Truth About The Titanic

The Titanic is one of the most famous maritime disasters of all time, but did the Titanic really sink on the morning of 15 April 1912? Titanic's older sister, the nearly identical Olympic, was involved in a serious accident in September 1911 – an accident that may have made her a liability to her owners the White Star Line. Since 1912 rumours of a conspiracy to switch the two sisters in an elaborate insurance scam has always loomed behind the tragic story of the Titanic. Could the White Star Line have really switched the Olympic with her near identical sister in a ruse to intentionally sink their mortally damaged flagship in April 1912, in order to cash in on the insurance policy? Laying bare the famous conspiracy theory, world-respected Titanic researchers investigate claims that the sister ships were switched in an insurance scam and provide definitive proof for whether it could - or could not - have happened.

Believe it or not, researchers are still making new discoveries about the Titanic after more than 100 years! This book is the most visual and most up-to-date chronicle of the famous ship's development, voyage and ultimate tragedy, illustrated with numerous photos and drawings. More than one hundred years after the “unsinkable” Titanic sunk after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, the tragedy continues to haunt us. That’s partly thanks to the movies—notably James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic—that have turned the story into a sort of modern myth. In fact, when it comes to the events of April 15, 1912, untangling fact from fiction has become increasingly difficult. Was the captain drunk? Was the ship going too fast? Did the crew ignore ice warnings? Do the ghosts of the wreck's 1,500-plus victims still haunt the frigid sea? These and other questions are explored—and often answered—here. You will experience the ship’s fateful final day and enter into the glittering lives of such celebrated passengers as John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim. You’ll also learn the fascinating stories of its lesser-known travelers: the man who kidnapped his two sons; the movie star who starred in a film about the disaster, and many other unsung souls whose lives were lost—or changed forever—when the ship went down. In the end, you’ll probably agree that (movie myths aside) the truth is much stranger than fiction.

From the moment the iceberg was spotted, at 11:40 P.M. on April 14, 1912, the Titanic’s fate was sealed. Its 2,200 passengers and crew, in the course of two momentous hours, would meet their destiny in the icy, black waters of the North Atlantic. As the moments passed and the reality of what was happening began to sink in, the crew would make heroic efforts to save as many passengers as possible. In the end, however, the great ship would exact a harrowing toll from all on board. Titanic’s Last Hours: The Facts is a riveting account of the last two hours the supposedly unsinkable ship was afloat. Beginning at 11:40 P.M., the book relives the events set in motion after the brush with the iceberg and culminates with the sinking of the ship at 2:20 A.M. The fascinating moment-by-moment action along with large-format color images, maps, and fact boxes bring the nail-biting tension that passengers and crew must have faced in those final hours fully to life. Titanic’s Last Hours: The Facts is part of Bearport’s Titanica series.

'A vivid account of how the TITANIC sank by survivor Jack Thayer' THE DAILY TELEGRAPH. 'A dramatic first-hand account... TITANIC survivor reveals the horrifying cries of the luxury liner's dying victims' THE DAILY MAIL. On April 14, 1912, John B. 'Jack' Thayer III the 17-year-old heir to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, was riding in first class with his mother, father and their maid on the most spectacular ship of its era - the TITANIC. Jack was one of only a handful of survivors who escaped by jumping into the freezing Atlantic as the TITANIC sank and spent the next five hours clinging onto the last lifeboat that was swept off the ship's boat deck upturned. He barely survived the disaster, and his detailed and shocking account of that fateful night has riveted those he recounted it to in the following decades. Finally, in 1940, he wrote down what happened, printing 500 copies for his family. Five years later, after the tragic loss of his son in the Second World War, Jack Thayer committed suicide, and his story was mostly forgotten. This new edition published in 2018 includes the historically important series of six drawings by Lewis Skidmore a young art teacher aboard the CARPATHIA (which saved the TITANIC survivors). Jack described to Lewis the stages of the TITANIC'S demise, which Skidmore drew. Critically it shows the ship breaking in two as she sank. Many survivors refuted this assessment but seventy years later Jack and others was proved right when the wreck was discovered resting on the seabed in two halves. It also includes other bonus material, Jack's earlier, much shorter accounts of his amazing escape published in 1912 and 1913.ABOUT THE AUTHOR John 'Jack' B. Thayer III, was born in Philadelphia on 24 December 1894 into the wealthy and aristocratic Thayer family. His father was John Thayer II who ran the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, his mother, socialite Marian Thayer. After surviving the disaster he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, served as an artillery officer in the First World War, went into banking and was later financial vice president of the University of Pennsylvania. He committed suicide on September 20, 1945 following several years of depression, he was found in a car in Philadelphia his throat and wrists cut. He was survived by his wife Lois Cassatt, son John, and three daughters, Lois, Julie and Pauline.

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

Capturing the disbelief, the chaos and the terror of the fateful night the Titanic sank 100 years ago, Titanic on Trial brings to life the tragedy through the voices of those who survived it. Stories about the sinking have become legendary - how the band played to the end, how lifeboats were lowered half-empty - but amongst the films, novels and academic arguments, only those who were there can separate truth from fiction. This book gives the story back to those people. After the sinking, inquiries into the loss of 1,517 lives were held in both the UK and US. The 1,000 or more pages of transcripts represent the most thorough and complete account of the sinking, told in the voices of those who were there. For the first time, these transcripts of the courtroom questions and answers have been specially edited and arranged chronologically, uncovering and drawing out the real drama of the Titanic's final night. The witnesses are transformed into characters in a much bigger story, and the events are described from the perspectives of people in every part of the ship, from a stoker in the boiler room escaping just before the watertight doors sealed behind him, to first class passengers trying to buy their way onto lifeboats. This compelling book provides a unique insight into what really happened on the night, and the terrible, courageous, cowardly and tragic choices individuals had to make.

Myths! Lies! Secrets! Uncover the hidden truth behind the sinking of the Titanic with beloved educator/author Kate Messner. The fun mix of sidebars, illustrations, photos, and graphic panels make this perfect for fans of I Survived! and Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. On April 15, 1912 an "unsinkable" ship called the Titanic unexpectedly hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Right? Wrong! Nobody was really talking about the Titanic being unsinkable until after it sank. The truth is, four different ships wired the Titanic to report icebergs and field ice in the area. But the Titanic never slowed down. In fact, when the Californian warned that it was trapped in ice, the Titanic's wireless operator was so busy sending outgoing messages that he replied, "Shut up!" No joke. Discover the nonfiction series that demolishes everything you thought you knew about history. Don't miss History Smashers: The Mayflower, Women's Right to Vote, and Pearl Harbor.

Merely a day afterTitanicsurvivors arrived in port in New York City, a United States Senate committee began an investigation into the wreck of the great "unsinkable" ship. For the first time in book form, here is the dramatic testimony of crew and passengers from all walks of life, as they recall the sights and sounds of the night of April 14, 1912.From the manners of the day to the conduct fo those boarding the lifeboats, from acts of kindness to palpable greed, here is an unforgettable portrait of human nature in the face of theTitanictragedy, in the words of the men and women who survived....J. Bruce Ismay,British officer of the White Star Line, who hopped into a lifeboat to save himself and never looked back to see her go down....Second officerCharles Lightoller'sharrowing plunge as the sinking ship's force of suction pulled him under water....On-duty lookoutFrederick Fleet'sadmission that the iceberg might have been avoided if the crew had been equipped with binoculars....PassengerDaisy Minahan,who recalled the refusal of an officer in her lifeboat to aid those adrift in the frigid waters...and many more witnesses to one of the most shattering events of our century. Illustrated with historical photographs, TheTitanic Disaster Hearingsis a vital piece of the puzzle that has sparked worldwide fascination.