1912 TITANIC "Worlds Largest Ship"
U.S. KENNEDY HALF DOLLAR
On April 10, 1912, the Titanic,
largest ship afloat, left Southampton, England on her maiden voyage to
New York
City. The White Star Line had spared no expense in assuring her luxury. A
legend even before she sailed, her passengers were a mixture of the
world's wealthiest basking in the elegance of first class accommodations
and immigrants packed into steerage. She was touted as the safest ship
ever built, so safe that she carried only 20 lifeboats - enough to
provide accommodation for only half her 2,200 passengers and crew. This
discrepancy rested on the belief that since the ship's construction made
her "unsinkable,"
her lifeboats were necessary only to rescue survivors of other sinking
ships. Additionally, lifeboats took up valuable deck space. Four days
into her journey, at 11:40 P.M. on the night of April 14, she struck an
iceberg. The collision was fatal and the icy water soon poured through
the ship. It became obvious that many would not find safety in a
lifeboat. As the forward portion of the ship sank deeper, passengers
scrambled to the stern. John Thayer witnessed the sinking from a
lifeboat. "We could
see groups of the almost fifteen hundred people still aboard, clinging
in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees; only to fall in masses,
pairs or singly, as the great after part of the ship, two hundred and
fifty feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a sixty-five or
seventy degree angle." The great ship slowly slid beneath the waters two
hours and forty minutes after the collision. It is was and still is the
most famous ship in the world!
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