March 30, 2021 • 47 mins
When the Titanic set sail on her maiden voyage in April 1912, the world was divided into two types of people: those who considered her unsinkable and those who weren’t so sure about that. Both types were aboard when she went down with 1500 souls.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Ahoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
your captain. There's Chuck, your other captain, and your third captain, Jerry,
all of us equal captains here. Uh is out there
(00:23):
hovering around silently like the creepiest captain of all, even
creepier than Captain Stubbing. Um. Yeah, and that of course
makes this stuff you should know. I always loved it
when Captain Stubbing would have the rare love storyline. Yeah
now and then, yes, so good. He's usually just overseeing
(00:45):
the love of others, you know exactly. He was a
father figure, so that's why it was off putting when
he had his own love thing. Yeah, but he wants
to see Captain Stubbing, you know, go all the way.
Uh we should mention. And I wish I knew her name.
But for many, many years, one of our young listeners
(01:06):
asked us to do Titanic at every turn. And uh,
I imagine that that young girl is now a grown woman,
probably who doesn't listen anymore, but who knows who knows? Also, Chuck,
I think most recently was requested by our Scottish correspondent Noah. Oh,
(01:27):
don't you remember when he said hi last time? Sure,
I don't remember the Titanic part, but Noah. You know,
I'm happy for Noah to take the place of this
young girl who left us yesterday's news which I can't
prove used us up and just threw us away. Chuck. Yeah,
I think we resisted for so long because the movie
(01:49):
is so linked to this event. In the movie, despite
its faults, did a really pretty accurate job of and
I know that was important to James Cameron, of kind
of really telling the accurate story of exactly what happened.
So we're like my bother. Yeah, there's actually um From
the filming of that movie, they may have settled at
(02:11):
least one major mystery as to what happened when it sank.
The no the what happened to the Grand Staircase, which
they found when they finally discovered the Titanic later on
uh in the eighties, was just totally missing. It was
now like a seven story vertical basically an elevator shaft,
(02:34):
a huge hole, and none of the staircase remained. And
when they filmed that movie The Titanic, the Grand Staircase
detached and started to float away, and James Cameron was like,
I'll bet you that's exactly what happened to the real Titanic.
And I have a feeling that Jewel the Sea isn't
even right. What was it called? Had a name Jim
(02:56):
of the there's so many angry people right now of
the gam of the on it. I think it was
the Heart of the Sea, the Heart of the Ocean,
something like that, The Jewel of the Wind. Did you
like the movie? Yeah? It was fine. Um, you remember
Thomas Jefferson's Bible where he cut out all the magic
(03:16):
momo jumbo and just had like the morality of the
whole thing. If you could go through and cut out
like the love story of that movie, I would probably
like it much more. Well, I kind of disagree there,
because you gotta pain it around something. Whoa, You gotta
frame it around some kind of a story of people.
(03:37):
Are you just saying you would have done another person story? Yeah?
Why not just throw Captain Stooping in there and have
him have the love story? I thought the love story
was good. I just think Jim Cameron is I think
he can be a little ham fisted with his screenwriting sometimes. Yeah,
And there was some stuff like that. I remember even
at the time, like Billy Zane, you know, little pithy mom.
(04:00):
It's like, you know that Picasso, who's ever heard of him?
That will be never be worth a thing like or
something like that. I remember the time being like, come on, man,
Billy Zane does what he's told on set ze. So yeah,
there was another one. I had forgotten about this line,
but somebody else was basically saying the same thing that
you are about that movie, or James Cameron. James Cameron's
(04:22):
writing that when Leo was, you know, running with Kate
Winslet through um first class and there's band. The band
is playing and he stops for a second and goes
music to drown two. Now I know I'm in first class.
So yeah, the whole thing is just rife with that
kind of stuff. But overall, I mean just the fact
(04:45):
that like they went to the extremes that they did
too to try to try to get it as accurate
as possible and overlaid like a you know, a romantic
love story on it like it was. I mean, it
was a good It was a good movie in a
lot of ways, in so many more ways than it
was a add movie that it's just overall a really
good movie. Yeah. I think the most brilliant decision in
(05:05):
that movie was to have that beginning bit where it's
a little ham fisted, but the part where Bill Paxton
and the c Nerds go over exactly how it sank.
Uh that, Like, I don't think a lot of people
understood that, and understanding that as you're watching the movie
is pretty critical. So I think that was pretty smart. Yes, indeed,
(05:27):
And one other thing about that movie. Will never mention
it again for the rest of these two episodes, I'm sure. Um,
but it costs about almost exactly half adjusted for inflation,
um to make the movie Titanic as it did to
make The Titanic. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, And
we just did an episode of movie Crush basically there
(05:49):
there you go. That was a mini Crush. Although Nate
demo this was this was actually his pick our buddy, Nate,
He's Titanic. He did. That's awesome, Man, that doesn't surprise
me at all, Right, I mean he he would love
a movie like that that's set you know, like his
like really accurate historical fiction. That would totally be up
his his alley um. Okay, so we're talking believe it
(06:14):
or not, everybody. I don't know if you figured this
out yet, we're talking about the Titanic finally at long
last um and like we're saying, you know, we kind
of put this off because the movie had had just
become so widespread that we basically had to wait out
it's after effects. But I feel like we've kind of
finally kind of reached that um so, and like I've
(06:36):
been interested in the Titanic since I was just a
young kid. Yeah, when they found the Titanic in like,
I was at just the right age to to really
get sucked into that um and the I think the
Titanic was probably the first thing that introduced me to
like the just the fascinating creepiness of looking at things
(07:01):
they aren't supposed to be underwater, but now it's just
perfect for that kind of thing. Yeah, and it's still
really cool. Like I was looking at pictures today of
that stern sitting there underwater, and it's, uh, it's it's
still just like there's something about it that you can't
not look at it and just stare at it, I know,
(07:23):
And I'm like waiting for the day when things become uh,
when technology reaches to the point where we can just
explore every square into the Titanic on the bottom, I'm
really looking forward to that. But so, I knew a
lot about the Titanic to begin with, but just researching this,
it dawned on me, like, I mean, there's just so
much I didn't know that I found in in um
(07:45):
the time spent researching this. But it also dawned on
me that there is just so much more, Like some
people dedicate like this is their hobby, like learning and
talking and researching and reading and thinking about the Titanic. Yeah,
and you know this is this be a two part
episode and we're gonna do it stuff you should know
style and probably about ninety minutes. But I'm quite sure
(08:07):
there are podcasts out there fully dedicated to the Titanic
where it's like you know, and now episode twenty the Cutlery,
where people know, like like you're saying, people are obsessed
with it and they know all the details. We're gonna,
I'm sure get some stuff kind of wrong because we're
not experts, but we're going to give it the old
(08:27):
stuff you should know treatment you know, Yeah for sure.
So yeah, So as as like I knew a lot
about the Titanic. There's plenty of people out there who
like dedicate themselves to it. Um. But just learning about this,
like it's just such a huge monumental thing. A lot
of people divide, like the nineteenth century the like the
old era um and the modern age upon the sinking
(08:50):
of the Titanic, Like that's how colossal a thing it's become. Um.
But at the time, I mean, it was actually not
that big of a deal. Like it was a maiden
voyage of the Titanic, but it's sister ship, the Olympic,
had already sailed, and that was actually kind of a
big thing. The Titanic wasn't even sold out, um when
it underwent its voyage. Actually, in retrospect, that was a
(09:12):
very good thing. But there's a lot to learn from
the Titanic just just researching it, even if you do
feel like you already know basically everything about it. Yeah,
I mean I learned a ton of stuff. Yeah, and
I saw that movie a bunch so Um. Like I said,
the Titanic had a sister ship, the Olympic, and it
also had another sister ship, which was originally dubbed the Gigantic,
(09:36):
but after the Titanic saying, they went back and renamed
the Gigantic the Britannic because I thought, I think maybe
they're they'd be like, well, we were we had enough
hubrists for to last a lifetime with the Titanic. But
these three ships came out of a dinner actually um
between a guy named j. Bruce is May, who was
the chairman of the White Star Line which owned those
(09:57):
three ships, and another guy what was his name, Peery,
Lord William Peery, and their their wives Florence who was
married to Bruce, and Margaret Montgomery originally Carlisle and that
you know that name will come back in just a second,
so just put a pin in her. So the um
(10:18):
this dinner was basically about how to compete with the
Kenard lines. The Cunard people um were eating White Stars
lunch to a degree because they had just released the
Mauritania and the Lusitania, and I think the Mauritaneous at
the speed record. Um, these things could make it across
the Atlantic in five days, which was very very fast
(10:40):
at the time, and White Star couldn't keep up. So
they decided from this dinner what if instead of trying
to make faster and faster ships, we just kind of
go with our thing and make them bigger and more luxurious,
so people want to spend that extra day. It took
White Star six days to make it across. People want
to spend that extra day because a ship is so
(11:01):
ridiculously luxurious that they choose ours instead. And not only
was this the birth of the Titanic in the Olympic
and the Britannic, it was basically the birth of the
cruise industry as we understand it today, just basically making
these huge floating luxury hotels that that kind of became
born from this dinner as well. Yeah, and so they said,
(11:24):
you know, we want to make them about one and
a half times the size of anything that Kunard is
putting out there. And they started sketching around a little bit,
and they sketched up a couple of masts and for
smoke stacks, and I think by the time they got
to the engineering phase, they said, by the way, we
really only need three of these, and they said, no,
we must have four. We want it to look symmetrical,
(11:47):
and we'll figure out something to do with that fourth one,
which they did became a ventilation system, which was pretty smart.
And initially Alexander Montgomery Carlisle was the head designer, who
was uh, Margaret Lord William Peary's wife's brother, so it
was his brother in law that was the initial designer,
and then that was eventually handed over to Peery's nephew,
(12:10):
Thomas Andrews And he was the guy played by Victor
Garber in the movie The Dude from Alias. The Dad
from Alias? Is it? Yeah? I mean I never saw Alias,
but I know that when you're on TV, that's what
you're most famous for. Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah? Except
in our case? Right, so um so yeah. So Thomas
(12:35):
Andrews um would become the chief designer of the ship,
and he had an amazing job of it. But the
ship itself, the Titanic, was something like eight hundred and
eighty two ft long, which is a little longer than
the Transamerican Pyramid in San Francisco. Is the building in
San Francisco is tall? Imagine tipping that into the ocean. Yeah,
(12:59):
and then you have like and the Titanic was slightly
longer than that. It was also ninety two ft wide,
and it had a gross weight of forty five thousand tons.
It was just by far the biggest ship that had
ever been built. And so like the idea of bigness
and uh indestructibility kind of was was part of the
Titanics whole jam, like from the outset. Yeah, and there
(13:23):
was one sort of fateful mistake. And you know, Titanic
is one of those things where a lot of people
have in hindsight said, well, there was of course the iceberg,
but there were also this in this, in this that
happened that could have led to, you know, it's ultimate demise.
And one of those things was the rivets on the Titanic.
(13:43):
There were three million wrought iron rivets that apparently, upon
further examination, contained about three times the amount of slag
residue as was allowable. And I think the result of
that was when they're exposed to cold, they become more brittle.
And so some people have posited that those you know,
it was a well built ship for the most part,
(14:04):
but those rivets could have been weaker than they should
have been when push came to shove. Yeah, And I mean,
if your rivets are the weak link in the chain,
that's trouble right there. But yeah, not all of them
were wrought iron, but enough of them were. And I
also saw that they were double riveted, and they probably
should have been triple riveted from what from what I
(14:25):
saw in some engineering blog rivet exactly. Everybody knows that,
sure so um So. They also had two engines on
board UM that were just enormous. Each one was about
three thirty ft tall, and they were capable of producing
thirty thousand horsepower, which is about the same energy produced
(14:49):
by ten diesel locomotives. Just these two engines UM, and
they could push the ship pretty fast, something like um
I think twenty two knots was the top speed it
hit it. And like I said, the Mauritania had set
the speed record at something like twenty three point nine
I think, as far as the record goes, and it
(15:10):
lasted until so the Titanic wasn't setting speed records or
anything like that, but it was still going awfully fast,
especially considering the size it was. But it was thanks
to those huge engines, and they're the enormous propellers that
they outfitted the ship with two oh man, those like
if you're at home and you can access photographs safely,
(15:33):
I strongly encourage you to look up some of these pictures.
Just the pictures of the propellers are amazing. There are
two three blade propellers that were about twenty three and
a half feet in diameter, and then one four blade
propeller that was about seventeen feet in diameter, And just
seeing a photograph of these things is unbelievable to behold,
(15:56):
Like how big these things are. Yeah, again, just bigness.
It was just a common theme, you know. UM. One
of the other things that the Titanic had that was
pretty innovative was that so underwater in the hole, what
would be beneath the sea surface, UM, as far as
the boat was concerned. UM, where sixteen bulkhead compartments that
(16:18):
had all sorts of things like one held the coal
or I think multiple won't tell all the coal that
the Titanic consumed something like six hundred tons a day
to get that thing to move, um. And then there
were just all sorts of other just just like rooms
that were beneath sea level. And each of these rooms
had an automatic door UM that would shut it off
(16:41):
its seal. It They were water tight, so if any
of these compartments caught water, started taking on water, it
could fill up and as long as that door was shut, um,
the Titanic would just be able to keep on keeping
on basically. So that was a real, um, a real
innovation that combined with its big us and and um
(17:01):
just the amount of steel that was put into it
combined to kind of create this idea that the Titanic
was unsinkable. That's where that comes from, largely from those compartments. Yeah.
I think they said two of the four could flood,
and they said, really, up to four of these could flood,
but no more than four. Yeah, put a put a
(17:22):
pin in that one. Uh. And on that coal, there
were twenty nine steam boilers. And if you're thinking like
how much coal, you said, six pounds or I'm sorry,
six hundred tons a day a day. That was a
hundred and sixty two furnaces of two hundred men shoveling
coal basically NonStop. Yeah. There was actually a fire um
(17:44):
aboard the Titanic, Like the Titanic was on fire when
it was taking on passengers right, um. And it was
because those those coal deposits, one of them had caught fire.
And when you have coal that's on fire in that situation. Basically,
the only way to put it out is to you
is that coal that's on fire. So not only were they,
you know, shoveling like under routine conditions, they were shoveling
(18:07):
even more coal than normal to keep the fire from spreading. Yeah,
and that's another one of those things that people have
Now some people experts have gone back and said the fire,
uh could have started up to three weeks before they
even set sale, and that it could have weakened um
some of those holds they found evidence of, like some
(18:29):
some burn marks and stuff like that where they said
it could have weakened some of that metal. And uh,
you know, it sounds very strange to have a fire
going for three weeks and say here we go, everybody
right exactly, but that was the deal. Plus it also
just gets across how enormous Titanic was that it could
have a fire and just be like whatever, it's all good,
We're we're the Titanic. But yeah, they discovered a picture
(18:53):
that shows some sort of like kind of stripe across
the whole of the ship that is about where the
iceberg hid it. And they said that's from that that
coal fire, we think, which is surprising still after all
this time. I think that's another reason why the Titanic
story is so engrossing is there's there's just so much
(19:13):
still that people are learning about it, even a hundred
and nine years on. Oh totally. Uh. You also have
to remember, when you build something this big, you also
have to build the things that help you build this thing,
because they didn't exist. So they had to get a
boat slip that could accommodate it. So they built the
this enormous white Star dock, and then something called the
(19:34):
Great Gantry, which was it sort of looks like a
big it's sort of like a skeleton of a big
airplane hangar. You should look at these pictures too, it's
pretty remarkable. But it was a series of tin cranes
basically that held this boat in place while it was
being built, to could lift the people up to work
on it, lift materials up to wherever they needed to go.
(19:55):
And it's it's actually something to behold in itself, like
seeing the Titanic sus ended like above the ground like that. Yeah,
And it took eleven thousand people to build this ship.
Eleven thousand people and they built it. They built the
actual ship itself, uh, and was launched into the water.
I think, although it was basically always in the water
(20:15):
because it was basically impossible to dry dock. Um. Well
that when it was in the hangar, I was sitting
up there. Okay, you're right, sorry, But it was actually
launching in the water then on May thirty one, nineteen eleven.
But it didn't have any interior, it didn't have its
engines yet. It was fully completed March thirty first, nineteen twelve,
and it began its maiden voyage and started taking on
(20:36):
passengers on April tenth, nineteen twelve. And I proposed, Chuck
that before we take on passengers, we take a break.
Let's do it all right? So um. One thing I
(21:17):
didn't realize about the Titanic was it's It had three
little stops before it left the UK for New York.
It started out in Southampton, uh, in England, moved on
to Cherbourg, France, and then went on to Queenstown, Ireland
before leaving for New York. Did you know that? I
(21:39):
didn't know that. That's right, it wasn't so. Um. The
Titanic costs about four hundred million dollars in two thousand
nineteen dollars to make, which to that's that's actually less
than Carnival Cruise Lines Splendor, which was launched in two
thousand and eight for like four hundred and fifty fifty million.
(21:59):
It's actually for For as luxurious as it was, it
was a pretty pretty good bargain, to tell you the truth. Yeah,
And here's my deal with cruises. I think we've talked
about cruise ships before. I'm not a fan. I've been
on exactly one cruise and uh, just not a fan.
And a lot of it has to do with the decor,
(22:19):
like shopping mall carpet and bowling alley carpet and you know,
gold railings and things like that, but not like cool looking. Uh.
I think if they took a note from the and
maybe they are building cruise ships like this now, but
if they took a note from the Titanic and other
ships of the day today and had that really nice
(22:41):
wicker furniture and some you know, if not iron, some
stuff painted to look like iron, and not so much
of that shiny gold shopping mall garbage. Look, I think
I would be more into it, a little more classy,
refined thing. And I think it could go a long
way towards getting people like me on cruise ships. There's
(23:03):
some that are like that, like kind of some throwback
ones are there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but I get
what you mean that whole You know, all you had
to say was shopping mall. You kind of nailed it
right there. Like when you look at the Titanic, it
looks like something the Kellogg Brothers would have been keen on. Well,
it's funny you say that because we mentioned this in
the Kellogg Brothers episode, but they had equipment on board
(23:25):
the Titanic ins gym, and the gym happened to be
located on the boat deck, which was the same place
where the captain's bridge was. F y I in case
about the various decks, Yeah, I think we should. There
are a number of them actually, and they they lettered
them by letter appropriately enough. That's right. So there's that
(23:46):
boat deck, like you said, where the bridge, the gym,
and I think just sort of that nice lovely pine
open deck is. You had the promenade deck, which is
the first deck deck A and that had those two
first class staircases that you were talking about, had a lounge,
had a reading and writing room, had the all male
(24:07):
first class smoking room, all male places. Sure, they had
the he Man Woman Haters Club. Uh, there was a
Veranda cafe in Palm Court, which is really lovely if
you go look at pictures of this as well. Yeah
that that's that's up my alley as well. Yeah, the
Palm Court, it's nice, right. Yeah. I knew you'd love
(24:29):
it because I was like, look at all that wicker furniture.
Chuck's gonna go crazier for this. They would never allow
that in a mall. Uh, what's on deck B? Deck?
B friend, I thought you'dn't ever ask. Included the first
class cabins and suits, the restaurant Cafe Parisian, which was
this all male second class smoking room, third class poop deck,
(24:53):
which is where the third class people kind of strolled
around like gerbils um. And then they also kept some
of the larger cargo equipment on the poop deck for
the third class people that uses obstacles maybe to climb
over and stay fit. Yeah, they tried to hide most
of that stuff great care and making sure that it
(25:13):
looked just like a luxury kind of hotel and not
you know, And that's one of the reasons why they
didn't have as many lifeboats, but you know, we'll get
to that. So yeah, that was something that I also
didn't know about the Titanic is that the designers, um
and and builders really went to great lengths to make
it as luxurious as possible for everybody from first class
(25:34):
to third class, which is also called steerage. Um. You know,
just over the years it's been it's been it's been
made into such a class conflict, social stratification fable, because
it definitely was, but really it just kind of followed
the conventions of the day. But because of the conventions
(25:57):
of the day, a lot of people died who otherwise
might not have, which we'll talk about believe me. Um,
it's just really people have kind of glomped onto that,
and especially a hundred years later, it just seems so
bizarre and awful to us. But at the time, I mean,
this is just the way things were. But because of that,
you know, that whole idea that it was like, you know,
(26:18):
there's third class and there's first class. Um, the the
you you just kind of missed the point that that
they were like even in third class, this was incredible
luxury compared to what they were used to for passages
like this, and it was because the designers purposefully made
it that way. Yeah, I mean they were mostly immigrants
coming to America for the first time. And uh, like
(26:43):
you said, it's it was appropriate luxury for third class.
Like it wasn't like the rooms weren't these big open
rooms with like thirty bunk beds and no door. They
were private rooms. They had doors on their rooms. I
think they were with their six people per room down there,
I saw four. I also saw six, Okay, not too
bad though. They had little wash basins in each room,
which was a really big deal in a big luxury
(27:06):
although I do think they had only two bathtubs for
third class to share among the seven hundred plus people,
one for men and one for women. And um, I
saw that explained away as third class passengers probably thought
that you could develop respiratory illness by bathing too much,
(27:27):
so they probably wouldn't have had much of an issue
with that. It doesn't seem as bad as it it
does to us in retrospect. Yeah, I don't think I
would have taken a baths. I would have just spend
It's like I wouldn't take a poop on a bus trip.
I'm with you, man, I hope I'd never ever go
to jail for any extended period of time because I
(27:49):
would have a big problem with the pooping thing. You mean,
when it's just a little silver, silverything in the corner
with all the other people in there. Yes, I mean, like, yes, yeah,
I think that's a big problem. That would be a
problem for me. I think that would be a problem
for anybody. I feel bad, like I really feel that's
a terrible aspect I think of jail life. But yes, yes, yeah,
(28:12):
that's exactly right. All right, So where were we? Uh? Well,
ironically we were on the poop deck. Uh, dex C
was the shelter deck. Um. I don't think we said
Deck B was the bridge deck. But DEXI is the
shelter deck. Purser's office there, third class smoking room, second
class library, and lounge. You know, everything is very divided
by class. Everyone needs their smoking rooms because everybody smoked, right,
(28:37):
Yeah for sure. Uh, saloon deck deck D. What are
you getting there? Uh? First class reception room and the
dining saloon um like they had Like when you showed
up for dinner, you would probably sit in the reception
room and maybe like have a drink while you're waiting
to be seated if you showed up a little early.
From what I saw agreed. From what I saw. The
(29:01):
dining saloon, the actual dining room UM was large enough
to see all of the first class passengers at once.
And I think the second class one was just enormous.
Second class, like it is almost never talked about. When
you just generally talk about the Titanic, it's always first
or third. But there's a huge second class um, a
(29:25):
huge space for second class. I think it's set a
couple of thousand people at once. Third Class I think
was enough to serve um the the third class passengers
over three sittings. I believe maybe even more than that,
maybe four. All right, that's a lot. It is still
(29:46):
a lot, but yeah, for first class you probably had
just one sitting. Uh. And I think when you mentioned
that could be uh. That restaurant was an ala carte restaurant,
So it's sort of like modern cruise upstairs, the big
dining room, but then there's also the pizza place and
the this and the that, and I think the little
(30:07):
a la carte restaurant was one of those it's like
the mall food court, except probably not as good. Uh.
Deck E was the second and third class cabins. It's
called the upper deck, and then the middle deck. Deck
F this is a little confusing, was the third class saloon,
the Turkish Bath, which um they not too long ago
(30:30):
got some really good photos of lurking there at the
bottom of the Atlantic. It's amazing. But the Turkish Bath
was kind of like what you call the spa aboard
a ship today. Yeah, maybe some of the well, actually,
I guess the Kellogg stuff was in the gym. Yeah,
I believe it was all in the gym because it
was like the shaky band and um oh, I can't
remember what else the I think the thing where where
(30:52):
they would loosen up the poop with the sun tan bed.
I can't remember exactly, but there were definitely multiple pieces
of Kellogg equipment and it wasn't the gym yet. So
then you've got the lower deck, the orlop deck. That's
where they get a play squash if you wanted to.
They had a post office. There was a lot of
you know, people love to send post when they're on
(31:13):
an ocean voyage. I know, but I was thinking about that.
You just show up at the post office and they're like, okay, thanks,
we'll mail it when when we get to the same
place at the exact same time as you. Yeah, it
seems so dumb, but I think it's being postmarked by
the Titanic, which is you know what. Okay, you're like, uh,
(31:36):
there's someone working the post office is literally turns everyone
away when you just hang onto that and mail it
when we get there, A right, why yeah, probably better
off just dropping it's somewhere in New York. You're fine. Uh,
there's the carpentry shop, the plumbing shop, electrical workshops. You
gotta have all that stuff. Um. They had these enormous
refrigerated rooms that were cooled by these copper pipes, just
(31:57):
like miles and miles of copper pipes in each area.
Like you could you do a whole episode on just
the refrigeration of the Titanic and the cheeses and the
flowers and the wines and the foods that they had
to keep chilled. And they have extensive They did it
after the cutlery episode, probably so um. And so they
(32:18):
we talked about how luxurious it was, like it was
just as luxurious as anything was in the world at
the time. The Titanic um with all, but there was
also kind of like a uh airy kind of vibe
to the whole thing, Like the choices and colors and
wallpapers and plants and all of that in the wicker
furniture was all this kind of light and airy and cheery.
(32:40):
So it had a really nice feel to it. Um
from first to third across the board. Yeah, like Steerage
wasn't just a rat infested, gross place to be. That's
how it's always portrayed, you know, like basically a floating
tenement is how I've always seen it portrayed. And I
think that's kind of how um James Cameron did portrayed
(33:04):
it too, which is I guess where I got my impression,
Like you, I mean, the only thing I remember, I
think they maybe showed them in their Leo and his
uh in Fabrizio and remember Fabrizio in their little in
their little room. And then of course there was the
the Irish jig that they danced down there when she
(33:25):
decided to you know, slum it with Steerage, and that
did look a little like a like a you know,
an old pub, and it was a brand new boat, right,
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so, um, I think I
said earlier that the Titanic wasn't full when she set sail. Again,
this is her maiden voyage, which accounts for why J.
Bruces May, the chairman of the White Star Line, whose
(33:47):
father was the founder, I believe, and why Thomas Andrews,
the designer of the Titanic and Olympic and Britannic, we're
both aboard. It was just custom for the the those
p bowl who were in those positions to be aboard
a ship for its maiden voyage. But there wasn't it
wasn't sold out. There was room for something like thirty
(34:09):
two hundred and people. Yeah, there was only dred and
twenty nine people. So there was like more room for
more than a thousand passengers, basically because the the crew
was virtually full, Like the room for the crew was
virtually full, but it was the passengers that hadn't you know,
(34:32):
booked as much as it was expected. Should we take
another break? Oh boy? Yeah, alright, let's take another break
and we'll talk about a couple more things here. Two
round out Part one of the Titanic. Right after this
(35:03):
all right. So, uh, this thing, I guess we're where
it sets sail, right, Yeah, I believe so basically, yeah,
(35:27):
at least from being launched in Belfast, right, Yeah. So
it started out in Belhafast, went to Southampton on April three,
and then on the tenth it went and picked up
a few people in Southampton and then went to France
and then to Queenstown, Ireland to get some more people.
Like I said, I never knew like you that this
(35:49):
is what it was doing, operating basically like an uber chair. Yeah,
I guess. So have you ever done that? No? I
never have. I'm very very careful. Fall I did once
and someone they stopped and I was like, what's going on?
And someone got in. I was like, really, what's going on?
I made a new friend. Oh that's nice. I thought
(36:11):
it was in the cash cab. I don't think he
stops to pick up other people. He just asked a
lot of questions. Yeah, that's true, all right, So it's
picked up all the folks at this point. Uh. In
the end, and there are some discrepancy about the final
numbers because a lot of people sold their tickets, a
lot of people switch tickets, a lot of people can't
(36:32):
quite make it on time. In the case of Leonardo DiCaprio,
he he wins those tickets in a poker game right
before it launches. No way they could have accounted for him. No,
And actually, I mean that's not exactly that far off. Um,
and I suspect it's based loosely on the story of
UM Thomas Hart who was hired on as a fireman.
(36:53):
But UM went off and got really really drunk and
lost his boarding papers, UM while he was drunk, and
they were stolen by somebody else because Thomas Hart showed
up and worked as far as anybody's anyone was concerned
as far as the logs went. But it just clearly
wasn't that Thomas Hart. Rum, he just missed it like that. Uh.
(37:14):
There was one one group of wealthy industrialists starting with
Henry Clay Frick, onto JP Morgan and then Jay Horace
Harding who transferred boarding papers for sweets B fifty two,
fifty four and fifty six. Well, ultimately we're taken on
by J Bruce is may It just turns out all
of them had a reason why they suddenly couldn't go
(37:36):
toward the last minute. Um, yeah, I think the unsinkable
Bolly Brown's daughter. She was um. You know. Molly Brown
was portrayed by Kathy Baits. She was the hero of
Lifeboat six that really wanted to go and try and
save people. I think her daughter was supposed to come,
but she was studying at the Sarbone so she did not.
So there's a big list of people. They called it
(37:58):
the just Mistic Club, and uh apparently in nineteen twelve,
the Milwaukee Journal put that numbers high, six thousand people
that were saved because they did not sail on the
Titanic obviously couldn't been that much. It's one of those
things I think we're like everyone was at you know,
the game where Michael Jordan's scored whatever points and you know,
(38:18):
it's one of those sort of things where history uh
fudges itself a little bit. But in the end they
put the number somewhere around thirteen hundred and twenty four
passengers and those eighty four officers, which is a very
high ratio of of crew members to passengers. Yeah, there
really is um there, and it's speaking of crew. In
(38:39):
addition to Thomas Hart, there were the Slade brothers who
um left Southampton after um passing muster uh one got
drunk and then came back and they wouldn't lower the
gang plank for them again, so they got left behind
go for them. But most of all, there was a
guy named Davey Blair who was an up and coming
officer for the White Star Line, and he was initially
(39:01):
assigned the second officer position, which is huge for an
upcoming guy. He um he was at the last minute,
I think he sailed from Southampton to share Burg and
then at Sharburg basically as somebody who was a more
senior officer than him was was given that position and
he was moved off to the Olympic and he was
(39:22):
really disappointed about this. There's like a surviving postcard um
that that expresses how how upset he was and saddened
that he kind of lost that big opportunity. But even
more important than that is Davy Blair was on there
long enough to be entrusted with the key to the
crow's nest locker, which held the binoculars for the pocular locker.
(39:46):
The binocular locker, Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind
of long been a myth that there were not binoculars
on board, but there were, But yeah, he walked with
that key, and that key and that postcard sold at
auction for like a hundred and fifty grand or something,
didn't it as far as I know, Yeah, it's amazing.
But that's a big deal because later on they would
(40:07):
say that had they had binoculars in the crow'sness, they
most definitely would have cited that icebergs in time to
maneuver away from them. That the lookouts said that later
on at an inquiry. Yeah, and of course people debated
that as well. Um, it's hindsight is twenty but it
certainly wouldn't have hurt. Yeah, you know, no, definitely wouldn't have. So. Um.
(40:30):
I mentioned some wealthy industrialists that was mostly first class
passengers were all extraordinarily well above average wealthy people, like
even for wealthy people, they were above average wealthy. Um.
And that was reflected in the ticket prices that some
of them paid for passage on the Titanic. Dude, Yeah,
big money in today dollars, anywhere from sixty six grand
(40:53):
to a dred and twenty grand for passage. Yeah. I
don't think that fully gets it across, because you're like, Okay,
I can see a billionaire selling something like that out.
You know, it's gaudy and gross. But what really drove
it home to me was at the time, um, so
they were paying up to forty dollars and their dollars
and at the time, the average American made eight hundred
(41:15):
dollars a year. Wow, and these guys showed out forty
hundred for a one way ticket. This was not round trip,
this was one way from the UK to Americas and
that nuts. Uh. Third class steerage I think even costs
close to a thousand dollars and today dollars, which is
(41:36):
a lot of money. I mean thirty five bucks back then,
but um that that's not cheap, no, but it was
definitely a lot more affordable than a hundred nine dollars.
That's right. So I guess we should talk a little
bit before we wrap up about um kind of the
controversy over the size of the ship. As we said
(41:58):
at the beginning, they wanted it to the biggest and
the best, all three of those sister ships, just to
be the biggest thing ever, to really rub it in
the Kunard lines face. And that presented some problems though,
one of which was the Board of Trade didn't know
how many lifeboats or at least hadn't acted on it
and said how many lifeboats you should have because in
(42:20):
merchant Shipping Act, Uh, they topped out at ten thousand
tons and said you need, uh, sixteen lifeboats if you're
ten thousand tons. Titanic was thirty five thousand tons. Uh,
and they had sixteen lifeboats because that's just where the
Merchant Shipping Act ended. And they didn't like the you know,
the unsightliness of them, so they weren't going to add
any Uh. It does not mean because it was three
(42:42):
times a size they needed forty eight lifeboats. I think
in retrospect they said twenty six would have done it.
But as we'll get to you know, the whole accident,
that the speed at which it sank it may not
have mattered anyway. But um, that was one of the
big problems with its size. That was a very big problem. Yeah,
(43:03):
not adding enough lifeboats because they seemed unsightly. It's not
a good move. Um. Another one is that the Titanic
um only had like six or seven hours of testing
before it's sailed, and that was mostly just to check
its maneuverability. It was never sailed at full speed. Before
it set sail for America. UM, so the testing wasn't
(43:27):
very good. And then even even more important, as far
as lifeboats go, they never fully um did like a
full drill to lower all the lifeboats to board. And
one of the reasons why people died was not just
because there weren't that many lifeboats that was a huge,
huge issue, but also because there just wasn't a lot
(43:49):
of needed protocol in launching the lifeboats as far as
the crew was concerned. A lot of them had had
just had come aboard basically the day before they were
they were taking passengers and it didn't even have a
poster a position while they were passengers on that first day. Yeah,
I mean that's a It was basically an hr nightmare
(44:10):
with people showing up. As the passengers are showing up,
going where do I go? What do you want me
to do? They're like, have you ever waited tables? Have
you ever shoveled goal? And they were just kind of
sticking people where they needed them, And like you said,
I think they only were able to lower two of
those sixteen lifeboats. And in the end, what that also
means is you don't know how long it's going to
(44:31):
take to lower them all. So it was just h
they were kind of just flying or sailing blind, right exactly.
So those were just really really big problems that would
turn out to be um extremely important when the ship
started going down, because any one of those things being
slightly different or improved or not being a problem means
(44:54):
that people's lives definitely would have been saved. You can
debate like how many people would have been saved, but yeah,
there were there was definitely room for more people to
have survived the Titanic than did. Yeah. There was also
a weird incident that happened on April tenth that possibly
altered history. The Titanic was being pulled out by tug boats. Uh,
(45:17):
and it I think, as the story goes, the captain
kind of a little too early said go ahead and
release us, and we'll just fire this baby up. It's
really itching to get those propellers spinning. And he said,
and give me a two two while you're at it.
And uh, when he started turning those propellers, it was
a big, violent suction and it sucked this other steamer, Uh,
(45:39):
the s s New York into its wake. Uh. It
was attached to the Oceanic and it started pulling this
boat over to it. I think it snapped away from
the Oceanic. It kind of ripped off the moorings. And
if it weren't for quick action by tug boats reattaching
pulling the New York away, and then the captain realizing
(45:59):
what was going on and hitting the engine hard and
turning out of the way like there. It shows pictures
that they miss hitting each other by just a few feet.
And not only would that if it had actually hit it,
that would have caused a delay that could have altered history.
But there was a slight delay anyway, just because of
this incident that you know, who knows if those you know,
(46:23):
events would have lined up with that iceberg in there
at the exact moment it needed to be. Yeah, that's
an amazing point, Chuck, I hadn't seen that one. So
they they leave Queenstown, Ireland on April elevenelve, I believe right, yes,
and start heading out to see full speed ahead. Uh,
(46:44):
and we will stop here. What do you think? Boy?
What a cliffhanger? What's going to happen? I don't know.
We'll find out in the next episode of Stuff. You
should know Stuff you should know is a production I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(47:06):
to your favorite shows. H m hm
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Ahoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
your captain. There's Chuck, your other captain, and your third captain, Jerry,
all of us equal captains here. Uh is out there
(00:23):
hovering around silently like the creepiest captain of all, even
creepier than Captain Stubbing. Um. Yeah, and that of course
makes this stuff you should know. I always loved it
when Captain Stubbing would have the rare love storyline. Yeah
now and then, yes, so good. He's usually just overseeing
(00:45):
the love of others, you know exactly. He was a
father figure, so that's why it was off putting when
he had his own love thing. Yeah, but he wants
to see Captain Stubbing, you know, go all the way.
Uh we should mention. And I wish I knew her name.
But for many, many years, one of our young listeners
(01:06):
asked us to do Titanic at every turn. And uh,
I imagine that that young girl is now a grown woman,
probably who doesn't listen anymore, but who knows who knows? Also, Chuck,
I think most recently was requested by our Scottish correspondent Noah. Oh,
(01:27):
don't you remember when he said hi last time? Sure,
I don't remember the Titanic part, but Noah. You know,
I'm happy for Noah to take the place of this
young girl who left us yesterday's news which I can't
prove used us up and just threw us away. Chuck. Yeah,
I think we resisted for so long because the movie
(01:49):
is so linked to this event. In the movie, despite
its faults, did a really pretty accurate job of and
I know that was important to James Cameron, of kind
of really telling the accurate story of exactly what happened.
So we're like my bother. Yeah, there's actually um From
the filming of that movie, they may have settled at
(02:11):
least one major mystery as to what happened when it sank.
The no the what happened to the Grand Staircase, which
they found when they finally discovered the Titanic later on
uh in the eighties, was just totally missing. It was
now like a seven story vertical basically an elevator shaft,
(02:34):
a huge hole, and none of the staircase remained. And
when they filmed that movie The Titanic, the Grand Staircase
detached and started to float away, and James Cameron was like,
I'll bet you that's exactly what happened to the real Titanic.
And I have a feeling that Jewel the Sea isn't
even right. What was it called? Had a name Jim
(02:56):
of the there's so many angry people right now of
the gam of the on it. I think it was
the Heart of the Sea, the Heart of the Ocean,
something like that, The Jewel of the Wind. Did you
like the movie? Yeah? It was fine. Um, you remember
Thomas Jefferson's Bible where he cut out all the magic
(03:16):
momo jumbo and just had like the morality of the
whole thing. If you could go through and cut out
like the love story of that movie, I would probably
like it much more. Well, I kind of disagree there,
because you gotta pain it around something. Whoa, You gotta
frame it around some kind of a story of people.
(03:37):
Are you just saying you would have done another person story? Yeah?
Why not just throw Captain Stooping in there and have
him have the love story? I thought the love story
was good. I just think Jim Cameron is I think
he can be a little ham fisted with his screenwriting sometimes. Yeah,
And there was some stuff like that. I remember even
at the time, like Billy Zane, you know, little pithy mom.
(04:00):
It's like, you know that Picasso, who's ever heard of him?
That will be never be worth a thing like or
something like that. I remember the time being like, come on, man,
Billy Zane does what he's told on set ze. So yeah,
there was another one. I had forgotten about this line,
but somebody else was basically saying the same thing that
you are about that movie, or James Cameron. James Cameron's
(04:22):
writing that when Leo was, you know, running with Kate
Winslet through um first class and there's band. The band
is playing and he stops for a second and goes
music to drown two. Now I know I'm in first class.
So yeah, the whole thing is just rife with that
kind of stuff. But overall, I mean just the fact
(04:45):
that like they went to the extremes that they did
too to try to try to get it as accurate
as possible and overlaid like a you know, a romantic
love story on it like it was. I mean, it
was a good It was a good movie in a
lot of ways, in so many more ways than it
was a add movie that it's just overall a really
good movie. Yeah. I think the most brilliant decision in
(05:05):
that movie was to have that beginning bit where it's
a little ham fisted, but the part where Bill Paxton
and the c Nerds go over exactly how it sank.
Uh that, Like, I don't think a lot of people
understood that, and understanding that as you're watching the movie
is pretty critical. So I think that was pretty smart. Yes, indeed,
(05:27):
And one other thing about that movie. Will never mention
it again for the rest of these two episodes, I'm sure. Um,
but it costs about almost exactly half adjusted for inflation,
um to make the movie Titanic as it did to
make The Titanic. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, And
we just did an episode of movie Crush basically there
(05:49):
there you go. That was a mini Crush. Although Nate
demo this was this was actually his pick our buddy, Nate,
He's Titanic. He did. That's awesome, Man, that doesn't surprise
me at all, Right, I mean he he would love
a movie like that that's set you know, like his
like really accurate historical fiction. That would totally be up
his his alley um. Okay, so we're talking believe it
(06:14):
or not, everybody. I don't know if you figured this
out yet, we're talking about the Titanic finally at long
last um and like we're saying, you know, we kind
of put this off because the movie had had just
become so widespread that we basically had to wait out
it's after effects. But I feel like we've kind of
finally kind of reached that um so, and like I've
(06:36):
been interested in the Titanic since I was just a
young kid. Yeah, when they found the Titanic in like,
I was at just the right age to to really
get sucked into that um and the I think the
Titanic was probably the first thing that introduced me to
like the just the fascinating creepiness of looking at things
(07:01):
they aren't supposed to be underwater, but now it's just
perfect for that kind of thing. Yeah, and it's still
really cool. Like I was looking at pictures today of
that stern sitting there underwater, and it's, uh, it's it's
still just like there's something about it that you can't
not look at it and just stare at it, I know,
(07:23):
And I'm like waiting for the day when things become uh,
when technology reaches to the point where we can just
explore every square into the Titanic on the bottom, I'm
really looking forward to that. But so, I knew a
lot about the Titanic to begin with, but just researching this,
it dawned on me, like, I mean, there's just so
much I didn't know that I found in in um
(07:45):
the time spent researching this. But it also dawned on
me that there is just so much more, Like some
people dedicate like this is their hobby, like learning and
talking and researching and reading and thinking about the Titanic. Yeah,
and you know this is this be a two part
episode and we're gonna do it stuff you should know
style and probably about ninety minutes. But I'm quite sure
(08:07):
there are podcasts out there fully dedicated to the Titanic
where it's like you know, and now episode twenty the Cutlery,
where people know, like like you're saying, people are obsessed
with it and they know all the details. We're gonna,
I'm sure get some stuff kind of wrong because we're
not experts, but we're going to give it the old
(08:27):
stuff you should know treatment you know, Yeah for sure.
So yeah, So as as like I knew a lot
about the Titanic. There's plenty of people out there who
like dedicate themselves to it. Um. But just learning about this,
like it's just such a huge monumental thing. A lot
of people divide, like the nineteenth century the like the
old era um and the modern age upon the sinking
(08:50):
of the Titanic, Like that's how colossal a thing it's become. Um.
But at the time, I mean, it was actually not
that big of a deal. Like it was a maiden
voyage of the Titanic, but it's sister ship, the Olympic,
had already sailed, and that was actually kind of a
big thing. The Titanic wasn't even sold out, um when
it underwent its voyage. Actually, in retrospect, that was a
(09:12):
very good thing. But there's a lot to learn from
the Titanic just just researching it, even if you do
feel like you already know basically everything about it. Yeah,
I mean I learned a ton of stuff. Yeah, and
I saw that movie a bunch so Um. Like I said,
the Titanic had a sister ship, the Olympic, and it
also had another sister ship, which was originally dubbed the Gigantic,
(09:36):
but after the Titanic saying, they went back and renamed
the Gigantic the Britannic because I thought, I think maybe
they're they'd be like, well, we were we had enough
hubrists for to last a lifetime with the Titanic. But
these three ships came out of a dinner actually um
between a guy named j. Bruce is May, who was
the chairman of the White Star Line which owned those
(09:57):
three ships, and another guy what was his name, Peery,
Lord William Peery, and their their wives Florence who was
married to Bruce, and Margaret Montgomery originally Carlisle and that
you know that name will come back in just a second,
so just put a pin in her. So the um
(10:18):
this dinner was basically about how to compete with the
Kenard lines. The Cunard people um were eating White Stars
lunch to a degree because they had just released the
Mauritania and the Lusitania, and I think the Mauritaneous at
the speed record. Um, these things could make it across
the Atlantic in five days, which was very very fast
(10:40):
at the time, and White Star couldn't keep up. So
they decided from this dinner what if instead of trying
to make faster and faster ships, we just kind of
go with our thing and make them bigger and more luxurious,
so people want to spend that extra day. It took
White Star six days to make it across. People want
to spend that extra day because a ship is so
(11:01):
ridiculously luxurious that they choose ours instead. And not only
was this the birth of the Titanic in the Olympic
and the Britannic, it was basically the birth of the
cruise industry as we understand it today, just basically making
these huge floating luxury hotels that that kind of became
born from this dinner as well. Yeah, and so they said,
(11:24):
you know, we want to make them about one and
a half times the size of anything that Kunard is
putting out there. And they started sketching around a little bit,
and they sketched up a couple of masts and for
smoke stacks, and I think by the time they got
to the engineering phase, they said, by the way, we
really only need three of these, and they said, no,
we must have four. We want it to look symmetrical,
(11:47):
and we'll figure out something to do with that fourth one,
which they did became a ventilation system, which was pretty smart.
And initially Alexander Montgomery Carlisle was the head designer, who
was uh, Margaret Lord William Peary's wife's brother, so it
was his brother in law that was the initial designer,
and then that was eventually handed over to Peery's nephew,
(12:10):
Thomas Andrews And he was the guy played by Victor
Garber in the movie The Dude from Alias. The Dad
from Alias? Is it? Yeah? I mean I never saw Alias,
but I know that when you're on TV, that's what
you're most famous for. Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah? Except
in our case? Right, so um so yeah. So Thomas
(12:35):
Andrews um would become the chief designer of the ship,
and he had an amazing job of it. But the
ship itself, the Titanic, was something like eight hundred and
eighty two ft long, which is a little longer than
the Transamerican Pyramid in San Francisco. Is the building in
San Francisco is tall? Imagine tipping that into the ocean. Yeah,
(12:59):
and then you have like and the Titanic was slightly
longer than that. It was also ninety two ft wide,
and it had a gross weight of forty five thousand tons.
It was just by far the biggest ship that had
ever been built. And so like the idea of bigness
and uh indestructibility kind of was was part of the
Titanics whole jam, like from the outset. Yeah, and there
(13:23):
was one sort of fateful mistake. And you know, Titanic
is one of those things where a lot of people
have in hindsight said, well, there was of course the iceberg,
but there were also this in this, in this that
happened that could have led to, you know, it's ultimate demise.
And one of those things was the rivets on the Titanic.
(13:43):
There were three million wrought iron rivets that apparently, upon
further examination, contained about three times the amount of slag
residue as was allowable. And I think the result of
that was when they're exposed to cold, they become more brittle.
And so some people have posited that those you know,
it was a well built ship for the most part,
(14:04):
but those rivets could have been weaker than they should
have been when push came to shove. Yeah, And I mean,
if your rivets are the weak link in the chain,
that's trouble right there. But yeah, not all of them
were wrought iron, but enough of them were. And I
also saw that they were double riveted, and they probably
should have been triple riveted from what from what I
(14:25):
saw in some engineering blog rivet exactly. Everybody knows that,
sure so um So. They also had two engines on
board UM that were just enormous. Each one was about
three thirty ft tall, and they were capable of producing
thirty thousand horsepower, which is about the same energy produced
(14:49):
by ten diesel locomotives. Just these two engines UM, and
they could push the ship pretty fast, something like um
I think twenty two knots was the top speed it
hit it. And like I said, the Mauritania had set
the speed record at something like twenty three point nine
I think, as far as the record goes, and it
(15:10):
lasted until so the Titanic wasn't setting speed records or
anything like that, but it was still going awfully fast,
especially considering the size it was. But it was thanks
to those huge engines, and they're the enormous propellers that
they outfitted the ship with two oh man, those like
if you're at home and you can access photographs safely,
(15:33):
I strongly encourage you to look up some of these pictures.
Just the pictures of the propellers are amazing. There are
two three blade propellers that were about twenty three and
a half feet in diameter, and then one four blade
propeller that was about seventeen feet in diameter, And just
seeing a photograph of these things is unbelievable to behold,
(15:56):
Like how big these things are. Yeah, again, just bigness.
It was just a common theme, you know. UM. One
of the other things that the Titanic had that was
pretty innovative was that so underwater in the hole, what
would be beneath the sea surface, UM, as far as
the boat was concerned. UM, where sixteen bulkhead compartments that
(16:18):
had all sorts of things like one held the coal
or I think multiple won't tell all the coal that
the Titanic consumed something like six hundred tons a day
to get that thing to move, um. And then there
were just all sorts of other just just like rooms
that were beneath sea level. And each of these rooms
had an automatic door UM that would shut it off
(16:41):
its seal. It They were water tight, so if any
of these compartments caught water, started taking on water, it
could fill up and as long as that door was shut, um,
the Titanic would just be able to keep on keeping
on basically. So that was a real, um, a real
innovation that combined with its big us and and um
(17:01):
just the amount of steel that was put into it
combined to kind of create this idea that the Titanic
was unsinkable. That's where that comes from, largely from those compartments. Yeah.
I think they said two of the four could flood,
and they said, really, up to four of these could flood,
but no more than four. Yeah, put a put a
(17:22):
pin in that one. Uh. And on that coal, there
were twenty nine steam boilers. And if you're thinking like
how much coal, you said, six pounds or I'm sorry,
six hundred tons a day a day. That was a
hundred and sixty two furnaces of two hundred men shoveling
coal basically NonStop. Yeah. There was actually a fire um
(17:44):
aboard the Titanic, Like the Titanic was on fire when
it was taking on passengers right, um. And it was
because those those coal deposits, one of them had caught fire.
And when you have coal that's on fire in that situation. Basically,
the only way to put it out is to you
is that coal that's on fire. So not only were they,
you know, shoveling like under routine conditions, they were shoveling
(18:07):
even more coal than normal to keep the fire from spreading. Yeah,
and that's another one of those things that people have
Now some people experts have gone back and said the fire,
uh could have started up to three weeks before they
even set sale, and that it could have weakened um
some of those holds they found evidence of, like some
(18:29):
some burn marks and stuff like that where they said
it could have weakened some of that metal. And uh,
you know, it sounds very strange to have a fire
going for three weeks and say here we go, everybody
right exactly, but that was the deal. Plus it also
just gets across how enormous Titanic was that it could
have a fire and just be like whatever, it's all good,
We're we're the Titanic. But yeah, they discovered a picture
(18:53):
that shows some sort of like kind of stripe across
the whole of the ship that is about where the
iceberg hid it. And they said that's from that that
coal fire, we think, which is surprising still after all
this time. I think that's another reason why the Titanic
story is so engrossing is there's there's just so much
(19:13):
still that people are learning about it, even a hundred
and nine years on. Oh totally. Uh. You also have
to remember, when you build something this big, you also
have to build the things that help you build this thing,
because they didn't exist. So they had to get a
boat slip that could accommodate it. So they built the
this enormous white Star dock, and then something called the
(19:34):
Great Gantry, which was it sort of looks like a
big it's sort of like a skeleton of a big
airplane hangar. You should look at these pictures too, it's
pretty remarkable. But it was a series of tin cranes
basically that held this boat in place while it was
being built, to could lift the people up to work
on it, lift materials up to wherever they needed to go.
(19:55):
And it's it's actually something to behold in itself, like
seeing the Titanic sus ended like above the ground like that. Yeah,
And it took eleven thousand people to build this ship.
Eleven thousand people and they built it. They built the
actual ship itself, uh, and was launched into the water.
I think, although it was basically always in the water
(20:15):
because it was basically impossible to dry dock. Um. Well
that when it was in the hangar, I was sitting
up there. Okay, you're right, sorry, But it was actually
launching in the water then on May thirty one, nineteen eleven.
But it didn't have any interior, it didn't have its
engines yet. It was fully completed March thirty first, nineteen twelve,
and it began its maiden voyage and started taking on
(20:36):
passengers on April tenth, nineteen twelve. And I proposed, Chuck
that before we take on passengers, we take a break.
Let's do it all right? So um. One thing I
(21:17):
didn't realize about the Titanic was it's It had three
little stops before it left the UK for New York.
It started out in Southampton, uh, in England, moved on
to Cherbourg, France, and then went on to Queenstown, Ireland
before leaving for New York. Did you know that? I
(21:39):
didn't know that. That's right, it wasn't so. Um. The
Titanic costs about four hundred million dollars in two thousand
nineteen dollars to make, which to that's that's actually less
than Carnival Cruise Lines Splendor, which was launched in two
thousand and eight for like four hundred and fifty fifty million.
(21:59):
It's actually for For as luxurious as it was, it
was a pretty pretty good bargain, to tell you the truth. Yeah,
And here's my deal with cruises. I think we've talked
about cruise ships before. I'm not a fan. I've been
on exactly one cruise and uh, just not a fan.
And a lot of it has to do with the decor,
(22:19):
like shopping mall carpet and bowling alley carpet and you know,
gold railings and things like that, but not like cool looking. Uh.
I think if they took a note from the and
maybe they are building cruise ships like this now, but
if they took a note from the Titanic and other
ships of the day today and had that really nice
(22:41):
wicker furniture and some you know, if not iron, some
stuff painted to look like iron, and not so much
of that shiny gold shopping mall garbage. Look, I think
I would be more into it, a little more classy,
refined thing. And I think it could go a long
way towards getting people like me on cruise ships. There's
(23:03):
some that are like that, like kind of some throwback
ones are there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but I get
what you mean that whole You know, all you had
to say was shopping mall. You kind of nailed it
right there. Like when you look at the Titanic, it
looks like something the Kellogg Brothers would have been keen on. Well,
it's funny you say that because we mentioned this in
the Kellogg Brothers episode, but they had equipment on board
(23:25):
the Titanic ins gym, and the gym happened to be
located on the boat deck, which was the same place
where the captain's bridge was. F y I in case
about the various decks, Yeah, I think we should. There
are a number of them actually, and they they lettered
them by letter appropriately enough. That's right. So there's that
(23:46):
boat deck, like you said, where the bridge, the gym,
and I think just sort of that nice lovely pine
open deck is. You had the promenade deck, which is
the first deck deck A and that had those two
first class staircases that you were talking about, had a lounge,
had a reading and writing room, had the all male
(24:07):
first class smoking room, all male places. Sure, they had
the he Man Woman Haters Club. Uh, there was a
Veranda cafe in Palm Court, which is really lovely if
you go look at pictures of this as well. Yeah
that that's that's up my alley as well. Yeah, the
Palm Court, it's nice, right. Yeah. I knew you'd love
(24:29):
it because I was like, look at all that wicker furniture.
Chuck's gonna go crazier for this. They would never allow
that in a mall. Uh, what's on deck B? Deck?
B friend, I thought you'dn't ever ask. Included the first
class cabins and suits, the restaurant Cafe Parisian, which was
this all male second class smoking room, third class poop deck,
(24:53):
which is where the third class people kind of strolled
around like gerbils um. And then they also kept some
of the larger cargo equipment on the poop deck for
the third class people that uses obstacles maybe to climb
over and stay fit. Yeah, they tried to hide most
of that stuff great care and making sure that it
(25:13):
looked just like a luxury kind of hotel and not
you know, And that's one of the reasons why they
didn't have as many lifeboats, but you know, we'll get
to that. So yeah, that was something that I also
didn't know about the Titanic is that the designers, um
and and builders really went to great lengths to make
it as luxurious as possible for everybody from first class
(25:34):
to third class, which is also called steerage. Um. You know,
just over the years it's been it's been it's been
made into such a class conflict, social stratification fable, because
it definitely was, but really it just kind of followed
the conventions of the day. But because of the conventions
(25:57):
of the day, a lot of people died who otherwise
might not have, which we'll talk about believe me. Um,
it's just really people have kind of glomped onto that,
and especially a hundred years later, it just seems so
bizarre and awful to us. But at the time, I mean,
this is just the way things were. But because of that,
you know, that whole idea that it was like, you know,
(26:18):
there's third class and there's first class. Um, the the
you you just kind of missed the point that that
they were like even in third class, this was incredible
luxury compared to what they were used to for passages
like this, and it was because the designers purposefully made
it that way. Yeah, I mean they were mostly immigrants
coming to America for the first time. And uh, like
(26:43):
you said, it's it was appropriate luxury for third class.
Like it wasn't like the rooms weren't these big open
rooms with like thirty bunk beds and no door. They
were private rooms. They had doors on their rooms. I
think they were with their six people per room down there,
I saw four. I also saw six, Okay, not too
bad though. They had little wash basins in each room,
which was a really big deal in a big luxury
(27:06):
although I do think they had only two bathtubs for
third class to share among the seven hundred plus people,
one for men and one for women. And um, I
saw that explained away as third class passengers probably thought
that you could develop respiratory illness by bathing too much,
(27:27):
so they probably wouldn't have had much of an issue
with that. It doesn't seem as bad as it it
does to us in retrospect. Yeah, I don't think I
would have taken a baths. I would have just spend
It's like I wouldn't take a poop on a bus trip.
I'm with you, man, I hope I'd never ever go
to jail for any extended period of time because I
(27:49):
would have a big problem with the pooping thing. You mean,
when it's just a little silver, silverything in the corner
with all the other people in there. Yes, I mean, like, yes, yeah,
I think that's a big problem. That would be a
problem for me. I think that would be a problem
for anybody. I feel bad, like I really feel that's
a terrible aspect I think of jail life. But yes, yes, yeah,
(28:12):
that's exactly right. All right, So where were we? Uh? Well,
ironically we were on the poop deck. Uh, dex C
was the shelter deck. Um. I don't think we said
Deck B was the bridge deck. But DEXI is the
shelter deck. Purser's office there, third class smoking room, second
class library, and lounge. You know, everything is very divided
by class. Everyone needs their smoking rooms because everybody smoked, right,
(28:37):
Yeah for sure. Uh, saloon deck deck D. What are
you getting there? Uh? First class reception room and the
dining saloon um like they had Like when you showed
up for dinner, you would probably sit in the reception
room and maybe like have a drink while you're waiting
to be seated if you showed up a little early.
From what I saw agreed. From what I saw. The
(29:01):
dining saloon, the actual dining room UM was large enough
to see all of the first class passengers at once.
And I think the second class one was just enormous.
Second class, like it is almost never talked about. When
you just generally talk about the Titanic, it's always first
or third. But there's a huge second class um, a
(29:25):
huge space for second class. I think it's set a
couple of thousand people at once. Third Class I think
was enough to serve um the the third class passengers
over three sittings. I believe maybe even more than that,
maybe four. All right, that's a lot. It is still
(29:46):
a lot, but yeah, for first class you probably had
just one sitting. Uh. And I think when you mentioned
that could be uh. That restaurant was an ala carte restaurant,
So it's sort of like modern cruise upstairs, the big
dining room, but then there's also the pizza place and
the this and the that, and I think the little
(30:07):
a la carte restaurant was one of those it's like
the mall food court, except probably not as good. Uh.
Deck E was the second and third class cabins. It's
called the upper deck, and then the middle deck. Deck
F this is a little confusing, was the third class saloon,
the Turkish Bath, which um they not too long ago
(30:30):
got some really good photos of lurking there at the
bottom of the Atlantic. It's amazing. But the Turkish Bath
was kind of like what you call the spa aboard
a ship today. Yeah, maybe some of the well, actually,
I guess the Kellogg stuff was in the gym. Yeah,
I believe it was all in the gym because it
was like the shaky band and um oh, I can't
remember what else the I think the thing where where
(30:52):
they would loosen up the poop with the sun tan bed.
I can't remember exactly, but there were definitely multiple pieces
of Kellogg equipment and it wasn't the gym yet. So
then you've got the lower deck, the orlop deck. That's
where they get a play squash if you wanted to.
They had a post office. There was a lot of
you know, people love to send post when they're on
(31:13):
an ocean voyage. I know, but I was thinking about that.
You just show up at the post office and they're like, okay, thanks,
we'll mail it when when we get to the same
place at the exact same time as you. Yeah, it
seems so dumb, but I think it's being postmarked by
the Titanic, which is you know what. Okay, you're like, uh,
(31:36):
there's someone working the post office is literally turns everyone
away when you just hang onto that and mail it
when we get there, A right, why yeah, probably better
off just dropping it's somewhere in New York. You're fine. Uh,
there's the carpentry shop, the plumbing shop, electrical workshops. You
gotta have all that stuff. Um. They had these enormous
refrigerated rooms that were cooled by these copper pipes, just
(31:57):
like miles and miles of copper pipes in each area.
Like you could you do a whole episode on just
the refrigeration of the Titanic and the cheeses and the
flowers and the wines and the foods that they had
to keep chilled. And they have extensive They did it
after the cutlery episode, probably so um. And so they
(32:18):
we talked about how luxurious it was, like it was
just as luxurious as anything was in the world at
the time. The Titanic um with all, but there was
also kind of like a uh airy kind of vibe
to the whole thing, Like the choices and colors and
wallpapers and plants and all of that in the wicker
furniture was all this kind of light and airy and cheery.
(32:40):
So it had a really nice feel to it. Um
from first to third across the board. Yeah, like Steerage
wasn't just a rat infested, gross place to be. That's
how it's always portrayed, you know, like basically a floating
tenement is how I've always seen it portrayed. And I
think that's kind of how um James Cameron did portrayed
(33:04):
it too, which is I guess where I got my impression,
Like you, I mean, the only thing I remember, I
think they maybe showed them in their Leo and his
uh in Fabrizio and remember Fabrizio in their little in
their little room. And then of course there was the
the Irish jig that they danced down there when she
(33:25):
decided to you know, slum it with Steerage, and that
did look a little like a like a you know,
an old pub, and it was a brand new boat, right,
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so, um, I think I
said earlier that the Titanic wasn't full when she set sail. Again,
this is her maiden voyage, which accounts for why J.
Bruces May, the chairman of the White Star Line, whose
(33:47):
father was the founder, I believe, and why Thomas Andrews,
the designer of the Titanic and Olympic and Britannic, we're
both aboard. It was just custom for the the those
p bowl who were in those positions to be aboard
a ship for its maiden voyage. But there wasn't it
wasn't sold out. There was room for something like thirty
(34:09):
two hundred and people. Yeah, there was only dred and
twenty nine people. So there was like more room for
more than a thousand passengers, basically because the the crew
was virtually full, Like the room for the crew was
virtually full, but it was the passengers that hadn't you know,
(34:32):
booked as much as it was expected. Should we take
another break? Oh boy? Yeah, alright, let's take another break
and we'll talk about a couple more things here. Two
round out Part one of the Titanic. Right after this
(35:03):
all right. So, uh, this thing, I guess we're where
it sets sail, right, Yeah, I believe so basically, yeah,
(35:27):
at least from being launched in Belfast, right, Yeah. So
it started out in Belhafast, went to Southampton on April three,
and then on the tenth it went and picked up
a few people in Southampton and then went to France
and then to Queenstown, Ireland to get some more people.
Like I said, I never knew like you that this
(35:49):
is what it was doing, operating basically like an uber chair. Yeah,
I guess. So have you ever done that? No? I
never have. I'm very very careful. Fall I did once
and someone they stopped and I was like, what's going on?
And someone got in. I was like, really, what's going on?
I made a new friend. Oh that's nice. I thought
(36:11):
it was in the cash cab. I don't think he
stops to pick up other people. He just asked a
lot of questions. Yeah, that's true, all right, So it's
picked up all the folks at this point. Uh. In
the end, and there are some discrepancy about the final
numbers because a lot of people sold their tickets, a
lot of people switch tickets, a lot of people can't
(36:32):
quite make it on time. In the case of Leonardo DiCaprio,
he he wins those tickets in a poker game right
before it launches. No way they could have accounted for him. No,
And actually, I mean that's not exactly that far off. Um,
and I suspect it's based loosely on the story of
UM Thomas Hart who was hired on as a fireman.
(36:53):
But UM went off and got really really drunk and
lost his boarding papers, UM while he was drunk, and
they were stolen by somebody else because Thomas Hart showed
up and worked as far as anybody's anyone was concerned
as far as the logs went. But it just clearly
wasn't that Thomas Hart. Rum, he just missed it like that. Uh.
(37:14):
There was one one group of wealthy industrialists starting with
Henry Clay Frick, onto JP Morgan and then Jay Horace
Harding who transferred boarding papers for sweets B fifty two,
fifty four and fifty six. Well, ultimately we're taken on
by J Bruce is may It just turns out all
of them had a reason why they suddenly couldn't go
(37:36):
toward the last minute. Um, yeah, I think the unsinkable
Bolly Brown's daughter. She was um. You know. Molly Brown
was portrayed by Kathy Baits. She was the hero of
Lifeboat six that really wanted to go and try and
save people. I think her daughter was supposed to come,
but she was studying at the Sarbone so she did not.
So there's a big list of people. They called it
(37:58):
the just Mistic Club, and uh apparently in nineteen twelve,
the Milwaukee Journal put that numbers high, six thousand people
that were saved because they did not sail on the
Titanic obviously couldn't been that much. It's one of those
things I think we're like everyone was at you know,
the game where Michael Jordan's scored whatever points and you know,
(38:18):
it's one of those sort of things where history uh
fudges itself a little bit. But in the end they
put the number somewhere around thirteen hundred and twenty four
passengers and those eighty four officers, which is a very
high ratio of of crew members to passengers. Yeah, there
really is um there, and it's speaking of crew. In
(38:39):
addition to Thomas Hart, there were the Slade brothers who
um left Southampton after um passing muster uh one got
drunk and then came back and they wouldn't lower the
gang plank for them again, so they got left behind
go for them. But most of all, there was a
guy named Davey Blair who was an up and coming
officer for the White Star Line, and he was initially
(39:01):
assigned the second officer position, which is huge for an
upcoming guy. He um he was at the last minute,
I think he sailed from Southampton to share Burg and
then at Sharburg basically as somebody who was a more
senior officer than him was was given that position and
he was moved off to the Olympic and he was
(39:22):
really disappointed about this. There's like a surviving postcard um
that that expresses how how upset he was and saddened
that he kind of lost that big opportunity. But even
more important than that is Davy Blair was on there
long enough to be entrusted with the key to the
crow's nest locker, which held the binoculars for the pocular locker.
(39:46):
The binocular locker, Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind
of long been a myth that there were not binoculars
on board, but there were, But yeah, he walked with
that key, and that key and that postcard sold at
auction for like a hundred and fifty grand or something,
didn't it as far as I know, Yeah, it's amazing.
But that's a big deal because later on they would
(40:07):
say that had they had binoculars in the crow'sness, they
most definitely would have cited that icebergs in time to
maneuver away from them. That the lookouts said that later
on at an inquiry. Yeah, and of course people debated
that as well. Um, it's hindsight is twenty but it
certainly wouldn't have hurt. Yeah, you know, no, definitely wouldn't have. So. Um.
(40:30):
I mentioned some wealthy industrialists that was mostly first class
passengers were all extraordinarily well above average wealthy people, like
even for wealthy people, they were above average wealthy. Um.
And that was reflected in the ticket prices that some
of them paid for passage on the Titanic. Dude, Yeah,
big money in today dollars, anywhere from sixty six grand
(40:53):
to a dred and twenty grand for passage. Yeah. I
don't think that fully gets it across, because you're like, Okay,
I can see a billionaire selling something like that out.
You know, it's gaudy and gross. But what really drove
it home to me was at the time, um, so
they were paying up to forty dollars and their dollars
and at the time, the average American made eight hundred
(41:15):
dollars a year. Wow, and these guys showed out forty
hundred for a one way ticket. This was not round trip,
this was one way from the UK to Americas and
that nuts. Uh. Third class steerage I think even costs
close to a thousand dollars and today dollars, which is
(41:36):
a lot of money. I mean thirty five bucks back then,
but um that that's not cheap, no, but it was
definitely a lot more affordable than a hundred nine dollars.
That's right. So I guess we should talk a little
bit before we wrap up about um kind of the
controversy over the size of the ship. As we said
(41:58):
at the beginning, they wanted it to the biggest and
the best, all three of those sister ships, just to
be the biggest thing ever, to really rub it in
the Kunard lines face. And that presented some problems though,
one of which was the Board of Trade didn't know
how many lifeboats or at least hadn't acted on it
and said how many lifeboats you should have because in
(42:20):
merchant Shipping Act, Uh, they topped out at ten thousand
tons and said you need, uh, sixteen lifeboats if you're
ten thousand tons. Titanic was thirty five thousand tons. Uh,
and they had sixteen lifeboats because that's just where the
Merchant Shipping Act ended. And they didn't like the you know,
the unsightliness of them, so they weren't going to add
any Uh. It does not mean because it was three
(42:42):
times a size they needed forty eight lifeboats. I think
in retrospect they said twenty six would have done it.
But as we'll get to you know, the whole accident,
that the speed at which it sank it may not
have mattered anyway. But um, that was one of the
big problems with its size. That was a very big problem. Yeah,
(43:03):
not adding enough lifeboats because they seemed unsightly. It's not
a good move. Um. Another one is that the Titanic
um only had like six or seven hours of testing
before it's sailed, and that was mostly just to check
its maneuverability. It was never sailed at full speed. Before
it set sail for America. UM, so the testing wasn't
(43:27):
very good. And then even even more important, as far
as lifeboats go, they never fully um did like a
full drill to lower all the lifeboats to board. And
one of the reasons why people died was not just
because there weren't that many lifeboats that was a huge,
huge issue, but also because there just wasn't a lot
(43:49):
of needed protocol in launching the lifeboats as far as
the crew was concerned. A lot of them had had
just had come aboard basically the day before they were
they were taking passengers and it didn't even have a
poster a position while they were passengers on that first day. Yeah,
I mean that's a It was basically an hr nightmare
(44:10):
with people showing up. As the passengers are showing up,
going where do I go? What do you want me
to do? They're like, have you ever waited tables? Have
you ever shoveled goal? And they were just kind of
sticking people where they needed them, And like you said,
I think they only were able to lower two of
those sixteen lifeboats. And in the end, what that also
means is you don't know how long it's going to
(44:31):
take to lower them all. So it was just h
they were kind of just flying or sailing blind, right exactly.
So those were just really really big problems that would
turn out to be um extremely important when the ship
started going down, because any one of those things being
slightly different or improved or not being a problem means
(44:54):
that people's lives definitely would have been saved. You can
debate like how many people would have been saved, but yeah,
there were there was definitely room for more people to
have survived the Titanic than did. Yeah. There was also
a weird incident that happened on April tenth that possibly
altered history. The Titanic was being pulled out by tug boats. Uh,
(45:17):
and it I think, as the story goes, the captain
kind of a little too early said go ahead and
release us, and we'll just fire this baby up. It's
really itching to get those propellers spinning. And he said,
and give me a two two while you're at it.
And uh, when he started turning those propellers, it was
a big, violent suction and it sucked this other steamer, Uh,
(45:39):
the s s New York into its wake. Uh. It
was attached to the Oceanic and it started pulling this
boat over to it. I think it snapped away from
the Oceanic. It kind of ripped off the moorings. And
if it weren't for quick action by tug boats reattaching
pulling the New York away, and then the captain realizing
(45:59):
what was going on and hitting the engine hard and
turning out of the way like there. It shows pictures
that they miss hitting each other by just a few feet.
And not only would that if it had actually hit it,
that would have caused a delay that could have altered history.
But there was a slight delay anyway, just because of
this incident that you know, who knows if those you know,
(46:23):
events would have lined up with that iceberg in there
at the exact moment it needed to be. Yeah, that's
an amazing point, Chuck, I hadn't seen that one. So
they they leave Queenstown, Ireland on April elevenelve, I believe right, yes,
and start heading out to see full speed ahead. Uh,
(46:44):
and we will stop here. What do you think? Boy?
What a cliffhanger? What's going to happen? I don't know.
We'll find out in the next episode of Stuff. You
should know Stuff you should know is a production I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(47:06):
to your favorite shows. H m hm
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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