Everybody knows the story of Titanic and the iceberg it hit on the night of April 14, 1912. When it first set sail, the Titanic was known for its extraordinary size and was thought to be “The Unsinkable Ship”. Sadly, fortune didn’t favor this ship and its passengers, the disastrous crash which occurred almost a century ago making it the universal symbol of tragedy. It also spawned a movie industry of millions of dollars, the heartbreaking stories of the passengers who died on board of the Titanic becoming sources of inspiration for many cinematographic adaptations.
However, there are some things that are still unknown to the public eye, information that surfaced years after the Titanic sank. If you want to find out a little bit more about the mysteries of this iconic ship, take a look at this article, presenting Titanic Facts for Kids.
Titanic Facts For Kids
1. The ultimate ship of dreams
When it first set sail, the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic was the largest moving object created by man and a true wonder of engineering. It was built in Northern Ireland and approximately 15,000 people worked on its construction. The costs were huge for that time: 7.5 million dollars. Its length was that of three football fields and it was as high as a 17-story-building.
2. First class lifestyle
If you wanted a first class ticket to New York on board of the Titanic, you had to pay about 2,500$ (about 57,200 $ in current money). However, this meant that you would have had at your disposal a swimming pool, a squash court, a library, a Titanic newspaper, beer, wine and cigars, 11 course meals and a selection of 352 songs played be professional musicians to choose from. An average of 60% of the first class passengers managed to escape the sinking ship and survive.
3. Second and third class accommodations
Those who bought second or third class tickets had very different conditions. An interesting fact is that second class on the Titanic was equivalent to first class on other ocean liners of that era. Third class rooms had 5 or 6 beds and the passengers would hear all the time the noises made by the ship’s engines. For the 700 people that embarked the Titanic in third class, there were available only two bathtubs. Third class passengers were separated from the other ones even after the ship hit the iceberg. Only 25% of the passengers in third class survived the collision.
The famous iceberg appeared from a glacier in Greenland and was about 100 feet tall. The captain of the Titanic tried to avoid it by going south but, as you know, utterly failed.
5. Is the Titanic still at the bottom of the ocean?
The answer is yes. The 50 000 tons of iron are still at the bottom of the ocean, but they won’t be for long. An iron-eating bacteria was recently discovered and it has been estimated that it will eat all the remains of the Titanic in approximately two decades.
6. The lifeboats were not full
After the ship hit the iceberg, lifeboats starting launching from the Titanic. Not only that the lifeboats were not enough to save all the passengers, but they were also deployed half empty. One of the lifeboats carried 24 people, but had a capacity of 65 and another saved 12 people, when it could have saved 40.
7. Heartbreaking stories
The story of the elderly couple who embraced each other in the face of death is partially true. Isidor and Ida Straus were the owners of Macy’s. She refused to leave her husband behind and gave her spot to another passenger. They shared the same destiny and died holding hands on the deck of the ship.
The musicians on board of the Titanic did played for two hours and a half while the ship sunk. However, the song they played wasn’t “Nearer my God to Thee”, but “Songe d’Automne”.
Millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim took care of his mistress and put her into a lifeboat. Then he went in his cabin, changed into evening wear and waited for the fatal end of the ship.
1,517 people lost their lives when Titanic sunk. Its wreckage was discovered 75 years ago and since then there have been initiated about 20 expeditions.
Millvina Dean was the last Titanic survivor. When the ship hit the iceberg and sank she was 9 weeks old. Millvina died in the year 2009, at the age of 97 years.