Titanic

Everyone knows what happened to the Titanic. It has long been a fascination with people. Several films have been made about it and the wreck has been investigated.
The ship hit an iceberg and sank during its maiden voyage on the night of the 14th April 1912.
When it sunk in the early hours of the 15th April over 2,000 people were on board and around 1,500 people died.
For some reason the Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats although it had more than was required by the 1913 rules. The ship was the largest ever built and neither the ship builders nor shipping safety rules had taken this into account. It only had enough to take 1,178 this left a short fall of 50 odd. What was worse was the fact that the lifeboats were being let down into the water before they were full. This was to cause the huge loss of life.
The idea for building this enormous ship came from the chairman and managing director of the White Star line Joseph Bruce Ismay. The ships builder was Thomas Andrews.
It was Andrews a gentleman to the end who encouraged people to put on their life jackets and get into the lifeboats. He put himself last he was seen staring hard at a painting of Plymouth Harbour. This hung in the smoking room above the fireplace. No one saw him again and having heroically tried to resolve the impossible of saving the ship from sinking and encouraging people into the lifeboats he went down with the ship.
Ismay was standing near a lifeboat that was about to be lowered as there was no response to a call for any women and children to board. Ismay got in but the fact that he had survived when others didn't preyed on him until he died.
What made the titanic sink? It was supposed to be unsinkable. The fact that someone said "Not even God could sink this ship." may well not have helped.
It is thought that the Titanic sank because the hull was weaker than expected. Its expansion joint was not strong enough. It is possible they might have tried to cover up these facts which would be despicable.
© Children's Web Magazine 2008