someone else's tragedy. But I mean, in this case,
I feel like it goes a little too.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Far, which sounds right, But I pretty much signed with
Robert Ballard, who is the oceanographer who first discovered the
Titanic wreckage back in eighty five, and he refused to
divulge to the ship's exact location for vera that treasure
hunters and corporations would swoop in to exploit it. And
it's an act that Ballard actually saw as tantamount to
(33:28):
grave robbing. Of course, the coordinates eventually leaked anyway, and
now more than one hundred and forty people have visited
the shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland altogether. Though these
visitors have extracted some five thousand artifacts and done untold
damage to the ship itself in the process.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It's always a little unsettling to see the final resting
place of so many people picked apart like that. But
actually I read somewhere that the Titanic's under UNESCO protection now, though,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, ever since the hundredth anniversary of the wreck, I
believe so.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Then it's considered like this underwater cultural heritage site or
something like that, and so any kind of excavation would
actually be off limits at this point.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, that's true, and legal protections, even ones that are
a few decades too late, are a nice deterrent to
these would be pirates and scavengers. But the reality is
that Titanic won't be around much longer no matter what
we do, and that's because about a decade ago, scientists
discovered a new species of bacteria that's been slowly devouring
the ship's iron hull. Not only that, but as the
(34:27):
microbes munch away, they form these icicle like communities called rusticles,
and this happens all over the ship, inside it out,
and as the rusticals get heavier and heavier, they start
to pull the ship apart piece by piece. Meanwhile, the
mollusks have made short work of the wood from Titanic,
and of course any human remains were consumed by marine
life long ago, So at this point most researchers think
(34:50):
it's just another decade or two until the ship is
gone forever.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, I mean, that'll really be the end of an era.
But of course, with all the biographies and movies and
Teddy Bears and themed dinners, I mean I think we'll
always have plenty that remember the Titanic and its passengers
by absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And speaking of remembrances, Robert Ballard gave a really touching
one shortly after he found the shipwreck, and it kind
of works as a eulogy for the ship and for
the event as a whole. So I thought it might
be a nice way to close out the show. Do
you mind if I read it and then we can
go straight to the fact off.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Okay, so this is what Ballard said. Quote. The Titanic
lies now in thirteen thousand feet of water on a
gently sloping alpine looking countryside, overlooking a small canyon below.
Its bow faces north. The ship sits upright on its bottom,
with its mighty stacks pointed upward. There is no light
at this great depth, and little life can be found.
(35:45):
It is a quiet and peaceful place, and a fitting
place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies
to rest forever. May it remain that way, and may
God bless these now found souls.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So one of the weirder things to read about is
all the ways people plan to try to bring the
Titanic back up to the surface. And some of the
weird ones that I just jotted down here are. One
was filling polyester bags with vasilene, and the idea here
is that vasolene would harden then become buoyant, and that
that would somehow lift the Titanic. Another one was filling
(36:27):
the whole of the ship with thousands of ping pong balls,
And then another one is in case the ship in ice,
which would basically be the equivalent of creating a big
ice cube. And a drink, and that we all know
what happens with ice cubes and a drink. They float.
So these were all brilliant ideas, but somehow none of
these ideas came to life.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
So back in eighteen eighty six, the writer William T.
Stead wrote a fictional piece about a mail steamer wrecking
and then most of his passengers dying because there weren't
enough life boats. And in the story he pointed out
the fact that there really lacks regulations didn't require ships
to have enough lifeboats for every person on the ship.
Just a few years later, Steed came back to his
(37:08):
theme and wrote about a ship crashing into ice. And
then we fast forward a couple decades and one of
the passengers who died in the Titanic tragedy was none
other than Steed, and he did so because there weren't
enough life boats on board. Wow.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Well, we talked about this before, about how anytime there's
a disaster like this, lots of people claim that they
were almost a part of it. But there's actually one
famous person that has pretty good proof of this. It
turns out that Milton Snavely Hershey, you know, the man
behind the legendary chocolate brand, things like Hershey's Kisses, Hersey's
Chocolate Bars. Do you need me to give more examples,
(37:42):
Mango or you to deal with Hershey? Yeah? Well, anyway,
he was scheduled to be on the ship. So if
you head to Hershey, Pennsylvania and visit the community archives there,
you can see a three hundred dollars check that Hershey
had written to the White Star Line and it's believed
to be a deposit tour a state room. But it
turns out that he had more urgent business back in
(38:04):
the States, and so Hershey and his wife took an
earliership the America, which strangely was one of the mini
ships that sent back warnings to the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
You know the iconic scene in the movie Titanic where
Rose is lying on the driftwood and staring up at
the sky. Right, So Neil deGrasse Tyson apparently saw the
scene and decided to send a note to James Cameron
to point out that the star Rose was looking up
at wouldn't have actually been the one she would have
seen at that real place in time. The only issue
is that Tyson didn't see this movie until about a
(38:34):
decade after its initial release, but Cameron is such a
perfectionist that he decided to reshoot the scene in preparation
for the release of the three D edition.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So more than a decade later. That's pretty wild and
also pretty impressive that we made it near the end
of the fact off before we really did a fact
about the movie. Yeah, that impress all right, Well, we
all know that the Titanic sunk after Kali with an iceberg,
but some believe that there was a massive coal fire
in the bunker of the ship that actually caused significant
(39:07):
structural weakening of the outside of the ship. Now, journalist
sin And Maloney has been researching this subject for decades now,
and he points to these photographs of the Titanic right
before its final trip, and the photos show this huge
black mark on the hull of the ship, which is
of course where the ship would later hit the iceberg. Now,
Maloney also believes that the owners of the Titanic were
(39:30):
well aware of this damage, but not wanting to delay
a trip which would of course cost them a bunch
of money, they decided to just ignore it. Now, I
should note that many engineers looking at the situation have
said it's difficult to tell how much that prior damage
really contributed to the disaster. It may have all happened anyway,
but it's still pretty interesting to look at this theory.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I mean, it is crazy that their conspiracy theories about
the Titanic. It's pretty fascinating. So there's a restaurant near
Halifax Harbor. It's the seafood place, is called Five Fishermen Restaurant,
and it's supposedly a fantastic restaurant, but it's got a
strange claim to fame. It was actually an old mortuary,
the city's oldest. In fact, it was called Snow and
Company undertakers, and it received the bodies of not just one,
(40:14):
but two major tragedies in the early nineteen hundreds. It
turns out that Halifax was the base of many of
the rescue operations, and many of the bodies from the
Titanic disaster were brought to Snow's funeral home. And then
five years later, when the Halifax explosion took place, it
was the largest human made explosion in history at the time,
many of the bodies were once again brought to Snow
and Company.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Wow, such a weird coincidence. And you said it's a
seafood place now it is.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And while I do like that fact, I think your
ping pong ball ice cube fact lifting the Titanic is
probably the happiest one of the lots. I think you
deserved the prize this week.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Thanks so much, and hopefully one day they will try
all of those at one time. It was just great
rising of the ship. But you know, it's been interesting
to dive into this one. I know there are facts
out there that we certainly left out. We always love
hearing those from you. You can email us those anytime
part Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com or hit us
up on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango
(41:11):
and me, Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
(41:31):
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
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Speaker 1 (41:36):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
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Speaker 1 (41:42):
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Speaker 2 (41:48):
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Speaker 1 (41:50):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
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Speaker 2 (41:56):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Jason who detect
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's that? Will see?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You remember a couple of weeks ago when the artist
banks He pulled that incredible prank on the entire auction world.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, that was when it was painting just self destructed
in front of everyone. Wasn't it worth over a million dollars?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It was actually one point four million dollars? And the
crazy part is they say it's probably worth even more
now and the person who had bid on it, you know,
has agreed to pay that price.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's crazy. I mean, I guess it does make it
more unique, but it's still really weird how much people
will pay for things.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
No, it definitely is. And actually I find this kind
of thing fascinating. I mean, it's it's always interesting to
see what people will pay big money for at auction.
So I was recently looking at this list of the
things people have bid on over the years that are
related to the Titanic disaster, and one thing that went
for even more than that Banksy painting is the violin
(00:51):
played by William Hartley as the Titanic sank. Now, many
of us have heard this legend before, and it's of
course impossible to verify, you know, every piece of it.
But the idea is that Hartley, who was the band leader,
that he asked his seven musicians to keep playing as
the ship was going down, And so some tell the
story that he led his crew in playing Near My
(01:11):
God to thee and you know, that may not be
completely true. It does appear that the musicians did maintain
their composure and they continued playing something what we don't
know exactly what it was, but that violin that Hartley
played sold back in twenty thirteen for one point seven
million dollars. And I guess it's really no surprise because,
(01:33):
you know, more than one hundred years after the tragic event,
we're still fascinated by it. So today we'll try to
better understand why that is, you know, and ask some
of the questions like what did people know about the
Titanic before it set sail, what was life like on board,
and what were some of the strange ways people chose
to remember the ship after the disaster. So let's get started, Hey,
(02:16):
their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
mangesh Hot Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass wearing a button that just says proud member
of the just Mysstic club. That's our friend and producer
Tristan McNeil. Now a lot of people don't know this,
but Tristan very nearly booked himself on a trip on
the Titanic back in nineteen twelve. Thankfully, the plan fell
(02:40):
apart at the very last minute, you know, on account
of his not having been born yet, so ultimately he
missed the boat.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Which is just such a lucky break. But you know,
Tristan isn't alone in telling tall tales about how he
narrowly escaped death on the Titanic. In fact, just five
days after the sinking, there are already press reports about
the so called US Missed It Club and how it
already had six nine hundred four members. And so this
was obviously tongue in cheek, but it was also kind
of true. Like a suspiciously large number of people had
(03:10):
come forward claiming they'd missed the boat because they'd been
running late that morning, or they'd gotten sick or whatever,
but everyone knew most of the stories were completely made up.
Like in one of the press reports I mentioned, they
had a sarcastic quote from a guy who said, quote,
I count it lucky that I didn't have the money
to go abroad this year. If all of us who
just missed it had got aboard the Titanic, she would
(03:30):
have sunk at the Liverpool Dock from the overload.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I'm glad the public didn't fall for all these stories.
I mean, it's such a strange compulsion in the first place,
you know, to lie like that because I don't know,
because you want to attach yourself to a tragedy. But
I guess that goes to show how captivated people were
by the story of the Titanic. And the really amazing
thing is that more than one hundred years later, many
of us are still just as captivated. So at this
(03:57):
point the disaster, it feels like it's taken on kind
of a mythical status in world culture, and it's become
one of those stories that everybody seems to know. In fact,
I read in Smithsonian that Titanic is actually the third
most recognized word in the world, just below God and
Coca cola. And you know, while it's true that interest
in the story has ebbed and flowed over time, it's
(04:19):
still something that we always seem to come back to
So today we'll take a look at why that is
and why Titanic still fascinates us all these years later,
and help answer that. We'll talk about the impact the
tragedies had on the world, both in the short term
and the long term, and we'll also dig a little
deeper into life aboard the ship, which you know, includes
(04:39):
the surprising stories of a few standout passengers. It's definitely
a lot to cover, so let's get to it. But
where do you want to start, Mango, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Thought we could start with one of the biggest reasons
that people have stayed invested in the Titanic, and that's
just the ship itself. So most of us know that
at the time it was the largest ocean liner ever constructed,
and more broadly, the large just men made moving object
in the world. It was about eight hundred and eighty
feet long and one hundred and seventy five feet tall,
which means the ship was as long as three football
(05:09):
fields and as tall as a seventeen story building. Isn't
that insane?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a massive ship for
its time, no question about that, But it wouldn't really
be that impressive today though, right I mean, we have
cruise ships that are more than four times that size now,
so it does make me wonder, like why the size
of the Titanic still captures people's interest.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So I think it's partly the perception that the Titanic
was kind of tempting fate in a way, like the
fact that the ship held that title as the world's
largest and then it ended up sinking on its maiden voyage.
It feels like this cautionary tale about man's hubris in
some people's minds, Like it's almost like a Tower of
Babbel situation or something where man kind of overreached and
then was made to suffer for it. And I think
(05:51):
that still resonates for people, especially since we've heard so
many stories now about how luxurious and decadent the ship was,
especially compared to others at the time.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, Well, before we get to that fateful night
with the iceberg, I do want to spend a little
more time on board and talk about a few of
those deck in it details that you alluded to. So,
for example, the Titanic was one of the first ships
to have electric lights in all of its rooms. It
also had way more amenities than most other ships, and
so just looking at the list, here among those were
(06:20):
four elevators, a heated swimming pool, two libraries, two barber shops,
a squash court, a Turkish bath, and even it's on
onboard newspaper called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So I hadn't heard about the paper. I'm guessing that
means that they had a printing press on board.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I mean there was a small print shop on
the D deck, and of course this was close to
the butcher's shop in case you're wondering.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Now I know where i'd get my PASTROMI on that.
That's right, But I mean, it really does feel like
they thought about everything. My favorite Titanic amenity, though it
is probably the onboard gymnasium, Like it had all the
best equipment, naturally, including old standards like rowing machines, weights,
punching bags, but it also had this cutting edge gear,
like they had two static bicycles with two foot dials
(07:07):
attached to show the distance that had been traveled. And
there were also a few electric horses, which were these
big mechanical saddles meant to mimic riding a horse.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I mean, does that even count as exercise? It kind
of feels like it would be less of a workout
for the rider than for the horse, or I guess
the saddle in this case.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I mean, I think it was supposed to streadden your
core or maybe some leg muscles, But either way, I
doubt any of the passenger has worked up that much
of a sweat. Like, if you look at pictures from
floating gyms on the Titanic and other ships of the era,
most of the passengers are exercising while they're wearing their
full get up, So it's like a bunch of really
sedate and calm looking people in these three piece suits
(07:48):
or like big Edwardian dresses and hats, and they're just
kind of half heartedly pedling on the bikes or whatever.
It's pretty lazy looking.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, I've actually seen some of these pictures, and honestly,
my guess is that it's the first time in a
gym for most of them, because nobody looks like they
know what they're doing at all.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I mean, it's a good thing that they had a
personal trainer on board the Titanic. This is real. His
name was Thomas McCauley, and it was this guy's job
to show passengers how to use the equipment, and even
to provide one on one training sessions. And it seems
like McCauley took his job super seriously because the night
the ship sank, he actually chose to stay at his
post in the gym and go down with the ship.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Wait, seriously, I mean, I don't want to speak ill
of the dead, but that sort of seems a little
bit unnecessary. I mean, we did talk about how the
band chose to continue playing as the ship sank, and
to me though, that makes sense because it was a
way to sacrifice and to calm the passengers, or to
give them at least some sense of peace. But I mean,
why keep the gym open. I can't imagine anybody was thinking, like,
(08:51):
I think, I'll just get in a few more reps
before whatever happens here happens.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. Probably not, But if anyone was trying to burn
like a few calories for the road, I really wouldn't
blame them. I mean, the meals on board the Titanic
were pretty epic, at least for the first class passengers,
and so the dinners were gourmet affairs with up to
thirteen courses, each of which came with its own paired wine.
There was also a pre dinner cocktail service that was
(09:15):
added as a concession to American passengers. Apparently European passengers
weren't fans of this idea because they thought mixed drinks
ruined your palette before eating. But from start to finish,
these elaborate meals could last as long as four or
five hours, and because the first class menu was actually
later recovered, we actually know exactly what the wealthiest Titanic
passengers had for dinner the night the ship went down,
(09:37):
and it was an incredible spread. The feast started with
raw oysters and a selection of ordeuvres, followed by a
choice of two soups. Then came a lightly pushed Atlantic
salmon topped with a rich moose. For the fourth and
fifth courses, passengers chose from such rich entrees as a
filet mignon or a lamb with mint sauce. And then
(09:58):
at the halfway point of the meal, this is only
halfway through the meal, you get a palate cleanser. It's
it's a punch romaine, which I guess is a boozy
mix of wine, rum and champagne. And then once you've
regained your appetite, the feasting resumes. There's a roast squab course,
cold asparagus vinaigrette fois gras, and then there's dessert, which
(10:19):
includes peaches and charcheris, jelly, chocolate, Vanilla Claire's French ice cream,
and then to close off the meal, there's a variety
of fruits, nuts, and cheeses with coffee, port cigars, and cordials.
It's pretty amiable.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
It feels like they just accidentally went ahead and cooked
everything for the week for one meal. I don't even
know how these people would get up and walk after
eating all of this stuff. I don't feel like I
could make it through a single meal.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I know, but if you did want to try, there
are actually places all over the world that now offer
dinners that recreate that last meal that the first class
passengers ate on the ship. And it's kind of a
cob but some people claim it's a great way to
humanize the tragedy or understand the history of the ethics acide. Like,
the biggest drawback is probably the price of these dinners. So,
(11:06):
for instance, there's one restaurant in Houston. It offers a
ten course menu for one thousand dollars per person. There's
also a version of this on a luxury hotel in
Hong Kong, where the price is doubled because it reportedly
serves this vintage nineteen oh seven bottle of wine that's
actually salvage from the wreck of the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I like this idea that it somehow humanizes the tragedy
by just sitting there, stopping yourself with all of this.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And drinking fancy old wine. Don't forget.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, well, I guess so. I guess they know exactly
what it was like to be on the Titanic then,
But that feels a little too rich for my blood.
I feel like maybe i'd spring for a recreation of
maybe like the third class dinner. I mean, that's got
to be a lot cheaper, right, Like. I imagine they were
a bit more down to earth at the second and
third class tables, right, So, I think.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's a really funny idea, But not as much as
you think, right. Like, So, the first and second class
dining rooms actually shared a galley, so there was probably
a good bit of crossover when it comes to what
was served, kind of like business a first class on
a plane or something, But the main difference would have
been that second class diners wouldn't have had all the
crazy wine pairings a few of the other frills that
the first class people enjoyed, and honestly, even third class
(12:16):
passengers didn't have it too bad when it came to food.
So there was a lot less lamb with mint sauce
and a lot more roast beef and boiled potatoes. But
you actually wouldn't hear that many people complaining about it.
At the time, most ocean liners required third class passengers
to bring their own food to last the entire voyage,
which would have made the Titanic's prepared meals seem really
decadent to most people. I mean, the same can't be
(12:39):
said for the accommodations, though there were actually only two
bathtubs for all seven hundred third class passengers to share.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh gosh, well, maybe let's not dwell on that. But
getting back to the food, it's hard for me to
even wrap my head around the amount of work that
must have gone into feeding this many people and multiple
times a day. Like there were twenty two hundred people
aboard the Titanic, you've got thirteen hundred passengers, nine hundred
crew members, so just doing the math like three meals
(13:08):
a day. That's sixty six hundred meals that the kitchens
had to crank out every twenty four hours, and it
must have been a pretty colossal effort.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It definitely was. So I read this interview with Dana McCauley.
She co wrote a book called Last Dinner on the Titanic,
and she says the Titanic's kitchen crew included one hundred
thirteen cooks, fifteen first cooks who supervised things, twelve pastry chefs,
six bakers, five butchers, and five sous chefs. And you know,
you think about that, that's not even mentioning the dozens
(13:36):
of waiters or bus boys that each meal required.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty huge staff. But I'm
actually a bit surprised that it's not even bigger when
you consider how many people they were feeding and just
the level of sheer variety on those menus that you
talked about. But you know, since you mentioned the Titanic's bakers,
I want to take a second and talk about the
ship's chief baker. He was a guy named Charles Joffin,
and he was a survi of the wreck and live
(14:01):
for decades afterward. But he was also examined as part
of a British inquiry after the accident, and the picture
he paints during his testimony is really pretty amazing. So,
after the Titanic hits the iceberg, sorry for the spoiler there,
but Charles immediately gets to work and he starts rounding
up all the bread he can find to help bolster
(14:21):
the provisions and all the lifeboats. Now he ends up
sending something like forty pounds of bread loaves to the
upper decks, and then he heads back to his cabin
where he proceeds to steal himself with what he called,
quote a drop of liqueur, and I have a feeling
it was a little more than a drop, and honestly,
in that situation, who can blame him. But then Charles
(14:42):
heads to the a deck and he starts helping to
load the lifeboats. Now this is something I hadn't heard before,
but apparently many of the passengers were reluctant to leave
the ship, Like in the first hour or so after
the collision, when only the lower decks were flooding. At
that point, a lot of the people tried to wave
off the danger and actually refused to get on. These lifeboats.
(15:03):
So Charles knew better in this situation. And so when
he found women and children just squatting on the deck
refusing to budge, he and other crew members began picking
up these stubborn passengers and actually throwing them into the lifeboats.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then when these last lifeboats were filled and lowered,
Charles went back down to his cabin, had himself another
drop of liqueur, and went right back on the deck. Now,
at this point, the ship was sinking in earnest and
it was clear that the majority of the passengers were
still on board. So he was helpful to the very
last minute, and he tossed some fifty odd deck chairs
(15:38):
into the water so that people would have something to
cling on to when the ship inevitably went under.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That really is inspiring. Also, can I just say how
perfect an activity he chose given his circumstances, Like checking
deck chairs into the ocean is exactly the thing you
should do if you're trapped on a sinking ship and
you've had a few drinks.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
No, it does seem pretty fitting in that scenario. But
here's where really achieves legend status in my eyes, Like
he was actually still abore the Titanic when it split
in half. In fact, he reportedly climbed over the railing
rode the ship down as it sank, and when asked
during his inquiry if he had been dragged under with
the ship, Charles just replied, I do not believe my
(16:18):
head went underwater at all. It may have been wetted,
but no more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Okay, So this guy's my near hero.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Well, and that's really saying something because there are a
ton of stories about passengers behaving bravely while the ship
went down, And of course these days a lot of
people say chivalry is dead, but that definitely wasn't the
case aboard the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, that's true. I think most people know the famous
policy about evacuating women and children first, and that really
was an explicit order that Captain Smith gave the night
the Titanic sank. But what I never knew before this
week is that Titanic actually proved the exception in that
regard rather than the rule, because it turns out that
in most maritime disasters, men have had a significantly higher
(16:59):
survival rate than women and children.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Really, I don't think I would have guessed that, but right, well,
I have a ton of questions to ask, and at
some point we do need to talk about the crash itself.
But before we get to any of that, let's take
a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and
(17:28):
we're talking about the enduring legacy of the RMS Titanic.
All right, mego, So before the break, you were saying
that when disaster strikes at sea that men generally fare
better than women and children. So can you explain what
you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Sure? So this comes from this sweetest study where researchers
looked at eighteen maritime disasters that happened between eighteen fifty
two and twenty eleven, and what they found was that
women and children survived in greater numbers than men in
only two of the eighteen cases. It was for the
HMS Brokenstock in fifty two and the Titanic in nineteen twelve.
(18:03):
In all other cases, men came out ahead, with an
average survival rate of thirty seven percent, compared to twenty
seven percent for women and just fifteen percent for children.
And that was the only surprise to come out of
the study either, because it turns out the crew members
actually have the highest survival rate. They come out with
a whopping sixty one percent. And you know, this romantic
(18:23):
idea of captains choosing to go down with the ships, right,
that apparently doesn't happen as often as we assume, because
even captains tend to have a higher survival rate than passengers.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But you're saying that wasn't the case the night the
Titanic sank.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Exactly So with Titanic, women actually had a seventy five
percent survival rate compared to just seventeen percent for men.
And it's the same with children. Half the kids aboard
the Titanic survived the ordeal.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
All right, So do we know why that is? Like,
what made the Titanic so different? Was its crew just
like that much better at following the correct procedure or
what happened there?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's the thing. The whole women and children first was explicit,
and it wasn't this like ridden rule at the time.
And in fact, as we see with those other sixteen cases,
the real policy is closer to first come, first server,
or even every man for himself. But that's one way
in which Birkenstock and Titanic stick out from the others,
because in both those cases, the captains gave this direct
(19:17):
order that women and children should be evacuated first.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So if that's the case, then the higher survival rates
for women and children it's really thanks more to the
captains and crew like, not necessarily the passengers of the
Titanic being chivalrous, was really more the captain.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So that is one way to look at it. But
on the other hand, we do have plenty of reports
of crew members and even passengers who chose to remain
on board and help others rather than take up space
and lifeboats. I mean, supposedly there were just people on
deck just standing and smoking cigars drinking brandy while others
fled for their lives. And while that might sound kind
of silly or naivetas, I think those guys absolutely knew
(19:55):
what they were doing. They were willing to die in
order to give other people a shot at living, all.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Right, So then what do we make of this, Like,
are we saying the passengers of Titanic and I guess
Birkenstock just happened to be more selfless than you know,
people in these other ship wrecks, And me, I feel
like there's got to be more to it than that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I read the study from an Australian economist. His name's
David Savage, and he actually suggested that Titanic's passengers behave
more altruistically simply because they had the time to do so.
Like if you think about the wreck of the Lusitania,
which was this other luxury liner from the era, which
I'm sure you've heard of, it had a similar number
of passengers and survivals to the Titanic. But whereas the
(20:34):
Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, Titanic took nearly
three hours. And that's why Savage suggests that the longer
timeline allowed social norms to assert themselves aboard the Titanic.
So instead of giving into the panic self interest as
passengers aboard the Lusitania and most of the other ships did,
the people aboard the Titanic had enough time to tamp
(20:54):
down their self preservation instincts and really act in favor
of the group instead. And you know, I have to
wonder if that, in itself is one of the reasons
that people are still so affected by the Titanic story today. Like,
if you think about it, this was one of those
rare tragedies where the people involved actually had the time
to think about their circumstances and how they wanted to
spend their final moments, and that's not really a luxury
(21:17):
that many have had in major disasters in the last century.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Well, and think about how much worse things could have
gone if the passengers didn't have that extra bit of time.
I mean, as it stands, there were only about seven
hundred survivors from Titanic, which means roughly fifteen hundred people
lost their lives that night, and if there'd been mass panic,
it's likely that even more people would have died in
the process.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, though I do question how much better things really
could have been. Like, at the end of the day,
the ship just didn't have anywhere near the number of
lifeboats it would have technically taken to save everyone on board.
And that's what the ship at half capacity like the
Titanic technically could have fit another eleven hundred people on board,
which undoubtedly would have made it an even bigger tragedy.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, that's true. And you know, people often point to
those lack of lifeboats aboard the Titanic as another example
of the hubris of the ship's owners and creators. And
you know, to a certain extent that makes sense. Like
one of the stories I hear a lot is how
the ship could have easily carried twice the amount of
lifeboats that it had, only the designers didn't want to
(22:22):
ruin the esthetics by cluttering the deck with more boats.
I mean, it's just absurd. And well, that may be true,
it's worth noting that Titanic was completely up to code
when it came to lifeboats. In fact, it was actually
more compliant than it even had to be, because instead
of having sixteen lifeboats as the Board of Trade required,
the ship actually had twenty.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean that sounds ridiculous, Like a ship as big
as the Titanic was only required to have sixteen lifeboats.
How is that even possible? Like didn't they know how
many people were going to be on board?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well they did, But the thing is like the number
of passengers wasn't actually a factor, and the hermiting this.
So prior to Titanic, the number of lifeboats needed was
based solely on a ship's weight. So whether the ship
the size of the Titanic was sailing half full or
completely empty, it would have still been required to carry
just sixteen lifeboats. Now, the good news is that Titanic
(23:17):
shined a light on how little sense this made and practice,
and so thanks to that public scrutiny and sended enquiries
that took place in the days after the disaster, regulations
definitely changed and the number of lifeboats started to be
determined by the number of people on board, not by
how much a ship weighed, which just seems weird that
we even have to say that, because who else would
(23:39):
be getting on these lifeboats other than the people on
the ship.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Definitely a smart change, And you know, there were actually
a couple other positive things to come out of the
Titanic tragedy. For example, maritime agencies began using round the
clock wireless monitoring to keep track of ships and to
make sure that few distress calls were missed, and that's
a that made a huge difference during World War One,
when large ships were frequent targets for enemy torpedoes. In fact,
(24:05):
the ship that rescued the Titanic, I think it was
called the Carpathia. It was sunk six years later by
a torpedo fired from a German U boat. But thanks
to the lessons from Titanic, the Carpathia had plenty of
lifeboats in a direct line to call for help. And
as a result of this preparedness, not a single crew
member or passenger drowned that day.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That's pretty amazing. And you know, actually we neglected to
mention what's probably my favorite advancement to come out of Titanic,
and that's the creation of what's called the International Ice Patrol. Now,
this was established the very next year after the Titanic sank,
and the organization has spent the last one hundred plus
years just patrolling the North Atlantic and tracking the movement
(24:46):
of icebergs. And so, you know, the way that it
worked in the early days is that a patrol ship
would just head out into the open ocean, find the
southernmost iceberg and then just kind of keep an eye
on it for the rest of the season. And so
it would follow the iceberg wherever it went and then
just report those movements so that the other boats would
know how to steer.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Clear, which is awesome. And you said this is something
that still goes on today.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, the Patrol is actually part of the US Coast
Guard now and so these days they mostly do their
scouting by plane, but satellites are also a factor now
and of course, sometimes the team will still take a
ship out and babysit the icebergs. Really kind of the
old fashioned way.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well, I know, we also wanted to talk about some
of the impact that Titanic's had on culture, both in
the US and abroad. But before we do that, let's
take one more quick break. Okay, Well, so let's talk
(25:49):
about the first time Titanic fever gripped society, which, of
course was back when news of the ships sinking first broke.
And the guy who actually got the scoop was this
journalist named Carlos Heard, who happened to be in just
the right place at just the right time.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Wait, don't tell me he was actually a passenger on
the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Was he? No? But super close. He was actually one
of the original passengers on board the Carpathia before it
was re routed to aid in the rescue operation. So
during the four day trip to New York, Carlos was
able to interview many of the Titanic survivors and then
turn those accounts into a five thousand word story.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
So is it true like the public didn't know anything
about the disaster until his story came out?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well, where did the collision reach the mainland thanks to
wireless messages sent from both the Titanic and the Carpathia.
But these communications were short on details, and they came
nowhere close to capturing the full scope of the tragedy.
And while there was plenty of time to fill people
in during the voyage to New York, like, the captain
of the Carpathia actually banned everyone on board from sharing
any information with the media aside from a list of
(26:50):
which passengers had survived and which had perished.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And so did people honor his wishes?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Definitely not, because when the Carpathia had finally arrived at port,
it was immediately surrounded by small boats that had been
chartered by over eager news companies. According to the Smithsonian quote,
reporters shouted through megaphones on their tugboats offered terrific sums
of money for information exclusives, but Captain Rostron said he
would shoot any pressman who dared venture aboard his ship.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
All right, Well, so then how did carlos Herd get
his story out? Because I'm going to have to imagine
he and others were stuck on the boat for a while.
Once they got to New York and especially if they
were so besieged by the press.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
That is true, which is why Carlos had to get
creative if he was going to crack one of the
biggest stories of the decade. And this is incredible. So
you know, he sent the secret wireless message to a
friend at a New York newspaper telling him to charter
a tugboat, and then the guy sailed to the Carpathia
that evening. Then behind the captain's back, Carlos stuffed his
story into a waterproof bag and discreetly tossed it onto
(27:51):
this waiting boat. And later that very night, the New
York Evening World published his story. It was the first
include accurate details about what had happened.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, and it's wild to look back and see just
how fast the story spread and kind of took root
in people's minds after that, and all in the days
before television or really even the radio craze for that matter.
And for instance, I was reading how manufacturers rushed to
produce Titanic merchandise and the days following the crash, so
in a matter of weeks, the market was flooded with
(28:21):
all sorts of commemorative products from postcards and dinner plates
to music boxes, whiskey jiggers. I was even reading about
this German toy company called stef that released a limited
edition Titanic teddy bear shortly after the ship sank. And
it's really weird, like it was actually called the Morning
Bear because it was made to look like it was
(28:41):
grieving the victims, like it had all black fur and
these red rimmed eyes to make it look like the
bear had been crying, and it's just gross, to be
honest with you. And apparently the idea had come from
a report about the Titanic senior engineer William Moves, who
went down with the ship and supposedly he had a
stiff teddy Bear on board with him, so the company
(29:03):
decided to release a memorial bear in his honor. And
the craziest part is that today the stif Morning Bears
typically go for upwards of twenty grand a piece at auction.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That is insane. So one of the biggest surprises in
preparing for today's episode was really that, like seeing just
how quickly people began to capitalize on Titanic, And I
think one of the best examples of that is the
fact that exactly one month after the ship went down,
the very first movie about Titanic premiered in theaters.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wait did you say one month after? Like I obviously
knew the nineteen ninety seven movie wasn't the first to
tackle the subject, But I mean, I can't see any
way that something could have come out that quickly one
month after such a real life tragedy.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, and you haven't even heard the wildest part yet,
because this movie, which was called Saved from the Titanic,
actually starred a young silent film actress named Dorothy Gibson,
and Dorothy and her mother were both survivors of the
real Titanic. I mean, can you even imagine like living
through a nightmare like that and then re enacting the
whole thing just.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Two weeks later? I mean, I can't imagine that, nor
would I want to. But what on earth made her
want to do this?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So Dorothy afferently did not want to do the movie
at all, but she got talked into it by her
producer slash boyfriend, who is I guess this unscrupulous Hollywood
mogul type like his name was Jules Brullator. He had
put together this news reel and The Titanic that proved
to be this huge hit, so he figured that a
dramatization of the event, starting an actual survivor would make
(30:32):
a great next act, and so, with the help of
a thousand dollars engagement ring, he made his pitch to Dorothy,
and she ultimately agreed to make this one real film
about her experience. But as you can imagine, it was
not easy. For the sake of realism, she chose to
wear the same evening dress, coat and shoes that she'd
worn the night Titanic sank, and Dorothy reportedly burst into
(30:55):
tears multiple times during the shooting, and once the film
had wrapped, she walked away from the movie business for good.
She stated simply that she felt quote dissatisfied.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I mean, I can't blame her for wanting to get
away from an industry that would push her into reliving
a trauma like that. But yeah, honestly though, I mean,
I have to admit I would be curious to see
the movie, and.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The truth is, you're not the only one. So Save
from the Titanic is actually one of the holy grails
for silent movie buffs. And that's because two years after
it was made, this massive fire broke out at the
studio and all the known prints were destroyed, so nobody's
seen the movie since its original run in theaters over
one hundred years ago. And as much as I wish
the film could have been preserved for posterity, it's kind
(31:40):
of poetic that no one can make her reenact that
experience ever again.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a certain kind of
justice in that, But I mean what I find ironic
is that there are plenty of people today who will
go to great links and great expense to sort of
relive the experience of the Titanic. I mean, you mentioned
earlier how people pay big money to recreate the ships
lavish meals, and there are also companies that offer one
hundred thousand dollars submarine voyages to see the actual Titanic
(32:07):
wreckage in all its glory. And I actually I read
about an American couple that even got married and a
tiny sub docked on the bow of the tiny shipwreck.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So I'm sure that made for some pretty amazing wedding pictures.
But it does seem a little disrespectful to me, right,
like it's effectively this mass grave.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Well, I mean You're not the only one to point
that out. And in fact, listen to what the company
that put on the undersea wedding said in its defense.
It said, what's got to be remembered is that every
time a couple gets married in church, they have to
walk through a graveyard to get to the altar.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah. I mean, plenty of people get married in churches
that have on site cemeteries, but in those cases the
graveyard isn't the selling point like it is with the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Well, I think the Titanic tourism stuff probably comes from
that same place as those just missed it stories we
talked about at the top of the show, and that
kind of weird desire that people feel to tie themselves
to someone else's tragedy. But I mean, in this case,
I feel like it goes a little too.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Far, which sounds right, But I pretty much signed with
Robert Ballard, who is the oceanographer who first discovered the
Titanic wreckage back in eighty five, and he refused to
divulge to the ship's exact location for vera that treasure
hunters and corporations would swoop in to exploit it. And
it's an act that Ballard actually saw as tantamount to
(33:28):
grave robbing. Of course, the coordinates eventually leaked anyway, and
now more than one hundred and forty people have visited
the shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland altogether. Though these
visitors have extracted some five thousand artifacts and done untold
damage to the ship itself in the process.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It's always a little unsettling to see the final resting
place of so many people picked apart like that. But
actually I read somewhere that the Titanic's under UNESCO protection now, though,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, ever since the hundredth anniversary of the wreck, I
believe so.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Then it's considered like this underwater cultural heritage site or
something like that, and so any kind of excavation would
actually be off limits at this point.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, that's true, and legal protections, even ones that are
a few decades too late, are a nice deterrent to
these would be pirates and scavengers. But the reality is
that Titanic won't be around much longer no matter what
we do, and that's because about a decade ago, scientists
discovered a new species of bacteria that's been slowly devouring
the ship's iron hull. Not only that, but as the
(34:27):
microbes munch away, they form these icicle like communities called rusticles,
and this happens all over the ship, inside it out,
and as the rusticals get heavier and heavier, they start
to pull the ship apart piece by piece. Meanwhile, the
mollusks have made short work of the wood from Titanic,
and of course any human remains were consumed by marine
life long ago, So at this point most researchers think
(34:50):
it's just another decade or two until the ship is
gone forever.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, I mean, that'll really be the end of an era.
But of course, with all the biographies and movies and
Teddy Bears and themed dinners, I mean I think we'll
always have plenty that remember the Titanic and its passengers
by absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And speaking of remembrances, Robert Ballard gave a really touching
one shortly after he found the shipwreck, and it kind
of works as a eulogy for the ship and for
the event as a whole. So I thought it might
be a nice way to close out the show. Do
you mind if I read it and then we can
go straight to the fact off.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Okay, so this is what Ballard said. Quote. The Titanic
lies now in thirteen thousand feet of water on a
gently sloping alpine looking countryside, overlooking a small canyon below.
Its bow faces north. The ship sits upright on its bottom,
with its mighty stacks pointed upward. There is no light
at this great depth, and little life can be found.
(35:45):
It is a quiet and peaceful place, and a fitting
place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies
to rest forever. May it remain that way, and may
God bless these now found souls.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So one of the weirder things to read about is
all the ways people plan to try to bring the
Titanic back up to the surface. And some of the
weird ones that I just jotted down here are. One
was filling polyester bags with vasilene, and the idea here
is that vasolene would harden then become buoyant, and that
that would somehow lift the Titanic. Another one was filling
(36:27):
the whole of the ship with thousands of ping pong balls,
And then another one is in case the ship in ice,
which would basically be the equivalent of creating a big
ice cube. And a drink, and that we all know
what happens with ice cubes and a drink. They float.
So these were all brilliant ideas, but somehow none of
these ideas came to life.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
So back in eighteen eighty six, the writer William T.
Stead wrote a fictional piece about a mail steamer wrecking
and then most of his passengers dying because there weren't
enough life boats. And in the story he pointed out
the fact that there really lacks regulations didn't require ships
to have enough lifeboats for every person on the ship.
Just a few years later, Steed came back to his
(37:08):
theme and wrote about a ship crashing into ice. And
then we fast forward a couple decades and one of
the passengers who died in the Titanic tragedy was none
other than Steed, and he did so because there weren't
enough life boats on board. Wow.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Well, we talked about this before, about how anytime there's
a disaster like this, lots of people claim that they
were almost a part of it. But there's actually one
famous person that has pretty good proof of this. It
turns out that Milton Snavely Hershey, you know, the man
behind the legendary chocolate brand, things like Hershey's Kisses, Hersey's
Chocolate Bars. Do you need me to give more examples,
(37:42):
Mango or you to deal with Hershey? Yeah? Well, anyway,
he was scheduled to be on the ship. So if
you head to Hershey, Pennsylvania and visit the community archives there,
you can see a three hundred dollars check that Hershey
had written to the White Star Line and it's believed
to be a deposit tour a state room. But it
turns out that he had more urgent business back in
(38:04):
the States, and so Hershey and his wife took an
earliership the America, which strangely was one of the mini
ships that sent back warnings to the Titanic.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
You know the iconic scene in the movie Titanic where
Rose is lying on the driftwood and staring up at
the sky. Right, So Neil deGrasse Tyson apparently saw the
scene and decided to send a note to James Cameron
to point out that the star Rose was looking up
at wouldn't have actually been the one she would have
seen at that real place in time. The only issue
is that Tyson didn't see this movie until about a
(38:34):
decade after its initial release, but Cameron is such a
perfectionist that he decided to reshoot the scene in preparation
for the release of the three D edition.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So more than a decade later. That's pretty wild and
also pretty impressive that we made it near the end
of the fact off before we really did a fact
about the movie. Yeah, that impress all right, Well, we
all know that the Titanic sunk after Kali with an iceberg,
but some believe that there was a massive coal fire
in the bunker of the ship that actually caused significant
(39:07):
structural weakening of the outside of the ship. Now, journalist
sin And Maloney has been researching this subject for decades now,
and he points to these photographs of the Titanic right
before its final trip, and the photos show this huge
black mark on the hull of the ship, which is
of course where the ship would later hit the iceberg. Now,
Maloney also believes that the owners of the Titanic were
(39:30):
well aware of this damage, but not wanting to delay
a trip which would of course cost them a bunch
of money, they decided to just ignore it. Now, I
should note that many engineers looking at the situation have
said it's difficult to tell how much that prior damage
really contributed to the disaster. It may have all happened anyway,
but it's still pretty interesting to look at this theory.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I mean, it is crazy that their conspiracy theories about
the Titanic. It's pretty fascinating. So there's a restaurant near
Halifax Harbor. It's the seafood place, is called Five Fishermen Restaurant,
and it's supposedly a fantastic restaurant, but it's got a
strange claim to fame. It was actually an old mortuary,
the city's oldest. In fact, it was called Snow and
Company undertakers, and it received the bodies of not just one,
(40:14):
but two major tragedies in the early nineteen hundreds. It
turns out that Halifax was the base of many of
the rescue operations, and many of the bodies from the
Titanic disaster were brought to Snow's funeral home. And then
five years later, when the Halifax explosion took place, it
was the largest human made explosion in history at the time,
many of the bodies were once again brought to Snow
and Company.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Wow, such a weird coincidence. And you said it's a
seafood place now it is.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And while I do like that fact, I think your
ping pong ball ice cube fact lifting the Titanic is
probably the happiest one of the lots. I think you
deserved the prize this week.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Thanks so much, and hopefully one day they will try
all of those at one time. It was just great
rising of the ship. But you know, it's been interesting
to dive into this one. I know there are facts
out there that we certainly left out. We always love
hearing those from you. You can email us those anytime
part Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com or hit us
up on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango
(41:11):
and me, Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
(41:31):
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
and Eves.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Jeffco gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Jason who detect
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