Top 10 Unknown Strange Facts About Titanic

10. One of the Smokestacks Was Fake

Smokestack Caption: Smokestacks

 

The Titanic, from the outside, had four smokestacks. The more smokestacks a giant boat needs, the bigger and more luxurious it is, right?  

Well, that’s what the designers thought when they built it and installed a fourth dummy smokestack as it made the ship look more beautiful.

It was made into a ventilation shaft for the kitchen but not connected to any furnace. 

Nothing like an impressive four smokestacks to get people buying tickets, right?

9.Only 20 Lifeboats Were Added 

Lifeboat Caption: Lifeboat

 

Perhaps a more common fact that everyone knows,  is that the Titanic wasn't built with enough lifeboats, which is what caused such a high number of casualties.

But a more unknown fact is to why they only have 20 lifeboats.

The ship was designed to equip up to 64 lifeboats, enough to seat more than 4,150 passengers, which was twice the amount of people who boarded the ship, an estimated 2,208 people.

They only took 20,  though not because of the lack of budget or room, but because of a combination of outdated safety regulations and complacency by the White Star Line, Titanic's operators.

8.The Female Crew 

Female crew Caption: Female crew on the right

 

Of the 885 crew members on the Titanic, only  23 of them were women, 20 of which survived.  

Almost all of the women crew aboard the Titanic were stewardesses.

Of the 23 women, there was one cashier, one-second class Matron, and the rest were different stewardesses.

The three who went down with the ship were 35-year-old Mrs Catherine  Jane Wallis, and 32-year-old Miss Catherine Walsh, both were stewardesses and 22-year-old Mrs Lucy Violet Snape, who was a second class Matron.

7.Our Titanic wasn’t the first

The Leo DiCaprio film wasn’t the first to tell the story of the Titanic.

Lacking a little sensitivity, a film about the tragedy came out less than a month after the incident.

It was called Saved from the Titanic, and it was a silent film starring Dorothy Gibson,  an actress who had survived the event.  

Staying true to what occurred, she wore the same clothes and shoes that she’d worn during the actual sinking of the ship.

The film was successful at the time but the only known print of it was destroyed in a fire at  Éclair Studios in March 1914, so we’ll never see it again.

It is Gibson's penultimate film,  as she reportedly suffered a mental breakdown after completing it after having to reenact certain parts of the film in full detail.

6. It Was Predicted? 

Though not purposely, it seems, a very true prediction of the Titanic was written in “The Wreck of the Titan” by Morgan Robertson.

It was published 14 years before the Titanic met its end and told the story of a fictional ocean liner that sinks after hitting an iceberg.  

The book is so accurate, it even says the ship was described as “unsinkable” and that it didn’t carry enough lifeboats, which frankly was probably common practice.

Author Morgan Robertson was said to be a psychic, to be profiting off a tragedy he knew would happen.  

He took the comments in stride simply stating,  “I know what I’m writing about, that’s all.”

5.We don’t know who died

When questions like, “Was a woman named Rose there?” or “Did the love story happen?” come up, they’re hard to answer because technically no, they’re made-up characters. 

However, we don’t know who was there.  

The official number was 1,503 dead, over 100  unidentified bodies were buried in Halifax.  

Travelling under false names was common practice at the time from all kinds of places.

What’s interesting is that a boy named Sidney Leslie  Goodwin, 19 months old at the time of his death, was identified in 2008 after DNA tests and a global genealogical search.

4.Whiskey Might Have Saved a Man 

Charles Joughin found out that the ship was sinking and made his way to all the whiskey in the ship’s liquor storage so he’d be ready for the cold water.

In his account, he had a half tumbler full of liquor, threw about  50 chairs in the water for flotation devices, rode the ship down into the water as if it were an elevator, and survived in the water for roughly  2 hours.

In comparison, most people in the water survived for only 15 minutes.

3.Shared Bathrooms

If you think an economy class on a plane is bad, you should have seen the situation on the ship.

The third-class passengers had to share two bathtubs.

This means that about 700 people shared those two bathtubs.

To add some nerdy math, that would mean that if all 700 passengers wanted to take a bath, they would have to average 4 minutes each in 24 hours.

Of the 3 classes, only 25% of third-class passengers survived, while 42% of second-class passengers and 61% of first-class passengers survived. 

2.Right and Wrong

In The Movie One thing that the movie got right is that the band played until the very end. 

Many have called them heroes, seeing as anxiety and panic set into the passengers.

Knowing they wouldn’t make it, the band continued for hours after the ship hit the iceberg.

How someone can find the courage to play music as the world ends is very heroic indeed. One myth from the movie that is often talked about, though, is the scene where Jack and Rose are locked by gates in the lower levels.

Historian and author Tim Maltin said it was "total rubbish", and that  "There were gates on Titanic, but these were for US immigration purposes, to stop the spread of infectious disease on the ship between classes.  

As soon as the order was given to lower the  lifeboats, the order was given to open all the gates and there was no discrimination on the  boat deck between either first class or third."

1.Lookouts Used Only Their Eyesight

Unlike almost all movie depictions of the Titanic, the ship's binoculars were locked inside a cabinet that no one could find the key to.  

The lookouts on the Titanic had to rely only on their eyesight.

The keys were nowhere to be found and, well, you know how the story ends.

It all happened because the ship’s second officer was replaced last minute and he didn’t pass on the information or the key to the cabinet.  

The key wasn’t found until 2010  when it was sold for $130,000. 

Thanks for reading! Hmm, interesting facts,  right? Know of any other facts about the Titanic you think are interesting?

Share with the rest of us in the comments. That's it for now, see you on the next list!!

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