You may already know The Titanic sunk at around 11.40pm and that this happened on 14 April 1912 but did you know bridge officers only had 37 seconds to react before the ship hit the iceberg?
Here are some more facts about The Titanic:
• A lifeboat drill originally was scheduled on board The Titanic on the same day it hit the iceberg, but for some unknown reason Captain Smith cancelled this drill. If it did take place, a lot of lives could have been saved.
• After the lookouts sounded the alert, the bridge officers only had 37 seconds to react before The Titanic hit the iceberg.
• The Titanic had it’s own daily newspaper called, The Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
• The lifeboats were not filled to its full capacity, for instance lifeboat nr 7 only carried 24 people., but had the capacity of carrying 65 people.
• Third class passengers had very little luxury, having only two bathtubs for more than 700 passengers.
• Another boat, the Californian, rather than the Carpathia, was closer for rescue. The distress flares from The Titanic was seen by the Californian, but the captain, who was woken up by his crew, issued no orders.
• Two dogs made it into lifeboats and was rescued. This is surprising baring in mind that there were not enough lifeboats for everyone. The dogs were a Pekinese and a Pomeranian.
• The fourth funnel on The Titanic was only for show. The designers thought four funnels would look more impressive than three.
• Titanic was a Royal Mail Ship, a designation which meant The Titanic officially was responsible for delivering mail for the British postal service.
• On 17 April, the Mackay-Bennett was sent off to search for bodies. With the help of additional ships, 328 bodies were found, but 119 of these were to badly damaged and was buried at sea.
Source: history1900s.about.com
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