Little Known Facts About RMS Titanic

Little Known Facts About RMS Titanic

I don’t know what it is, but I am obsessed with the Titanic. I obviously wasn’t on the ship… nor do I know anyone that was. But over the last few years, I have become obsessed with her story and learning all I can about the ship. That, and the movie was pretty good! I recently had the chance to see it in 3D, and while the 3D didn’t help, the movie looks great on the big screen. It was much better than I remember.

I was surfing the web last week, and I found an article on Yahoo! News that talked about 10 things you didn’t know about the Titanic. This April marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic… and some of these were really interesting.

On the evening of April 14, the first-class passengers on the Titanic enjoyed a ten-course meal that included oysters, poached salmon, sirloin of beef, lamb with mint sauce, chocolate éclairs and Waldorf pudding. According to Armchair World, a different wine was served with each course, and coffee and cigars accompanied by port and distilled spirits were available with the last course.

That sounds like a pretty good meal to me. There is a scene in the movie where Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, joins Rose and her party for dinner. I wonder if that was the meal they are speaking of… and what in the world is Waldorf pudding? I want some!

The Titanic had its own newspaper. According to the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, The Atlantic Daily Bulletin was printed daily and included news articles, the latest stock prices, horse racing results, society gossip and a daily menu.

I wonder if a copy of this was ever recovered. I went to see the Titanic exhibition at the Indiana State Museum last year, and there were a ton of artifacts on display. I don’t remember seeing this… but would love to see what that looked like at the time.

Less than a month after the tragedy, silent film actress and Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson starred in the film “Saved From the Titanic.” According to Stageclick, the actress reenacted her personal story of the tragedy; complete with the actual white silk evening dress she wore on that fateful night. The film was a hit in America and England, but the only known prints were destroyed two years later in a fire.

Man… I want to see that film now. I sometimes wonder if this ship will ever be forgotten. It has been 100 years since she went down… but the older I get the more I want to know. I would love to see the ship, but I am not even sure where that process starts. Maybe I will add that to my bucket list.

Many artifacts from the Titanic were salvaged. The Titanic Museum in Massachusetts houses The Titanic Historical Society’s collection, which includes a life jacket, lifeboat flag, luncheon and dinner menus, a square of first-class stateroom carpet, letters and postcards written on board, first class china and a bridge bell.

Some of these items were a part of the traveling exhibition. The museum in Massachusetts has a permanent collection, but the number of items on display here in Indianapolis was the most ever seen at one time. With that traveling exhibition, they have to change the arrangement every time they move from city to city. Some of the artifacts can only be out for so long and they risk damage from the lights and human contact.

According to UK’s Mirror, a violin alleged to have belonged to Titanic bandleader Wallace Harley was recently discovered. While tests are being done to prove its authenticity, if sold it would break the record for a Titanic artifact, post office keys that were sold in England for £101,000 ($159,973.90) in 2007.

There is a scene in the movie where the band plays together as the ship starts to sink. When they are done, they say goodbye and part ways. Legend has it that the men had never met, and had only played together on the Titanic. If I was on a ship, and she was going down… I doubt I would sit there and play the violin!

The last remaining survivor of the Titanic died in 2009. Millvana Dean was only nine weeks old and the youngest passenger on the ship when she was put on a lifeboat and saved.

I remember seeing her on the news… but I hadn’t started researching the ship back then. It’s sad there are no remaining survivors. She was the youngest on the ship, and the last one to pass. She was so young, in fact, that she wouldn’t have remembered any of it. I bet that had an affect on her psyche through the years.

There were a few things on the list I already knew, but I wanted to share a few of them with you. There is a ship that is going out to the exact spot where the Titanic went down on the night of the 100th anniversary. Apparently the ship was modeled after the original. For a ship that was once thought unsinkable, I hope they put the finishing touches on the new one to truly make it unsinkable.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/100th-anniversary-titanic-10-things-didn-t-know-232200873.html