Introduction.

Scientists finally reveal the truth about the Titanic on April 14th 1912 at 11:40 p.m. RMS Titanic had a terrible accident that led to its ultimate demise three hours later by 2:20 a.m. in the early morning of April 15th.

The biggest ship of its time had completely disappeared under the ice-cold surface of the Atlantic Ocean.The Titanic took more than 1500 lives with it as it sank to its watery grave, that's more than two-thirds of all the people on board.The cause of this horrible disaster leading to so many deaths was an iceberg the ship crashed into or so we've always been told. Scientists most recent findings have debunked this theory to tell  the whole truth that has been buried for over 100 years.

                                        The Titanic.

At 882 feet 9 inches long 92 feet wide 175 feet tall and with a usable volume of 46,000 328 tons, the Titanic seemed indestructible, people could walk for miles along her myriad passages and decks, even the ship's officers needed over two weeks to remember their way around this huge construction. 

 

The Titanic had four massive smokestacks each of them weighed 60 tons and they extended 81.5 feet above the deck, such an impressive height was necessary to avoid covering the passengers in 100 tons of soot blown off daily. The smokestacks were placed at a 30-degree angle to look even more astonishing and imposing no less inspiring was the cost of the ship. Its construction demanded 7.5 million dollars, if you take into account modern  exchange rates and inflation in 2016, they would be paying 166 million dollars. Surprisingly it would turn out cheaper than the production of the world-famous movie "Titanic" in 1997 that cost 200 million dollars.

              

Harland and Wolff shipyard took on 3,000 men to build the ship even with a huge labor force working six days a week from 6:00 in the morning it still took 26 months to complete the monumental task. It was a difficult and dangerous work, imagine doing something at the height of a 20-story building with no safety ropes, but these people needed money to support their families. the builders got 2 pounds a week which doesn't sound like much but it was a competitive wage back then. Unfortunately 8 people died during the building process and 246 were injured, so it's really hard to fathom that such a complicated mechanism with all the work, effort and money spent on its creation could just sink because of one iceberg.

                                The new findings.

New discoveries give evidence to believe that the original cause of the catastrophe was not ice, but fire.

                   

Journalist Sonam Maloney has been studying the fate of the Titanic for more than 30 years, it was he who discovered a huge 30-foot long black spot on the hull of the ship. He noticed it after examining a photo taken before Titanic's departure, the journalist got hold of an album of previously unpublished photographs that showed the construction of the ship and the preparations for her first and last journey. 

                                        The cause.

The fire had to have been burning for three weeks at a very high temperature before somebody noticed it. Metallurgy experts state that such conditions could have easily weakened the metal reducing its strength by as much as 75 % , that's why the iceberg didn't have any problems tearing a hole in the side of the ship, if not for the fire, it would have been impossible.

The fact that the iceberg hit exactly the spot with the compromised metal is one of the incredible links in the chain of the Titanic's tragic what-ifs. The management of the project knew about the fire and the fact that the ship shouldn't have set off on that fateful voyage, but it would have meant bankruptcy for the ship's owners. The thing is that, at the time, miners all over the country were on strike so there was no coal to sustain the Titanic, but the tickets had already been sold out and other ships had been cancelled since everybody wanted to be the first to sail on the largest ship known to mankind, that's why the owners of the Titanic bought all the coal they could find, and even the coal from other ships canceling. 

The trip seemed out of the question, so to conceal the truth, the ship was turned in such a way that the marks from the fire faced away from the docks toward the sea, Therefore the passengers couldn't see them, thus the journey began.

                   The Titanic in all her glory.

The interior of the Titanic was based on that at the Ritz Hotel in London, the grand staircase went down seven out of the ten decks on the ship, it was decorated with paintings bronze cherubs and oak paneling the facilities for the first-class passengers. 

Included a swimming pool with heated water

                                      

A Turkish bath.

                    

A gym

a squash court 

                                  

and a beauty salon.

                                          

ladies could even order a stylist to help them get ready for dinner. They had an on-board newspaper called, "the Atlantic daily bulletin".

 

there was even a special place for first-class passengers dogs the pets were fed taken for walks and could even be trained during the voyage.

                 

The meals for the first class included 13 courses, each with its own wine. They were a big occasion lasting about five hours. There were 1,500 bottles of wine 20,000 bottles of beer and 8,000 cigars, yet, there were no binoculars.

                       

  One small mistake with Titanic consequences. 

Why is this fact worth mentioning ? Because having binoculars could have saved the Titanic. Here is another tragic coincidence in the chain of unfortunate events, there were no sonar systems in those times so to detect threats ahead of a liner, special people kept watch using binoculars, but the binoculars on the Titanic had been locked away in a special compartment. 

The only person with the key to the locker second officer David Blair, who was replaced at the last minute. He was in such a hurry to leave the ship that he forgot to hand the key over to his replacement. This fateful forgetfulness was discovered only three days later when the ship was already at sea, if the crew had gotten the binoculars they would have noticed the iceberg earlier and would have just enough time to avoid the crash, perhaps the crash could also been avoided if the ship hadn't been breaking the speed limit.

They were falling behind schedule and this was unacceptable, as it could ruin the Titanic's reputation, that's why the ship was moving at a speed much higher than the was designed for.

                                      Not up to par.

Another criminal negligence was connected with the lifeboats in order to contain all the people on board the Titanic needed about sixty lifeboats, the chief designer Alexander Carlyle planned to equip the ship with only 48 boats, but eventually the number was reduced even more to 20, this was done purely for cosmetic reasons since the deck looked too cluttered with 48, these 20 boats could seat only 1/3 of all the people on the ship.

Surprisingly, such a hugely insufficient amount of lifeboats was technically legal according to the laws of that time. The number of boats depended not on the number of passengers but on the tonnage of a ship, what's more, at the time of the Titanic's construction, lifeboat drills were standard practice on ocean liners, this way the crew could prepare passengers for an emergency, should it occur, but this type of drill never took place on the Titanic Captain Edward John Smith canceled the drill scheduled on the morning of the day the Titanic sank, nobody knows the reasons for his decision, especially considering the fact that other ships had been passing on warnings about ice in the water in that vicinity, perhaps this is why it took the crew over a half an hour to launch the lifeboats instead of the standard 10 minutes. 

Some people also blame captain Smith for allowing the first batch of lifeboats to leave half empty the first boat with 65 seats contained just 27 passengers, why weren't they packed full  ? In the beginning people were reluctant to leave the ship and didn't realize that they were in grave danger.

                                Worth mentioning.

In 2012, researchers found out that Captain Smith had failed his first exam in navigation, eventually he passed but who knows, maybe this too played its own role in the disaster. 

                                   Invisible signs. 

As the Titanic was sinking, the crew sent several distress signals, however a ship sailing near by, the California, ignored the emergency flare shot in the sky. the captain of the Californian later lost his job after this fact came out but modern researchers have managed to prove his innocence, well better late than never. The reason nobody noticed the signals from the Titanic could be due to the phenomenon of light refraction, when layers of cold air are positioned below layers of warmer air it causes thermal inversion thermal inversion, in turn, leads to the light refracting abnormally, in short, all this creates mirages and such mirages had been recorded by several other ships sailing in that area. Historian Tim Moulton is also convinced that light refraction that night is the reason why the lookouts missed the iceberg completely 

                                      Conclusion.

Criminal negligence tragic and unfortunate chain of coincidences, fire or ice whatever it was it took the lives of hundreds of people, and still keeps the minds of scientists busy to this day. 

Thank you so much for checking out my post ! If you have any questions , I'll be more than happy to answer any you may have .

Please don't for get to UPVOTE and RESTEEM. 

FOLLOW ME so that you don't miss any of my new posts .