Atlantic Ocean Titanic in our time. The sinking of the "Titanic": a chronicle of the disaster, versions

This is certainly interesting and I would even say "romantic" from a technical point of view, such as or for example. More than a century has passed since these huge liners sailed the waters of the Atlantic. But their research continues to this day.

British journalist Chenan Meloni studied the history of the Titanic for 30 years and came to "sensational" Conclusion: the main cause of the crash was a fire in the fuel storage, which lasted for about two weeks. This is of course interesting, but don't you think that he hasn't told us anything new?

After all, on the twentieth of September 1987 year French television told the world "sensational news": The reason for the death of the "Titanic", it turns out, was a fire that broke out in the hold of the ill-fated liner, and not at all a collision with an iceberg.

Since 30 years later they surface again "sensational" versions, then let's remember them all as they are. Maybe you will find something sensational for yourself too :-)

Here they are ...

On a cold night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of April 1912, the most famous maritime disaster in the history of mankind occurred in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The ship of the "White Star Line" company, bearing the proud name "Titanic", having died in the middle of its maiden voyage and taking with it one thousand five hundred and four human lives, was doomed to become the most famous ship in the world.

Why did the most perfect ship of that era sink - a ship that was considered completely unsinkable? Let's with the help of a blogger prosto_serge we will collect all the proposed versions:

Gemini: Titanic (right) and Olympic

The first version. Conspiracy theory

Few people know that the Titanic had a twin brother - the Olympic ship, an exact copy of it, also owned by the White Star Line. How so, the reader may be surprised, because the Titanic was considered a unique ship, the largest ship of that era, and now it turns out that there was another ship, not inferior in size to it? No, the Titanic was indeed longer than its twin. Two inches. Just imagine - the length of a matchbox! - but still longer. Another thing is that it was almost impossible to notice these inches with the naked eye (and perhaps armed, too), so an outsider, looking at the twins standing side by side, could not say which of them is who.

The Olympic was a year older than its brother (so it would be more correct to call the Titanic a copy), and not much luckier. Probably, he should have written something like "from the very beginning, an evil fate hovered over each of the ships," but more on that later: of course, the greatest sea disaster could not but acquire mystical rumors.

Well, rock, not rock, but the fate of Olympic was indeed full of troubles. His career began when a ship crashed into a dam during launching. After that, minor and major accidents rained down on him one after another, and the ship, it seemed, was not even insured. Rumor has it that after a series of accidents, the owners would be happy to insure their ship, and insurance companies refused to deal with the failed liner. The most serious accident was the collision with the British military cruiser Hawk, which led the White Star Line to tangible financial problems: expensive repairs were required, and the company's financial situation was very dire. So the Olympic was delivered to the Belfast docks to await a decision on its future fate. And now - attention! Take a look at the photo on the left - this is almost the only image in existence showing the Titanic and Olympic standing side by side. It was made just in Belfast.

Final rigging of the Titanic at the Belfast shipyard

Why not assume, some researchers said, that the White Star Line has decided to pull off a grand scheme. To whip up the old Olympic and ... pass it off as the new Titanic! Technically, it would not be difficult at all: to swap the plates with the names of the ships, and even interior items on which the ships' monogram is applied - for example, cutlery (the "Olympic" and the "Titanic" had, of course, some design differences - well, yes who knows about them?). Then the "Olympic" under the guise of a new, prestigious, widely advertised (and, of course, the honor of the insured) "Titanic" will go on a journey across the Atlantic, where it will collide (quite by accident, of course) with an iceberg (fortunately, there is a lack of them at this time year was not). Of course, no one was going to sink the liner - and no one believed that some kind of iceberg could send the most reliable ship in the world to the bottom. It was planned to arrange a small collision, after which the ship would slowly reach New York, and its owners would receive a tidy sum insured, which the company would have to come in handy.

This version is supported by the strange behavior of the ship's captain, Edward Smith. Why was such a seasoned, experienced sea wolf so careless about the safety of his ship? Why did he stubbornly ignore reports of drifting icebergs coming from other ships, and even himself, it seems, was directing the liner along the course on which it is easiest to meet the ice mountain? Why was he doing this if not to carry out the White Star plan? Personally, it seems to me that it was for this, only ... the plan was completely different. But more on that later.

John Pierpont Morgan

Refuting the conspiracy theory was not easy, especially since White Star went out of its way to save its reputation: in every possible way distorted information about the disaster, bribed witnesses, and so on. Actually, convincing arguments were found only after the sunken liner itself was discovered (and this happened only seventy-three years later - the remains of the ship were discovered by Robert Ballard's expedition in September eighty-fifth). So, the participants of one of the expeditions, descending to the lost ship, took photographs of the propeller, which clearly shows the minted serial number of the Titanic - 401 (his older brother had exactly 400). Conspiracy theorists claim, however, that the Olympic damaged its propeller after colliding with the cruiser Hawk, and White Star replaced it with a propeller from the then unfinished Titanic. But number 401 is also found on other parts of the sunken ship, so the charge of a planned disaster with the White Star Line can be dropped. The following theory looks much more plausible - we'll talk about it now.

One of the arguments in favor of the conspiracy theory was the fact that industrialist John Morgan, one of the owners of the Titanic, was supposed to sail aboard his ship, but canceled the ticket a day before the ship left the port.

And they also say (that mysticism began) that the tycoon was dissuaded from going by the foresighted Nikola Tesla, whose development was financed by Morgan.

A piece of the Titanic's skin raised from the bottom

Second version. Chasing the Blue Ribbon

It all began a long time ago, when a regular sea service was established between England and America, and, therefore, competition between ship-owning companies began to flare up. The faster the ship crossed the Atlantic, the more popular it became. In 1840, the Cunard Company created a prize for the ships that set the speed record: now the ship, which crosses the Atlantic Ocean faster than all its predecessors, received the Atlantic Blue Ribbon as an award.

Actually, no material prize existed. The winner did not receive a cash prize, the captain was not awarded a commemorative cup, which can be placed in a prominent place in the wardroom. But the ship acquired something more - priceless prestige that cannot be obtained by other means. In addition to honor in maritime circles (and, therefore, fame and popularity), the winner of the award received a contract for the transportation of mail (including diplomatic) between America and Europe, and this is a very profitable item of shipping. And in general - see for yourself: if you are a rich businessman, maybe even a millionaire, what ship would you prefer to travel on? Isn't it the most prestigious and fastest?

At the time the Titanic left Southampton, the Blue Ribbon was owned by Mauritania, a vessel owned by White Star's main competitor. Naturally, it was impossible to put up with it, and White Star decided to bet on their favorite. The conquest of the Blue Ribbon by the Titanic would be a triumph for this corporation, making it possible to correct its shaky position: the Chevalier of the All-Atlantic Ribbon usually had four times as many passengers as other similar ships.

Due to the threat of collision with floating ice, the prescribed route of the Titanic (and any other vessel following the same course) did not run in a straight line, but made a small detour, skirting the dangerous ocean area where most of the icebergs drift. Of course, this maneuver lengthens the road. That is why it may seem that Captain Smith was leading his ship right into the flock of icebergs - he just needed to take a shortcut and get the Blue Ribbon at all costs. That is why the "Titanic" was going at full steam and did not reduce speed even after it received several radio messages warning about ice danger from other ships. Let the other ships worry - and the Titanic has nothing to fear. In the "crow's nest" - a special observation platform on the front mast - there are two lookouts who, in case of danger, will be able to report it to the captain's bridge by telephone in the blink of an eye: "Titanic" is equipped with the latest technology. And if a collision does happen, well, it only means that the record will be set another time. Icebergs do not pose any danger to the ship - after all, it is known that the Titanic is completely unsinkable. Its hold is divided into sixteen watertight compartments, so if suddenly it gets a hole (which, of course, cannot be), only one of the compartments will be filled with water, and the ship will calmly continue on its way. That one - the liner will not sink, even if four compartments are filled! And the ship can receive such damage only in war.

Well, it's not for nothing that pride is one of the deadly sins. She played a cruel joke with the Titanic: the iceberg damaged five compartments - one more than was allowed.

But how did the ice break through the steel of the ship's skin? In the mid-nineties, a piece of the Titanic's skin was lifted to the surface and subjected to a brittleness test: a sheet of metal, fixed in clamps, had to withstand the impact of a thirty-kilogram pendulum. For comparison, a piece of steel used in shipbuilding today was also tested. Before the experiment, both samples were placed in an alcohol bath with a temperature of a little over a degree - just such was the ocean water that fateful night. Modern metal came out of the test with honor: under the blow of the hammer, it caved, but remained intact. Raised from the bottom split into two parts. Maybe he became so fragile after lying on the ocean floor for eighty years? Researchers managed to get at the Belfast shipyard, where the "Titanic" was built, a sample of steel of those years. He passed the strength test no better than his brother. The expert opinion was that the steel used in the construction of the Titanic was of very poor quality, with a large admixture of sulfur, which made it brittle at low temperatures. Alas, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the level of development of metallurgy was far from today's. If the liner was made of high-quality steel, the body would simply bend inward from the impact, and the tragedy would have been avoided.

One of the Titanic's watertight bulkheads

Third version. Fire in the hold

On September 20, 1987, French television told the world sensational news: it turns out that the reason for the death of the Titanic was a fire that broke out in the hold of the ill-fated liner, and not at all a collision with an iceberg. Apparently, the supporters of the new hypothesis assured that in one of the ship's coal storages spontaneous combustion of coal occurred (well, this is indeed possible), the fire spread to the entire hold, reached the steam boilers, which exploded from this, which made the ship go to the bottom. As for the iceberg, it just happened to be nearby, so it was accused of the liner crash.

Yes, indeed, there was a fire on the Titanic - and this is no longer a guess, but an established fact. However, could he have caused the disaster? Oh, hardly. How do you imagine a fire in a coal bunker? Roaring flames throwing ominous crimson reflections on the metal cladding of the walls, rushing sailors with a naked torso, someone pumping a pump, and a stream of water disappears into a raging wall of fire? I must disappoint you - in fact, everything is much more prosaic. In general, a fire in the coal bunker of steamers of that time is a fairly common thing. Coal in such a fire does not burn, does not burn, but quietly smolders, sometimes for several days. They fought such fires in the simplest way - out of turn they burned smoldering coal in steamboat furnaces. So a fire in a coal hold is, of course, an unpleasant phenomenon, but, as a rule, it does not promise any serious troubles for the ship. And certainly not under any circumstances capable of producing such monstrous destruction, which are attributed to him by supporters of the version of the death of the Titanic from the flames. Moreover, the fire on the ship was extinguished even before its last voyage. The bunker was emptied and examined by specialists from the shipyard where the Titanic was stationed. It seems that the most serious consequence of the fire was a slight deformation of one of the watertight bulkheads, which could in no way affect the fate of the liner.

But Chenan Meloni, nevertheless, believes that the iceberg is only one of the factors that ruined the steamer. While scrutinizing photographs taken ten days before the Titanic left Southampton, the journalist discovered traces of soot on the inside of the paneling. Exactly in the place that was subsequently damaged in the collision. The fire in the fuel storage, according to experts, began during high-speed tests at a dock in Belfast.

The ship's owners knew that a fire was raging in the bowels of the Titanic, but they turned out to be so greedy that they decided not to cancel the voyage. So that the passengers did not suspect anything, in the port of Southampton, the ship was turned on a different side. The officers were ordered to keep their mouths shut.

The liner set off on a voyage, but a team of 12 people could not cope with the fire. Gradually, the cladding heated up to a thousand degrees Celsius. The metallurgical experts with whom Meloni consulted stated that steel at this temperature becomes brittle, losing up to 75% of its strength. For this reason, when hitting an iceberg, six holes with a total length of about 90 meters were formed in the bow compartments of the vessel at once. The ship's unsinkability system did not cope with such serious damage.

So Ray Boston, who studied the documents of this disaster for many years, found evidence. According to him, fireman Dilly, who survived the disaster, testified about the fire, who said: “We could not put out the fire, and there were rumors that as soon as we disembark passengers in the port of New York and unload the coal bunkers, we would immediately call fire boats for help. for extinguishing the fire ".

The iceberg ripped through the liner skin just under the bunker number six, where the largest hole was formed, and no one had to put out the fire. And the commission investigating the loss of the liner, for some unknown reason, did not pay attention to the statement of the stoker.

Fourth version. German torpedo

1912 year. Two years remain before the First World War, and the prospect of an armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming more and more likely. Germany owns several dozen submarines, which during the war will launch a ruthless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America's entry into the war will be that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915 - the twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Atlantic Blue Ribbon - remember? We are very detailed.

Based on these facts, some Western publications offered their version of the sinking of the Titanic in the mid-nineties: a torpedo attack by a German submarine secretly escorting the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, "Titanic" either did not collide with an iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in a collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? To be honest, nothing.

Firstly, there was a collision with an iceberg - there is no doubt about it. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice crumbs. The cheerful passengers started playing football with ice - that the ship is doomed, it will become clear later. The collision itself passed surprisingly quietly - almost no one of the passengers felt it. The torpedo, you must admit, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!). Proponents of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that the people in the boats heard a terrible rumble just before the sinking of the Titanic - well, that was two and a half hours later, when only the stern lifted up into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship was beyond doubt. It is unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at the almost sunken ship, right? And the rumble heard by the survivors was due to the fact that the feed of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not bear the weight of the lifted stern (however, they learn about this only after finding the liner at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this also hardly happened silently ... And why would the Germans suddenly start sinking a passenger liner two years before the start of the war? This seems, to put it mildly, dubious. And to put it bluntly - absurd.

The very first horror movie about a mummy

Fifth version. The curse of the Egyptian mummy

In the eighties of the nineteenth century, near Cairo, a perfectly preserved mummy of the times of Amenhotep IV was discovered, named either Amen-Otu, or Amen-Ra, or Amenophis (lovers of mysticism, as you know, do not bother with such trifles. Mummy, and mummy ). During her life, the mummy worked as a famous soothsayer, and therefore after her death she was awarded a magnificent burial: with jewelry, figurines of gods, and, of course, magic amulets. Among them was an image of Osiris, decorated with the inscription: "Wake up from your swoon, and your gaze will crush everyone who gets in your way." Others, it is true, insisted that it was written "Rise from the dust, and only the gaze of your eyes will triumph over any intrigues against you," but what, in essence, is the difference? When others timidly suggested that nothing of the kind was written on the mummy, it was certainly clear that this was nonsense.

Titanic Ticket

Finally, our mummy was acquired in a British museum by an American millionaire and sent to his American residence aboard a ship. Well, guess which liner was chosen for this purpose?

An ordinary box, either glass or wooden (not tin, in any case, exactly) served as a sarcophagus on the way, and it was kept just near the captain's bridge. Mystics of all stripes avidly assure that Captain Edward Smith, of course, could not resist the temptation and looked into this box with the mummy: their eyes met and ... no, they did not love each other; quite the opposite: a monstrous curse came true. Otherwise, judge for yourself, how to explain that the captain's head went cloudy, and he directed the Titanic straight to certain death with his own fearless hand?

And, in fact, why is it believed that the captain's head was clouded, and he directed the Titanic to certain death with his own hand? Well, how could he not get cloudy in his head if he met the eyes of the mummy? As you can see, there is nothing to object.

It's a shame that the mummy died a thousand years before the birth of Aristotle, so she had a hard time with logic. Otherwise, she would have realized that the direct consequence of the fact that the ship would ram the iceberg would be the death of her, mummy, precious body - in the ocean water it is unlikely to survive for more than a few days. And the destruction of the body is the worst thing that can happen to a mummy: her soul will have nowhere to return. So if the mummy really had magical powers, it would be in her best interest to protect the Titanic as the apple of her magical eye. Or maybe she, too, bought into the advertising rhetoric about the unsinkable ship and did not pay attention to the dangerous icebergs?

Whatever it was, but the mummy died in the ocean abyss, disappeared without a trace, and cannot stand up for its honest name; This is shamelessly used by the tabloid press, which regularly publishes accusations against it under monotonous headlines: “Sensation! The "Titanic" was destroyed by the curse of the pharaohs! " Let's leave it on the conscience of the journalists.

The mummy, by the way, was not the only historical relic that died aboard the Titanic. Much more tragic for art is the death in the Atlantic Ocean of the original manuscript of Omar Khayyam "Rubayat" - a relic that truly had no price.

Sixth version. Steering error and human error

The recently released book by the granddaughter of the second mate of the "Titanic" C. Lightoller Lady Patten "Worth its weight in gold" about the tragic fate of the Titanic, reveals new sensational aspects of the disaster. It turns out that the Titanic team discovered the iceberg in advance, which made it possible to avoid a collision. The cause of the collision was the panic of the helmsman, who performed the wrong maneuver.

The revelation, which was hidden for about 100 years by the family of one of the officers of the Titanic, is published in a new book. Second officer Charles Lightoller, who escaped the disaster, concealed the mistake from commissions on both sides of the Atlantic, due to fear of bankruptcy of shipowners and the loss of work for his colleagues. And even after his death, for fear of damaging his reputation, his relatives hid the truth.

But now his granddaughter, the writer Patten, has opened the curtain of secrecy in her new novel. When First Mate Ulyam Murdoch spotted the iceberg 2 miles away, his order to starboard was misinterpreted in the wheelhouse by Robert Hitchins. He first turned the ship to the right, and although he immediately corrected the course, but due to the high speed of the Titanic, its starboard was ripped open by an iceberg.

At first glance, it looks amazing that anyone - especially the person who stood at the helm on the maiden voyage of the world's most expensive ocean liner - could have made such a schoolboy mistake. However, Patten explains, this seemingly improbable error had a very specific technical reason.

The Titanic was launched at a time when the world was moving from sailing to steam ships. Her grandfather, like the rest of the senior officers on the Titanic, started out on sailing ships. On the sailboats, the commands were sent to the tiller. If you need to turn the ship in one direction, then the tiller is turned in the other (for example, if the ship needs to be turned to the left, then the tiller is turned to the right). Now it looks unnatural, but at one time it was customary to give commands that way. The steering commands used on steam boats are like driving a car — the boat is steered in the direction in which it should turn. The situation was further confused by the fact that, although the Titanic was a steamer, tiller commands were used in the North Atlantic at that time. Accordingly, Murdoch gave the command "to the tiller", but the panicked Hitchins mechanically followed the command "to the steering wheel", as he had been taught. They only had four minutes to change course, and when Murdoch noticed Hitchins' mistake and tried to fix it, it was too late.

Patten's grandfather, who later set up his own shipyard in Richmond-on-Thames (where his little shipyard was now, has a plaque), shared another, potentially even more deadly, secret with his wife, Sylvia. If helmsman Hitchins was simply wrong, then Bruce Ismay, also the crash survivor of the Titanic's White Star Line, issued a disastrous order.

“The iceberg hit the Titanic in the most vulnerable place,” continues Patten, “but, as my grandfather believed, the liner could stay afloat for a long time. However, then Ismay came to the bridge. He did not want the vessel, in which huge investments were made, to either sink slowly in the middle of the Atlantic or be towed to port. Too bad advertising! Therefore, he told the captain to give the small one in advance. The Titanic was considered unsinkable! "

Captain of the Titanic Edward Smith

To this we can add that shortly before this sad anniversary, a letter from a Titanic passenger who managed to survive was put up for auction in one of the auction houses in Great Britain. Previously, this letter did not appear anywhere. The passenger writes in her letter that on the day of the sinking of the Titanic, she saw the captain of the ship drunk.

According to the woman, she also saw the captain of the Titanic, having transferred control to someone from the crew, sat in a bar and consumed whiskey. Thus, it may turn out that the "Titanic" sank not because of a fatal coincidence, but because of banal criminal negligence.

What versions have we missed besides the official one?

And a little more about the legendary ship: here's to you

The reason for the crash of the largest ocean liner of its time, the Titanic, could have been a fire in the fuel storage.

The tragic legend of the Titanic

According to British journalist Shannon Moloney, who studied the history of the ship for thirty years, the fire on board began even before the ship left Southampton, and for several weeks they unsuccessfully tried to extinguish it. During this time, the liner skin warmed up, which is why the collision with the iceberg ended so badly.

According to the newspaper The Independent, the journalist succeeded, made before the start of the Titanic trip. Moloney found traces of soot in the skin, which was subsequently damaged by a collision with an iceberg. According to experts, they most likely arose due to a fire in one of the liner's fuel storage facilities.

According to the researcher, the ship's owners knew about the fire, but hid this fact from passengers. The team was also ordered to remain silent about the fire. According to Shannon Moloney, as a result of the fire, the ship's skin was heated to a temperature of about 1000 degrees Celsius, which made the steel, which had lost up to 75 percent of its strength, extremely brittle.

According to the journalist, when, on the fifth day of the trip, the Titanic collided with an iceberg, the skin could not stand it, and a huge hole appeared in the side. Therefore, the iceberg cannot be considered the only culprit in the catastrophe, which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people on April 15, 1912.

Note, "" belonged to the British company "White Star Line". At the time of construction, it was considered the largest passenger liner in the world, and, in addition, it was listed as unsinkable. On May 31, 1911, the liner was launched. "The Lord Himself cannot sink this ship!" - said its captain Edward John Smith about the ship.

A little over a year later, the Titanic embarked on its maiden voyage. Onboard there were 2,224 people: 1,316 passengers and 908 crew members. On April 14, 1912, the steamer collided with an iceberg and sank after 2 hours and 40 minutes. 711 people were saved, 1513 died ...

Icebergs are also not so simple. Greenlandic icebergs usually get stuck in shallow waters off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland and only swim further south after they have thawed thoroughly, often under the influence of tides. However, in the case of the Titanic, several large icebergs managed to swim far to the south.

Physicist Donald Olson of the University of Texas (USA) and his colleagues investigated the hypothesis of oceanographer Fergus Wood, who argued that icebergs were floated by the tide in January 1912, when the Moon was unusually close to Earth. By mid-April, the fatal ice mountain had reached the collision site.

Indeed, says Olson, on January 4, 1912, the Moon came closest to Earth in 1400 years. On the eve of the same, the Earth approached the Sun as close as possible. The Moon and the Sun were in such a position when their mutual gravitational influence on the Earth intensified. Obeying the force of the tide, the killer iceberg broke away from Greenland and set off.

At the same time, one of the biggest mysteries associated with the sinking of the Titanic is the more than frivolous behavior of the liner captain Edward Smith. An experienced sea wolf, who has repeatedly plowed the waters of the North Atlantic, for some reason did not pay attention to the warning about approaching icebergs. Perhaps he simply did not believe the information about them.

Although the point may be different. The hypothesis, which radically changes the history of the disaster, belongs to two researchers - an amateur Robin Gardner (his main profession is a plasterer) and a historian Dan Van der Wat. Having studied the archives of the navy for 50 years, they came to the conclusion that it was not the Titanic that actually died, but the other ship - the Olympic! The latter was built almost simultaneously with the Titanic and at the same shipyards. But from the very first days, this ship was in trouble. When it was launched on October 20, 1910, it crashed into a dam. The owner of the ship, Bruce Ismay, and the owner of the Harland and Wolf shipyards, Lord Pirri, had to pay a considerable sum for repairs and damages, which almost ruined them.

While sailing, the Olympic had several accidents. Since then, no insurance company has undertaken to insure the "damned ship". And then Ismay and Pirri conceived the "scam of the century" - to send the "Olympic" under the name "Titanic" sailing across the Atlantic and, when it crashes, get insurance for it - 52 million pounds!

The owners had no doubts that their plan would succeed. To protect passengers, they intended to send another ship along the same route, which, allegedly by accident, would pick up passengers and crew. But, in order not to arouse any suspicion, the shipowners decided that the "rescue" ship would leave the pier no earlier than a week after the start of the voyage. Alas, I had to wait only three days ...

Captain of the imaginary "Titanic" Edward John Smith was ready to carry out any order from his superiors. So, a few hours before the tragedy, binoculars were seized from the observers on duty. And a few minutes before the crash, Smith allegedly ordered to turn the liner sideways in the direction of the iceberg. He seemed to be trying to secure a disaster!

The further history of the "Titanic" (or false "Titanic") is known to us. What happened to the real Titanic? According to Gardner and van der Wath, he sailed safely under a different name first in the Royal Naval Forces, then it was acquired by the White Star Line. The ship was decommissioned ashore in 1935.

Whether "his" death (or the ship, which everyone took for the "Titanic")? Or was he "helped" to crash? This we, most likely, will never know. Of course, both the "conspiracy theory" and the "lunar hypothesis" are nothing more than versions. But the fact remains that the Titanic sank. And no matter what led to his death, we are no longer able to change the tragic fate of this ship ...

Did the Titanic (or the ship that everyone took for the Titanic) died "by his own" death? Or was he "helped" to crash? This we, most likely, will never know. Of course, both the "conspiracy theory" and the "lunar hypothesis" are nothing more than versions. But the fact remains that the Titanic sank. And, whatever led to his death, we are no longer able to change the tragic fate of this ship ...

Incredible facts

The sinking of the Titanic is one of the main tragedies of the 20th century.

This terrible event is ok ruzheno many myths, conjectures and rumors.

But few people know what happened to the passengers of the fatal flight who managed to survive in the worst sea disaster of the century.

The following selection of documentary photos will give a complete picture of what happened next with those who managed to escape from the sinking ship.

Titanic passengers photo

Frederick Fleet

This photo shows 24-year-old British sailor Frederick Fleet days after the sinking of the Titanic. The guy was the first to notice the iceberg.

He took part in two world wars. In 1965, after a prolonged depression, Fleet took his own life.

As for the events on the Titanic, events developed approximately as follows:

On April 10, 1912, the ship embarked on its first and last voyage. The huge liner was racing from Southampton to New York at full speed.

On April 14, 1912, at 23.39 pm, Friedrich Fleet spotted an iceberg straight ahead, which ultimately destroyed the Titanic.

Two hours and 40 minutes later, hitting a huge block, he went to the bottom.

Of the 2,224 people on board the "unsinkable" ship, only about 700 people fit into lifeboats, thanks to which they survived.

The remaining 1,500 died in the sinking ship or died within minutes of being caught in the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Shortly before dawn on April 15, the survivors' flotilla was spotted by the steamer Carpathia, which arrived at the site of the sinking of the Titanic. By 9 am, all the surviving passengers were on board the Carpathia.

Photo of the iceberg Titanic

The iceberg that sank the Titanic.

The surviving passengers of the Titanic in lifeboats swim up to the ship Carpathia, April 15, 1912.

All the same surviving passengers after the shipwreck in the boats.

Sketch of the sinking Titanic.

Sketch of a sinking ship by surviving passenger John B. Thayer. After some time, the drawings were supplemented by Mr. P.L. P.L. Skidmore is on board the ship. "Carpathia" April 1912.

The surviving passengers of the "Titanic" are trying to warm up on board the ship "Karpatia".

When Carpathia went to New York, it was decided to send radio messages. So the news of the tragedy was spreading rather quickly.

People were shocked, the relatives of the passengers were in a panic. In search of information about their loved ones, they attacked the offices of the shipping company White Star Line in New York, as well as in Southampton.

Some of the wealthy and famous survivors and victims were identified prior to Carpathia's arrival at the port.

But the relatives and friends of the passengers of a lower class, as well as the families of the crew members, continued to remain in the dark about the fate of their relatives.

The lack of connections prevented them from finding out the news immediately and they had to wait in excruciating suspense.

Carpathia arrived in New York Harbor on a rainy evening on April 18th. The ship was surrounded by more than 50 tugs carrying journalists. They shouted, called out to the survivors, offering money for first-hand interviews.

A reporter from one of the major American publications, who at that time was on board the "Carpathia", had already interviewed the survivors. He put his notes in a floating cigar box and threw them into the water so that the editor of the publication could catch the message and get the sensation first.

After all lifeboats were launched at Pier 59, owned by White Star Line. The ship itself docked at pier number 54. In the pouring rain, the ship was greeted by an alarmed crowd of 40,000 people.

People await news outside of the White Star Line shipping company in New York.

Lifeboats, thanks to which several hundred people survived.

Lifeboats at the pier of the White Star Line Shipping Company in New York, April 1912.

People await the arrival of Carpathia in New York.

Huge crowds of family and friends stand in the rain, awaiting the arrival of the steamer Carpathia in New York, April 18, 1912.

About 40 thousand people are waiting for the Carpathia.

Those who survived the fateful voyage on the Titanic were greeted in New York at the port by family and friends, as well as numerous media representatives.

Someone grieved for the dead, someone wanted to get an autograph, and someone tried to interview the survivors.

The next day, the US Senate called a special hearing on the disaster at the old Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

The entire crew of the Titanic consisted of 885 people, of whom 724 were from Southampton. At least 549 people did not return home from the fatal flight.

Surviving crew members.

Surviving crew from left to right first row: Ernest Archer, Friedrich Fleet, Walter Perkis, George Simons, and Frederic Clachen.

Second row: Arthur Bright, George Hogg, John Moore, Frank Osman and Henry Etsch.

The people surrounded the survivor of the Titanic.

A crowd of people in the port of Devonport surrounded the survivor of the Titanic, a man to hear firsthand what it really was.

Payment of compensation to victims.

April 1912

J. Hanson, seated right, is the District Secretary of the National Union of Mariners and Firefighters. The people around him are the surviving passengers of the Titanic, who receive compensation as victims of the crash.

Relatives waiting for the surviving passengers of the Titanic.

People are waiting on the Southampton railway platform for their loved ones who survived the crash of the Titanic.

Relatives in Southampton meet their loved ones.

Relatives are waiting for the surviving crew members.

Relatives are waiting for the surviving Titanic crew members to disembark in Southampton.

People are returning to their homes in England. The crash claimed the lives of 549 crew members. In total, there were 724 people from Southampton who worked on the ship, from a sailor to a cook or postman.

Relatives a few minutes before meeting with surviving relatives.

Survivors of the Titanic

Relatives welcome shipwrecked survivors to Southampton.

A surviving crew member kisses his wife, who was waiting for him on land in Plymouth, April 29, 1912.

Stewards testifying after a shipwreck.

Surviving stewards stand outside the courthouse. They are invited to testify to the commission investigating the Titanic disaster.

The surviving passenger of the Titanic Signs autographs to passers-by.

Human survivors of the Titanic

25. The Pasco brothers, members of the crew of the ill-fated ship, were lucky enough to survive all four.

Orphans of the Titanic

April 1912

Miraculously, the two kids who survived could not be identified at first.

The children were later identified as Michelle (4 years old) and Edmond (2 years old) Navratil. To get on the ship, their father took the name Louis Hoffman and used the fictitious names Lolo and Mamon for the children.

The father, with whom the children sailed to New York, died, as a result of which difficulties arose with the real names of the brothers.

However, later they, nevertheless, were able to identify and the kids were safely reunited with their mother.

In this photo, already grown up Edmond and Michelle Navratil with their mother.

Cameraman Harold Thomas Coffin is questioned by a Senate committee at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on May 29, 1912.

29. Child of the Titanic

A nurse holds a newborn Lucien P. Smith. His mother Eloise was pregnant with him when she returned with her husband after their honeymoon aboard the Titanic.

The baby's father died in the crash.

Eloise subsequently married another surviving passenger on the terrifying flight, Robert P. Daniel.

And finally, a photograph of the Titanic itself on the day it embarked on its first and last fatal voyage ...

For the first time, the Titanic made headlines as the largest ship in human history, and its maiden voyage was to make a long voyage across the Atlantic in April 1912. As everyone knows, instead of a triumphant voyage, the history of shipping was supplemented by the greatest disaster. On its fourth day of voyage 105 years ago, 643 kilometers off the coast of Nova Scotia, the ship hit an iceberg and sank within 2 hours and 40 minutes. On that terrible day, 1,500 passengers died, mostly not from injuries or asphyxiation, but from hypothermia. Few managed to survive in the icy water of the Atlantic Ocean, the temperature of which in April 1912 dropped to - 2 ° C. Take your time to be surprised, the water may well remain liquid in this cold, given that in the ocean it is a solution of salt with other nutrients, and not pure H2O.

But if you study the history of the Titanic deeper, you will also find stories of people who, during an unforeseen catastrophe, acted decisively, escaped death and helped other drowning people. Over 700 people survived the disaster, although for some it was a fluke. Here are 10 stories of survivors of the most tragic disaster in the Atlantic.

10. Frank Prentice - crew member (warehouse assistant)

Just before the Titanic finally submerged, the stern of the ship briefly lifted into the air perpendicular to the water level. At the same time, team member Frank Prentice, one of the last people on the ship, together with 2 of his comrades decided to jump from the sinking liner into the cold water. One of his colleagues during the fall hit the Titanic's propeller propeller, but Prentis managed to fly 30 meters to the water, where his friend's lifeless body was already waiting for him. Fortunately, Franca was soon picked up by a lifeboat.

The history of Prentice is easy to verify, especially since his watch stopped at exactly 2:20, which is the exact time of the final sinking of the Titanic into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Notably, a few years later, Prentice survived another shipwreck while serving aboard the warship Oceanic during World War I.

9. Eight Chinese passengers in third class

It may come as a surprise, but if you read the reports of the large-scale evacuation from the sinking Titanic, you will understand that at first it was a very civilized process. All passengers obediently obeyed the orders of the ship's crew, and many of them were happy to give their seats in the lifeboats to women and children. They did it voluntarily and without coercion. Panic has not deprived people of prudence and honor. At least not all of them, and not all at once.

But if you want to know how passengers managed to survive in a shipwreck of the early 20th century with a more practical approach to testing, you will be interested to hear about 8 Chinese immigrants who boarded the legendary ship all with one ticket. It was a group of people from Guangzhou who lost their jobs due to the coal crisis and sailed home to Hong Kong.

Their names have changed in different immigration reports, but today this is no longer important. When the iceberg hit, seven of them crept into the lifeboats before the boats were sent to the landing sites. The Chinese hid in boats under blankets, and remained unnoticed for a long time. Five of them survived. The eighth Chinese also suffered a shipwreck - he was picked up by lifeboat No. 14 (which also saved Harold Phillimore, which we will talk about a little later). The rescue of 6 people from a group of 8 comrades is a good statistic, but their behavior can hardly be called heroic.

8. Olaus Jorgensen Abelset - second class passenger

Olaus Jorgensen Abelseth was a Norwegian herder who worked on a livestock farm in South Dakota. He was returning home from a trip home after visiting relatives, and in April 1912 boarded the Titanic with five of his family members.

During the evacuation from the Titanic, people were seated in lifeboats for certain reasons. A grown man could board a lifeboat only if he had a good experience in navigation, which would be useful for sailing a boat in the waters of the open ocean. There were only 20 lifeboats, and at least one experienced sailor had to be present on each of them.

Abelset had six years of sailing experience, in the past he was a fisherman, and he was offered a place in another boat, but the man refused. And all because some of his relatives did not know how to swim, and Olaus Jorgensen decided to stay with them to take care of the survival of his family. When the Titanic completely sank, and Olaus's relatives were washed into the water, the man remained afloat in the cold ocean for as long as 20 minutes until he was rescued. When Abelset was in the boat, he actively helped rescue other victims of the shipwreck, pumping out the frozen in the icy water.

7. Hugh Woolner and Maurits Bjornstrem-Steffanssson - first class passengers

Hugh Woolner and Mauritz Björnström-Steffansson were sitting in a smoking parlor when they heard about the collision with an iceberg. The gentlemen escorted their friend to the lifeboats and assisted the crew of the Titanic in arranging for the women and children to board the boats. Hugh and Maurits were on the lower deck when they decided to jump into the last boat while it descended on. Their jump took place 15 minutes before the final sinking of the Titanic, so it was a now or never attempt.

Bjornstrem-Steffanssson successfully jumped into the boat, but Woolner was less fortunate and missed. However, the man managed to grab the edge of the boat, and his friend managed to hold Hugh while he was hanging over the ocean. Ultimately, Woolner was helped into the boat. It was a salvation full of drama.

6. Charles Join - Crew Member (Head Baker)

Most of the victims of the Titanic crash died of hypothermia (hypothermia) within 15 to 30 minutes in icy water, but Charles Joughin is the real proof that every rule has its exceptions. Join was drunk when the steamer hit the iceberg. Despite the extreme conditions and his drunken state, the baker helped a lot other drowning people, throwing deck chairs and chairs overboard the Titanic so that people had something to grab onto and not drown. After the liner finally plunged under water, Charles drifted in the area of ​​the crash site for more than two hours until he was nailed to one of the rescue ships.

Survival experts attribute Join's success to the fact that alcohol raised his body temperature, as well as to the fact that, according to the baker himself, he tried not to submerge his head in ice-cold water. Some critics doubt that the man was in the water for that long, but the fact remains, and Join has witnesses from the lifeboat.

5. Richard Norris Williams - First Class Passenger

Richard Norris Williams traveled with his father first class, and together they sailed to a tennis tournament. After the iceberg collided, both of them remained calm, demanding to open the bar, and spent some time in the gym. The Williams even managed to help one passenger when they realized it was not the time to chill.

As a result, Richard had a chance to watch how his father was covered with a chimney and carried into the sea by one of the waves that washed the Collapsible A folding boat into the ocean. It was one of the last 2 boats on board the sinking Titanic, and the crew did not physically have time to prepare both these life-saving appliances for boarding people and correctly launching into the water.

Later, aboard the British steamer Carpathia, the first to come to the aid of the victims of the Titanic, doctors advised the surviving Norris to amputate both frostbitten legs. The athlete opposed the recommendations of the doctors, and contrary to the initial forecasts of the doctors, not only did he not lose his legs, but also restored their functionality. Moreover, the man returned to tennis and won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. In addition, he was awarded for impeccable service in the First World War.

4. Rhoda "Rose" Abbott - third class passenger

Everyone knows the maritime rule "women and children first", but not everyone knows how tough it was. If a boy was over 13 years old, he was no longer considered a child. This did not suit third-class passenger Rhoda Abbott, who was not going to give up her two sons, 13 and 16 years old. Abbott gave up a place in the boat to stay with her children until the end. She was a woman of strong conviction, a member of the Salvation Army Christian humanitarian mission, and a single mother. Rhoda grabbed each child by the hand, and together they jumped over the side of the sinking ship.

Unfortunately, both of her sons drowned, and the mother-heroine surfaced to the surface of the water without them. Like Richard Norris Williams, Rosa grabbed onto the side of the overturned collapsible boat, the Collapsible A. Her legs suffered from hypothermia almost as badly as the tennis player's. Abbott spent 2 weeks in the hospital, but this does not change the fact that she was the only woman to survive after swimming in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the night of the sinking of the Titanic.

3. Harold Charles Phillimore - crew member (steward)

The famous character Rose Decatur, played by Kate Winslet in James Cameron's film, was fictional, but the romantic story could have been inspired by Steward Harold Charles Phillimore.

The man was found clinging to floating debris in the middle of a sea of ​​corpses when the last lifeboat arrived at the crash site in search of survivors. Phillimore shared part of the drifting wooden beam with another passenger, which in Cameron's plot did not do Rosa Decatur, allowing the love of her life to die of hypothermia. After the tragic shipwreck, Harold Phillimore continued his naval career, achieved outstanding success and earned a medal for his service in the navy during the First World War.

2. Harold Bride - Marconi Wireless Representative

Harold Bride was one of two telegraph operators for the British company Marconi Wireless, which was tasked with providing communication between the ship's passengers and the mainland. Bride was also responsible for navigational messages and warnings from other vessels. During the crash, Harold and his colleague James Phillips were allowed to leave their post in order to escape as soon as possible, but both of them kept the Titanic in touch with the rest of the world until the last minutes of the legendary steamer.

The telegraph operators worked until water began to fill their cabin. Then they realized that it was time to leave the ship. Colleagues boarded the last lifeboat known as Collapsible B. Unfortunately, during launch, it turned upside down, and all of its passengers were in the icy water. Harold Bride had such cold feet that he barely climbed the escape ladder aboard the British steamer Carpathia when it arrived at the scene of the accident to help the surviving victims.

On the way to his rescue, Harold swam past a dead body, which turned out to be his friend James Phillips, who died that terrible night from hypothermia. Subsequently, Bride did not like to talk in public about what happened, because he was "deeply impressed by the whole experience, especially the loss of his colleague and friend Jack Phyllis."

1. Charles Lightoller - Second Rank Captain

Charles Lightoller began his naval career at the age of 13, and had seen a lot by the time he served on the Titanic as a second-class captain. Before signing a contract with the British shipping company White Star, which owned the giant steamer, Lightoller had already survived a shipwreck in Australia, a cyclone in the Indian Ocean, and hitchhiking from western Canada to England after participating in an unsuccessful exploration for gold deposits in the Yukon. ...

When the Titanic hit the iceberg, Lightoller was one of the first to launch lifeboats into the water. At about 2:00 (20 minutes before the liner was completely flooded), the authorities ordered him to get into the boat and save himself, to which Charles courageously replied something like: “No, I'm not damn likely.”

He ended up in the water, swam to the overturned collapsible B, which we mentioned above, and helped maintain order and morale among the survivors. The officer made sure that the boat did not capsize again with all the passengers on board, and seated the people so that no one was washed into the icy ocean.

Captain Second Rank Charles Lightoller was the very last rescued person to jump from the Titanic into the Atlantic Ocean, and was lifted aboard the Carpathia nearly four hours after rescuers from other steamers arrived. In addition, he was the most senior of all surviving crew members, and, according to the charter, participated in the hearings of the United States Congress in the case of the tragic sinking of the Titanic.

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the most modern passenger liner at that time, the Titanic, making its maiden flight from Southampton to New York, collided with an iceberg and soon sank. At least 1,496 people died, 712 passengers and crew were rescued.

The catastrophe of "Titanic" very quickly overgrown with a mass of legends and conjectures. At the same time, for several decades, the place where the deceased ship rests remained unknown.

The main difficulty was that the place of death was known with very low accuracy - it was about an area 100 kilometers in diameter. Given that the Titanic sank in an area where the depth of the Atlantic is several kilometers, the search for the ship was very problematic.

Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The bodies of the dead were about to be lifted with dynamite

Immediately after the shipwreck, the relatives of the rich passengers who died in the crash came up with a proposal to organize an expedition to raise the ship. The initiators of the search wanted to bury their loved ones and, to be honest, to return the values ​​that had gone to the bottom along with their owners.

The decisive attitude of the relatives came across a categorical verdict of experts: technologies for searching and lifting the Titanic from great depths simply did not exist at that time.

Then a new proposal was received - to dump dynamite charges to the bottom in the alleged place of the disaster, which, according to the authors of the project, were supposed to provoke the bodies of the dead to emerge from the bottom. This dubious idea also did not find support.

The First World War, which began in 1914, postponed the search for the Titanic for many years.

The interior of the veranda for the first class passengers of the Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Nitrogen and ping pong balls

They started talking again about the search for the liner only in the 1950s. At the same time, proposals began to appear on possible ways of lifting it - from freezing the case with nitrogen to filling it with millions of ping-pong balls.

In the 1960s-1970s, several expeditions were sent to the area of ​​the sinking of the Titanic, but all of them did not achieve success due to insufficient technical training.

In 1980 Texas oil tycoon John Grimm financed the preparation and conduct of the first large expedition to find the Titanic. But, despite the presence of the most modern equipment for underwater searches, his expedition ended in failure.

The main role in the discovery of the Titanic was played by ocean explorer and US Navy officer Robert Ballard... Ballard, who worked on improving small unmanned underwater vehicles, in the 1970s became interested in underwater archeology and, in particular, the secret place of the sinking of the Titanic. In 1977, he organized the first expedition to find the Titanic, but it ended in failure.

Ballard was convinced that it was only possible to find the ship with the help of the latest deep-sea bathyscaphes. But getting such at your disposal was very difficult.

Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Dr. Ballard's Secret Mission

In 1985, having failed to achieve results during an expedition on the French research vessel Le Suroît, Ballard moved to the American ship R / V Knorr, with which he continued to search for the Titanic.

As Ballard himself said many years later, the expedition, which became historical, began with a secret deal concluded between him and the command of the Navy. The researcher really wanted to get the deep-sea research apparatus "Argo" for his work, but the American admirals did not want to pay for the work of equipment to search for some historical rarity. The R / V Knorr and the Argo apparatus were to carry out a mission to survey the sites of the deaths of two American nuclear submarines Scorpion and Thresher, which sank back in the 1960s. This task was secret, and the US Navy needed a person who could not only do the necessary work, but also be able to keep it secret.

Ballard's candidacy was ideal - he was well-known, and everyone knew about his passion for the search for the Titanic.

The researcher was offered: he can get the Argo and use it to search for the Titanic, if he first finds and investigates the submarines. Ballard agreed.

About "Scorpion" and "Thresher" knew only in the leadership of the US Navy, for the rest, Robert Ballard simply explored the Atlantic and looked for "Titatnik".

Robert Ballard. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

"Comet tail" at the bottom

He coped with the secret mission brilliantly, and on August 22, 1985, he was able to start looking again for the liner, which had died in 1912.

None of the most advanced technology would have ensured his success if it had not been for the experience gained earlier. Ballard, while investigating the places of death of the submarines, noticed that they left a kind of "comet tail" at the bottom of thousands of debris. This was due to the fact that the hulls of the boats were destroyed when diving to the bottom due to the enormous pressure.

The scientist knew that steam boilers exploded during the immersion on the Titanic, which meant that the liner had to leave a similar “comet tail”.

It was this trail, rather than the Titanic itself, that was easier to spot.

On the night of September 1, 1985, the Argo apparatus found small debris at the bottom, and at 0:48 the camera recorded the Titanic boiler. Then they managed to find the bow of the ship.

It was found that the bow and stern of the broken liner were located at some distance from each other, at a distance of about 600 meters. At the same time, both the stern and the nose were seriously deformed when diving to the bottom, but the nose was still better preserved.

The layout of the ship. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

House for underwater inhabitants

The news of the discovery of the Titanic became a sensation, although many experts were quick to question it. But in the summer of 1986, Ballard carried out a new expedition, during which he not only described in detail the vessel at the bottom, but also made the first dive to the Titanic on a manned deep-sea vehicle. After that, the last doubts were dispelled - the Titanic was discovered.

The last shelter of the liner is located at a depth of 3750 meters. In addition to the two main parts of the liner, tens of thousands of smaller debris are scattered along the bottom on an area of ​​4.8 × 8 km: parts of the ship's hull, remains of furniture and interior decoration, dishes, and personal belongings of people.

The wreckage of the ship was covered with multi-layer rust, the thickness of which is constantly growing. In addition to multi-layer rust, 24 species of invertebrates and 4 species of fish live on and around the hull. Of these, 12 species of invertebrates clearly gravitate towards the wreckage, eating metal and wooden structures. The interiors of the Titanic are almost completely destroyed. The wooden elements were engulfed by deep sea worms. The decks are covered with a layer of clam shells, and rust stalactites hang from many of the metal elements.

The purse lifted from the Titanic. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Are there only shoes left from people?

During the 30 years that have passed since the discovery of the ship, the Titanic was rapidly destroyed. Its current state is such that there can be no question of raising the ship. The ship will forever remain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

There is still no consensus about whether human remains have survived on and around the Titanic. According to the prevailing version, all human bodies are completely decomposed. Nevertheless, from time to time there is information that some researchers still stumbled upon the remains of the dead.

But James Cameron, director of the famous movie "Titanic", on whose personal account more than 30 dives to the liner on Russian deep-sea submersibles Mir, is sure of the opposite: “We saw shoes, boots and other footwear at the site of the sunken ship, but our team never encountered human remains.”

Things from the "Titanic" - a profitable product

Since the discovery of the Titanic by Robert Ballard, about two dozen expeditions have been carried out to the ship, during which several thousand objects have been raised to the surface, ranging from personal belongings of passengers to a piece of skin weighing 17 tons.

It is impossible to establish the exact number of items lifted from the Titanic today, because with the improvement of underwater technology, the ship has become a favorite target of "black archaeologists" who are trying by any means to get rarities from the Titanic.

Robert Ballard, lamenting this, remarked: "The ship is still a noble old lady, but not the lady I saw in 1985."

Items from the Titanic have been sold at auctions for many years and are in great demand. So, in the year of the 100th anniversary of the disaster, in 2012, hundreds of items went under the hammer, including a cigar box belonging to the captain of the Titanic ($ 40,000), a life jacket from a ship ($ 55,000), a master key first class steward (138 thousand dollars). As for the jewelry from the Titanic, their value is measured in millions of dollars.

At one time, having discovered the Titanic, Robert Ballard intended to keep this place a secret, so as not to disturb the resting place of one and a half thousand people. Perhaps he didn't do it in vain.