But how big is big? If you were to judge its size by the movie Titanic alone, you would assume RMS Titanic was one of the largest things ever built, perhaps so big that it’s yet to be matched since. However, as time rolled on and technology evolved, the cruise ships taking to the ocean these days are so big they’d make Cal Hockley spill his hair wax. Putting Titanic next to some of the largest modern cruise liners underlines just how massive and amazing cruise ships have become.
A fundraiser by the Lawton Heritage Association will allow visitors to experience the tragedy of the Titanic through the eyes of women at various levels of the social strata, while telling the broader story of an active historical era. Sandi Colby, who is coordinating the event for the Lawton Heritage Association, said the idea is to share the stories of women who were aboard the Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank into the icy waters of the Atlantic in April 1912, while also linking the tragedy to the suffrage debate that had intensified about the same time.
“All the work I’ve done in the past in archaeology used vehicles that were connected to a ship. The ones that we’re building now are revolutionary new vehicles, able to work in extremely complex and rugged terrains – a new class of autonomous underwater vehicles that have their own intelligence and that are going to revolutionise the field of marine archaeology.” They are all the more extraordinary because they allow marine archaeologists to explore the ocean floor without needing to go to sea themselves. In the US, he recently undertook an expedition exploring Lake Huron and found an 1800s wreck – a search that was all done from land.
RMS Olympic’s A la Carte Restaurant, located in B-Deck level. Circa May 1911 Robert John Welch (1859-1936), official photographer for Harland & Wolff Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons
If you have ever dreamed of dining like one of the guests onboard the famous Titanic, now is your chance once again. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition — 7324 International Drive, Orlando — announced on Tuesday that its popular first-class dinner gala is returning on July 2. Guests can join Captain Smith, Margaret “Molly” Brown, and additional first-class passengers for a night to remember. The reserved dinner event includes a Captain’s cocktail party, a tour of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, a first-class dinner, and reenactments of the night of April 14, 1912.
We landed in our job zone away from the ship, slowly moved off in the direction of the ship and after about 10 minutes, we gently bumped into a mud bank. The sea floor at this stage has been quite beveled with ripples in the sand. And as we got nearer and nearer the wreck site you could see debris starting to fall — bits of wreckage or small items on the seabed. And you know you’re getting nearer and nearer to it. But as we approach the mud bank, the pilot had slowed down and gently bumped into it. He then started to rise because, at this stage, the mud banks where the ship — the bow — plunged into the seabed. It literally buried itself 60 feet below the surface of the seabed. And so the pilot just started to make the sub rise slowly in front of us.
RMS Titanic pictured in Queenstown, Ireland 11 April 1912 Source:Cobh Heritage Centre, Cobh Ireland/Wikimedia Commons
According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, newlyweds have received stinging rebukes on social media for a Titanic-themed wedding. Their uncle shared a photo of the two posing on a homemade Titanic bow celebrating their nuptials. It quickly drew criticism from people who were mad at how this trivialized the tragedy. The comments were all over the place, but the message was clear that they had crossed a line.
There have been many tacky things over the years from Titanic shaped ice cubes, knick-knack of all kinds, and even children’s slides. And there have been lots of people who have tried to recreate the famous scene from the James Cameron movie, sometimes just in jest. There was a famous advertisement some years back for a Red Bull, an energy drink. It showed a carton of it being loaded onto a ship. The captain asks about it and the crewman says it is an energy drink that gives you wings. The captain scoffs saying they only serve champagne on his ship, and you do not need wings on a ship. As the carton is lowered back down, the ship’s name is revealed as Titanic. You can view it on YouTube.
There were some who criticized the commercial for being in bad taste, but it was just a lighthearted joke to sell a product. Does anyone criticize James Cameron for having that bow scene in that famous movie? Not that I have heard. Here we have a fiancée who knew his future wife loves that scene. With some assistance from a relative, they build one so that they can both stand on it for the reception. How many times has this happened already? Probably a lot where couples got married in a Titanic-themed setting. The Titanic themed exhibition in Pigeon Forge offers wedding packages where they can get married at the outdoor fountain or at the Titanic Grand Staircase. And all the marriages are done by an ordained minister dressed as the Titanic Captain. I hardly think that is tacky and I bet whether at the fountain or on the staircase, it is a wedding to remember. They do not offer one with a bow setting because that is from that movie. It also may be difficult to pull off as well.
At the risk of sounding like William Shatner in the famous skit of his on SNL, get a life. They were recreating a scene from a movie. A movie, I must remind, that though depicting historical events, was fictional as were the characters of Jack and Rose. That is what they are recreating, two fictional characters standing on Titanic’s bow in a romantic scene. It would be different if they were dressed as Isidor and Ida Straus for the wedding and saying to each other “where you go, I go” type of vows. That would trivialize their deaths and others as well. The fact so many people got worked up into a frenzy is quite astonishing. And that some of the comments were quite vicious as well. Those who have been around the Internet for a long time have a feeling of déjà vu as it reminds one of the old flame wars on the old Internet groups and email discussion lists.
The newlyweds should not be ashamed, nor made to feel so. I wish them nothing but happiness for their life together. Enjoy the Celine Dion song here.*
*Due to restrictions imposed by creators who post on YouTube, some videos and music can now only be played at YouTube. YouTube will generate a message that the content is unavailable and must be played on their site. Rather than seeing that ugly message, we will provide the direct link for you to view.
Few estates showcase the wealth of the Gilded Age than Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Built by Peter A.B. Widener between 1897-1900, it was a masterpiece of design. The 110-room mansion sat on 300 acres that were meticulously cared for and adorned with statues. The mansion was 70,000 square feet and designed by the noted American architect Horace Trumbauer. Aside from being a place to live, it was also to be the home of one of the largest private art collections in the country. It is estimated to have cost $8 million to build. Sadly, both his son George Dunton Widener and grandson Harry, died when Titanic sank in 1912. George had two other children who were not aboard at the time. His wife Eleanor and maid did survive but it was a devastating blow to AB. He would die in 1915.
Between 1915-1940, it was a private art gallery open to the public by appointment. In 1940, over 2,000 pieces of art were donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. When Joseph Widener passed away in 1943, none of his children wanted the responsibility (meaning cost because it took a lot of money to keep the house and grounds maintained). It was abandoned and left to slowly disintegrate until 1948 when a developer bought it for a very low price. After that it was purchased by the Faith Theological Seminary. They sold off most of the land and now sits on 33 acres. Most of the art that was left was sold off prior to the sale. The seminary sold off many the famed interior detailing to raise funds. You must go to the National Gallery in Washington to see the Widener art collection, which is still preserved.
The house has been left to rot having been stripped of its precious art and detailing. Some rooms and areas are still in good condition as the slideshow indicates. It has been added to the list of endangered historic properties in the region. The secret tunnels referred to in the title were possibly used by staff to navigate the large house without being seen by Widener’s guests. The home was up for sale in 2014 for $20 million but that was brought down to $17.5 million in 2017. It appears off the market but not really known if it was sold or not. Perhaps it ought to be renovated and made open to the public (for a fee, of course) like many mansions and estates in Britain and France. You can view the slideshow here.
Next month, a consortium of organizations assembled by Ballard will launch a 10-year, $200 million federally funded effort to study the Pacific Ocean section of the country’s vast offshore Economic Exclusion Zone, which includes far-flung destinations such as Guam and American Samoa. “Fifty percent of the United States is beneath the sea, but we have better maps of Mars than we do of our country,” Ballard said this week about the expedition, which will not only map the bottom but study the makeup of the entire water column, from the shoreline to the abyss.
The Rhinebeck, New York Astor Gatehouse is for sale and it’s an impressive piece of history. The asking price is $2.5 million and the listing is through Sotheby’s International Realty. The Aster Gatehouse was built in 1878 as part of Ferncliff Farms a working dairy farm and horse breeding farm. William Backhouse Astor Jr. built the property to breed racehorses. The Astor family was once one of the richest families in New York and one that has a tragic connection to the sinking of the Titanic.
For over 10 years, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at Luxor Hotel and Casino has provided visitors with an in-depth look at RMS Titanic’s ill-fated journey across the Atlantic Ocean. This year, Titanic enthusiasts can honor National Maritime Day on May 22 at Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, home to more than 400 artifacts including dramatic recreations of first and third-class cabins, a replica of the Grand Staircase and a 15-ton section of the Titanic’s starboard hull.
From the History files:
3 May 1906: Sayaji Rao, the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda, arrives in New York on Celtic II (Capt. Ranson) for a two-month visit to the United States, during which he will visit a number of large universities, the White House, Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon. Onlookers at the pier are reported to be disappointed by the fact that the Gaekwar, supposedly the second wealthiest prince in India, disembarks dressed in a frock coat and top hat, rather than his $30,000 bejeweled robe. Continued 27 July. (Sources: The New
York Times, 14 May and 28 July 1906; Ellis Island ship manifest.)
The Titanic is being brought back from the deep, more than a century after its ill-fated maiden voyage, at a landlocked Chinese theme park where tourists can soon splash out for a night on a full scale replica. It has taken six years — longer than the construction of the original Titanic — plus 23,000 tons of steel, more than a hundred workers and a hefty one billion yuan ($153.5 million) price tag. Everything from the dining room to the luxury cabins and even the door handles are styled on the original Titanic. It forms the centrepiece of a Sichuan province theme park more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the sea.
A new TV documentary about the famous Belfast-built ocean liner warns it may eventually disappear unless action is taken to preserve what is left of the tragic vessel. Experts have discovered that the ship’s remains are being destroyed by voracious metal-eating bacteria on the sea floor.
But in the 1980s the United States was deep into a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and President Ronald Reagan enjoyed waging psychological warfare on the enemy. Ballard knew little would screw with the Russkies’ heads more than the American ability to find the lost passenger liner that sank in the Atlantic in 1912. Because he’d once been a Navy officer and then frequently worked with the Navy using his advanced under-water cameras, Ballard managed to get word of his Titanic idea all the way up the chain of command, where the White House heard and agreed. “Absolutely,” the Gipper said to Navy Secretary John Lehman during his first term. “Let’s do it!”
A team of researchers at the Université du Québec à Rimouski are working to determine if a letter that washed up on shore in Canada was actually written by Lefebvre more than a century ago. “I am throwing this bottle into the sea, in the middle of the Atlantic. We are due to arrive in New York in a few days,” the letter reads. “If someone finds it, contact the Lefebvre family in Liévin.” The message, which is signed “Mathilde Lefebvre,” was found by a New Brunswick family in the sands near the Bay of Fundy in 2017. “So far, we have not caught a smoking gun of a forgery,” said Nicolas Beaudry, a history and archeology professor at the Université du Québec à Rimouski, who is studying the letter.
(Note-this article was written by a law firm that specializes in maritime law.)
When a vessel owner seeks protection under the Limitation of Liability Act, they file a civil lawsuit in Federal District Court. All potential claimants (including anyone injured and surviving family members) are notified. They each receive certified letters informing them that the vessel owner is suing them. As a part of a Petition for Limitation of Liability, the vessel owner also claims that the craft was worth a certain amount of money. If the ship sank, the value could be zero. For the Titanic, the value was estimated at less than $100,000: $300 for the 14 remaining lifeboats and $92,000 for the ship’s earnings. Under the Limitation of Liability Act, the owners of the “unsinkable” ship sought to limit claims for damages to this value. For the families of the 1,517 people who were killed and the 711 survivors, this would have equaled just about $41 each.
Horton Cemetery, Epsom, Surrey, England Source: Tony B, Find A Grave
Hidden secrets within a ‘lost’ cemetery tell the stories behind thousands of graves. Among the dead include war heroes, patients from five mental asylums, and a Titanic survivor. A dancer who later became the muse of Picasso and a Victorian actor also lie in plots from past decades. However, their extraordinary tales are at risk of being lost forever as a charity fights to stop the land from being developed on, writes The Mirror. It wants to ensure their stories remain so they can take their spot in history. The land was a burial ground between 1899 and 1955 but has been stood derelict long ago.
Neither the Lusitania nor the Titanic was the largest maritime disaster, not by a long shot. Yet somehow, their fateful journeys remain a source of intrigue for both researchers and curiosity seekers. The largest loss of lives occurred during World War II in the frigid Baltic Sea. On Jan. 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine sunk Germany’s Wilhelm Gustloff. On board the transport ship were thousands of German civilians. It is estimated that 6,000 to 9,000 people perished.
Funds are needed to ensure the lifesaving service is able to keep everyone safe and the RNLI is asking people to come down to the Maritime Mile and take part in the wonderful experience and complete their very own mile and donate to help raise those vital funds. RNLI lifeboats in Northern Ireland launched 234 times last year and their volunteer lifeboat crews brought 253 people to safety. Eighty-nine of those launches were carried out in the hours of darkness. The charity’s lifeguards responded to 225 incidents last summer on beaches, helping 285 people and saving the lives of six people.
Members of the British Titanic Society think the wooden carriages, found in a yard in South Wales, formed part of a train that carried passengers from London to Southampton on 10 April 1912. Five days later the Southampton-based liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is hoped the carriages, which are due to be scrapped, can be restored.
J. Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Line, in 1912 Public Domain(Wikipedia)
Ismay fully co-operated with the congressional inquiry, but nothing could stop the jeering on the streets in both the US and the UK. London society would have nothing more to do with him and he resigned from all his company positions, hoping to disappear, as the media continued to label him as the biggest coward in history.
With his wife Julia, Ismay was to find comfort in Costello Lodge, however, and among the local people who looked upon the pair as a solid source of employment, although the locals referred to Ismay in Irish as “Brú síos mé” (‘lower me down’ i.e. into a lifeboat ). He was said by the locals to be a kind, warm-hearted man, even inquiring of the fisherman he’d fish with on a Sunday if they had had time to go to Mass. Casla Lodge was burned down by the IRA in 1922, but the home was rebuilt on an even grander scale. Ismay remained a Connemara resident for 25 years before moving back to England after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He died in London in 1937, aged 74.
One of the last great mysteries of the Titanic was solved in 2013 thanks to a DNA test which proved a woman who claimed she was a child survivor of the tragic Titanic sinking was a fraud. Two-year-old Loraine Allison is believed to have been the only child from first or second class who died during the sinking of the Titanic. However, in 1940, Helen Loraine Kramer, now styling herself Loraine Kramer, claimed to be the missing child. She told a radio show that she had been saved at the last moment when her father placed her in a lifeboat with a man whom she had always thought was her father.Kramer launched a legal bid to be considered part of the wealthy Allison family and entitled to part of their fortune. Before her death in 1992, she contended that she was entitled to the vast majority of the Allison family’s wealth in Canada. The dispute led to the founding of The Loraine Allison Identification Project by Tracy Oost, a forensic scientist at Laurentian University, Ontario, and Titanic expert. While Woods declined to participate, Oost obtained DNA samples from Deanne Jennings, Woods’ half-sister, and Sally Kirkelie, the great-niece of Bess Allison, Loraine Allison’s mother. No genetic link was found between descendants from both sides of the dispute. The results proved that Helen Loraine Kramer was not the little girl who was lost on the Titanic.
Titanic Memorial Lighthouse,South Street Seaport Museum, New York (2008) Image: Andy C (Wikipedia)
The campaign to landmark and restore the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse, a monument in New York City built in 1913 to honor those who died aboard the Titanic, continues. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the architecture firm behind Grand Central Terminal, the 60-foot-tall lighthouse originally sat atop the roof of the Seamen’s Church Institute and featured a working time ball that dropped down the pole each day, along with a green light. Preservationists are now raising funds that would help restore the lighthouse, currently located at the entrance to the South Street Seaport, to its original condition.
RMS Olympic Arrives In New York on Maiden Voyage, 21 June 1911 Source: U.S. Library of Commerce/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
In the wake of the Titanic sinking, all passenger ships were equipped with lifeboats for everyone aboard. Olympic, like her sister ship, did not have enough lifeboats but they were quickly added for her upcoming departure from Southampton on 24 April 1912. 40 collapsible lifeboats (all second-hand) had come from troopships. However, there was concern amongst the crew that these lifeboats were not seaworthy. A request sent by crewman that they should be replaced by wooden lifeboats was declined by White Star which said that it was impossible to do that and they had passed as seaworthy by the Board of Trade inspector.
Not convinced of this, 284 firemen went on strike delaying the departure. Non-union crew were hired from Southampton and from Liverpool to make up the difference. On 25 April 1912, representatives of the strikers witnessed a test of four of the collapsible boats. One was found unseaworthy. The representatives said they would recommend the strikers return to work as a result. A separate objection about the non-union workers who were hired came up as an issue. White Star refused to fire them. This resulted in 54 crewmembers leaving the ship in protest causing the cancellation of the sailing. Later they would be charged and convicted of mutiny, but no punishment was awarded due to the circumstances. White Star Line hired them back in end fearing a public backlash in support of the strikers. Olympic would sail for New York on 15 May 1912.
