Why Are We So Fascinated by the Titanic?

pay that price. That's crazy. I mean, I guess it does make it more unique, but it's still really weird how much people will pay for things. No, it definitely is. And actually I find this kind of thing fascinating. I mean, it's it's always interesting to see what people will pay

big money for an auction. So I was recently looking at this list of the things people have been on over the years that are related to the Titanic disaster, and one thing that went for even more than that banks He painting is the violin played by William Hartley as the Titanic sank that many of us have heard this legend before, and it's of course impossible to verify, you know, every piece of it, but the ideas that Hartley, who was the band leader, that he asked his seven

musicians to keep playing as this ship was going down, And so some tell the story that he led his crew in playing Near My God to the and you know, that may not be completely true. It does appear that the musicians did maintain their composure and they continued playing something what we don't know exactly what it was, but that violin that hardly played sold back in two thousand

thirteen for one point seven million dollars. And I guess it's really no surprise because, you know, more than a hundred years after the tragic event, we're still fascinated by it. So today we'll try to better understand why that is, you know, and ask some of the questions like what did people know about the Titanic before it set sail, what was life like on board, and what were some of the strange ways people chose to remember the ship

after the disaster. So let's get started, Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass, wearing a button that just says proud member of the Just Mystic Club. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now a lot of people don't know this, but Tristan very nearly booked himself on a trip on the Titanic back

in nineteen twelve. Thankfully, the plan fell apart at the very last minute, you know, on account of his not having been born yet, so ultimately he missed the boat, which is just such a lucky break. But you know, Tristan isn't alone in telling tall tales about how he

narrowly escaped death on the Titanic. In fact, just five days after the sinking, there are already press reports about the so called just missed a Club and how it already had six thousand, nine four members, And so this was obviously tongue in cheek, but it was also kind

of true. Like a suspiciously large number of people had come forward claiming they'd missed the boat because they've been running late that morning, or they've gotten sick or whatever, but everyone knew most of the stories were completely made up. Like in one of the press reports I mentioned, they had a sarcastic quote from a guy who said quote, I count it lucky that I didn't have the money to go abroad this year. If all of us who just missed it had got aboard the Titanic, she would

have sunk at the Liverpool Dock from the overload. I'm glad the public didn't fall for all these stories. I mean, it's such a strange compulsion in the first place, you know, to lie like that because I don't know, because you want to attach yourself to a tragedy. But I guess that goes to show how captivated people were by the story of the Titanic. And the really amazing thing is that more than a hundred years later, many of us

are still just as captivated. So at this point the disaster it feels like it's taken on kind of a mythical status and world culture, and it's become one of those stories that everybody seems to know. In fact, I read in Smithsonian that Titanic is actually the third most recognized word in the world, just below God and Coca cola. And you know, while it's true that interest in the story has ebbed and flowed over time, it's still something

that we always seem to come back to. So today we'll take a look at why that is and why Titanic still fascinates us all these years later, and help answer that. We'll talk about the impact the tragedy has had on the world, both in the short term and the long term, and we'll also dig a little deeper into life aboard the ship, which you know, includes the surprising stories of a few standout passengers. It's definitely a

lot to cover, so let's get to it. But but where do you want to start, Mango, Well, I thought we could start with one of the biggest reasons that people have stayed invested in the Titanic, and that's just the ship itself. So most of us know that at the time it was the largest ocean liner ever constructed, and more broadly, the large just men made moving object

in the world. It was about eight feet long and a hundred seventy five ft tall, which means the ship was as long as three football fields and as tall as a seventeen story building. Isn't that insane? Yeah? I mean, it was definitely a massive ship for its time, no question about that, But it wouldn't really be that impressive today though, right, I mean, we have cruise ships that are more than four times that size now, So it does make me wonder, like why the size of the

Titanic still captures people's interest. So I think it's partly the perception that the Titanic was kind of tempting fate in a way, like the fact that the ship held that title as the world's largest and and then it ended up sinking on his maiden voyage. It feels like this cautionary tale about man's hubris in some people's minds, Like it's almost like a Tower of Babble situation or something where man kind of overreached and then was made

to suffer for it. And I think that still resonates for people, especially since we've heard so many stories now about how luxurious and decadent the ship was, especially compared to others at the time. All right, well, before we get to that fateful night with the iceberg, I do want to spend a little more time on board and and talk about a few of those decadit details that you alluded to. So, for example, the Titanic was one of the first ships to have electric lights in all

of its rooms. It also had way more amenities than most other ships, and so just looking at the list, here among those were four elevators, heated swimming pool, two libraries to barbershops, a squash court, a Turkish bath, and even it's on onboard newspaper called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin. So I hadn't heard about the paper. I'm guessing that

means that they had a printing press on board. Yeah, I mean there was a small print shop on the D deck and and of course this was close to the butcher's shop in case you're wondering, now I know where I get my pastrom that's right. But I mean,

it really does feel like they thought about everything. My favorite Titanic community, though it is probably the onboard gymnasium, Like it had all the best equipment naturally, including old standards like rowing machines, weights, punching bags, but it also had this cutting edge gear, like they had two static bicycles with two foot dials attached to show the distance that had been traveled. And there were also a few electric horses, which were these big mechanical saddles meant to

mimic riding a horse. I mean, does that even count as exercise? It kind of feels like it would be less of a workout for the rider than for the horse, or I guess the saddle in this case. I mean, I think it was supposed to strengthen your core or maybe some leg muscles, but either way, I doubt any

of the passengers worked up that much of a sweat. Like, if you look at pictures from floating gyms on the Titanic and other ships of the era, most of the passengers are exercising while they're wearing their full get up, So it's like a bunch of releasedate and calm looking people in these three piece suits or or like big Edwardian dresses and hats, and they're just kind of halfheartedly

peddling on the bikes or whatever. It's it's pretty lazy looking. Yeah, I've actually seen some of these pictures, and honestly, my guess is that it's the first time in a gym for most of them, because nobody looks like they know what they're doing at all. I mean, it's a good thing that they had a personal trainer on board the Titanic. This is real. His name was Thomas McCauley, and it was this guy's job to show passengers how to use the equipment and even to provide one on one training sessions.

And it seems like McCauley took his job super seriously because the night the ship sank, he actually chose to stay at his post in the gym and go down with the ship. Wait, seriously, I mean, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but that sort of

seems a little bit unnecessary. I mean, we did talk about how the band chose to continue playing as the ship sank, and to me though, that makes sense because it was a way to sacrifice and to calm the passengers, or to give them at least some sense of peace. But I mean, why keep the gym open. I can't imagine anybody was thinking, like, I think, I'll just get in a few more reps before whatever happens here happens. Yeah.

Probably not. If anyone was trying to burn like a few calories for the road, I really wouldn't blame them. I mean, the meals on board the Titanic were pretty epic, at least for the first class passengers, and so the dinners were gourmet affairs with up to thirteen courses, each of which came with its own paired wine. There was also a pre dinner cocktail service that was added as

a concession to American passengers. Apparently European passengers weren't fans of this idea because they thought mixed drinks ruined your palette before eating. But from start to finish, these elaborate meals could last as long as four or five hours, and because the first class menu was actually later recovered, we actually know exactly what the wealthiest Titanic passengers had for dinner the night the ship went down, and it

was an incredible spread. The feast started with raw oysters and a selection of order ivs, followed by a choice of two soups. Then came a lightly pushed Atlantic salmon topped with a rich moose. For the fourth and fifth courses, passengers chose from such rich entrees as a filet mignon or a lamb with mint sauce. And then at the halfway point the meal this is on you get a palate cleanser. It's it's a punch romain, which I guess is a boozy mix and wine, rum and champagne. And

then once you've regained your appetite, the feasting resumes. There's a roast squab course, cold asparagus, vinaigrette fois gras, and then there's dessert, which includes peaches and shark trees, jelly chocolate, Vanilla Claire's French ice cream, and then to close off the meal, there's a variety of fruits, nuts, and cheeses with coffee, poor cigars and cordials. It's pretty It feels like they just accidentally went ahead and cooked everything for

the week for one meal. I don't even know how these people would get up and walk after eating all of this stuff. I don't feel like I could make it through a single meal, I know, but if you did want to try. They're actually places all over the world that now offer dinners that recreate that last meal that the first class passengers eight on the ship. And it's kind of a cop but some people claim it's a great way to humanize the tragedy or to understand

the history of it. The ethics acide like. The biggest drawback is probably the price of these dinners. So, for instance, there's one restaurant in Houston it offers a ten course menu for a thousand dollars per person. There's also a version of this on a luxury hotel in Hong Kong, where um, the prices doubled because it reportedly serves this vintage seven bottle of wine that's actually salvage from the

wreck of the Titanic. I like this idea that it's somehow humanizes the tragedy by just sitting there and stuffing yourself with all of this and drinking fancy old wine. Don't forget. Yeah, well, I guess so. I guess they know exactly what it was like to be on the Titanic then, But it feels a little too rich for my blood. I feel like maybe i'd spring for a

recreation of maybe like the third class dinner. I mean, that's got to be a lot cheaper, right, Like I imagined there were a bit more down to earth at the second and third class tables, right, So I think that's a really funny idea, But not as much as you think, right. Like, so, the first and second class dining rooms actually shared a galley, so there was probably a good bit of crossover when it comes to what was served, kind of like business of first class on

a plane or something. But the main difference would have been that second class diners wouldn't have had all the crazy wine pairings, a few of the other frills that the first class people enjoyed, and honestly, even third class passengers didn't have it too bad when it came to food. So there was a lot less lamb with mint sauce and a lot more roast beef and boiled potatoes. But you actually wouldn't hear that many people complaining about it.

At the time, most ocean liners required third class passengers to bring their own food to last the entire voyage, which would have made the Titanics prepared meals seemed really decadent to most people. I mean, the same can't be said for the accommodations, though there were actually only two bathtubs for all seven third class passengers to share. Oh gosh, well,

let's let maybe let's not dwell on that. But getting back to the food, it's hard for me to even wrap my head around the amount of work that must have gone into feating this many people and multiple times a day, Like there were need two hundred people aboard the Titanic. You've got passengers nine crew members, so they're just doing the math, like three meals a day, that sixty meals that the kitchens had to crank out every twenty four hours, and it must have been a pretty

colossal effort. It definitely was. So I read this interview with Dana McCauley. She co wrote a book called Last Dinner on the Titanic, and she says the Titanics kitchen crew included a hundred thirteen cooks, fifteen first cooks who supervised things, twelve pastry chefs, six bakers, five butchers, and five sous chefs. And you know, you think about that, that's not even mentioning the dozens of waiters or bus

boys that each meal required. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty huge staff, but I'm actually a bit surprised it's not even bigger when you consider how many people they were feeding and just the level of sheer variety on those menus that you talked about. But you know, since you mentioned the Titanics bakers, I want to take a

second and talk about the ship's chief baker. He was a guy named Charles Joffin, and he was a sort of either of the wreck and live for decades afterward, but he was also examined as part of a British inquiry after the accident, and the picture he paints during his testimony is really pretty amazing. So after the Titanic hits the iceberg, sorry for the spoiler there, but Charles immediately gets to work and he starts rounding up all the bread he can find to help bolster their provisions

and all the lifeboats. Now he ends up sending something like forty pounds of bread loaves to the upper decks, and then he heads back to his cabin where he proceeds to steal himself with what he called, quote a drop of liqueur, and I have a feeling was a little more than a drop, And honestly, in that situation, who can blame him. But then Charles heads to the a deck and he starts helping to load the lifeboats.

Now this is something I hadn't heard before, but apparently many of the passengers were reluctant to leave the ship, Like in the first hour or so after the collision, when only the lower decks were flooding. At that point, a lot of the people tried to wave off the danger and actually refused to get on these lifeboats. So Charles knew better in this situation, and so when he

found women and children just squatting on the deck. Refusing to budge, he and other crew members began picking up these stubborn passengers and actually throwing them into the lifeboats. And then when these last lifeboats were filled and lowered, Charles went back down to his cabin, had himself another drop of liqueur, and went right back on the deck. Now, at this point, the ship was sinking in earnest and it was clear that the majority of the passengers were

still on board. So he was helpful to the very last minute, and he tossed some fifty odd deck chairs into the water so that people would have something to cling onto when the ship inevitably went under. That that really is inspiring. Also, can I just say how perfect an activity he chose given his circumstances, Like checking deck chairs into the ocean is exactly the thing you should do if you're trapped on a sinking chip and you've had a few drinks. No, it does seem pretty fitting

in that scenario. But here's where really achieves legend status in my eyes, Like he was actually still aboard the Titanic when it's split in half. In fact, he reportedly climbed over the railing rode the ship down as it sank, and when asked during his enquiry if he had been dragged under with the ship, Charles just replied, I do not believe my head went underwater at all. It may have been wetted, but no more. Okay, so this guy's

my new hero. Well, and that's really saying something because there are a ton of stories about passengers behaving bravely while the ship went down. And of course these days a lot of people say chivalry is dead, but that definitely wasn't the case aboard the Titanic. Yeah, that's true. I think most people know the famous policy about evacuating women and children first, and that really was an explicit order that Captain Smith gave the night the Titanic sank.

But what I never knew before this week is that Titanic actually approved the exception in that regard rather than the rule, because it turns out that in most maritime disasters, men have had a significantly higher survival rate than women and children. Really, I don't think I would have guessed that. But all right, we'll have a ton of questions to ask, and at some point we do need to talk about the crash itself. But before we get to any of that.

Let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the enduring legacy of the RMS Titanic, all right, Mago. So before the break, you were saying that when disaster strikes at sea that men generally fair better than women and children. So can you

explain what you mean by that? Sure? So this comes from the sweetest study where researchers looked at eighteen maritime disasters that happened between eighteen fifty two and two thousand eleven, and what they found was that women and children survived in greater numbers than men in only two of the

eighteen cases. It was for the HMS Broken Stock in eight fifty two and the Titanic in In all other cases, men came out ahead with an average survival rate of compared to scent for women and just fifteen percent for children. And that was the only surprise to come out of the study either, because it turns out the crew members actually have the highest survival rate. They come out with

a whopping sixty. And you know this romantic idea of captains choosing to go down with the ships, right, that apparently doesn't happen as often as we assume, because even captains tend to have a higher survival rate than passengers. But you're saying that wasn't the case the night the Titanic sank exactly So with Titanic, women actually had a seventy survival rate compared to just seventeen percent for men.

And it's the same with children. Half the kids aboard the Titanic survived the ordeal, all right, So do we know why that is? Like, what made the Titanic so different? Was its crew just like that much better at following the correct procedure or what happened there? That's the thing. The whole women and children first was an explicit and it wasn't this like written rule at the time. And in fact, as we see with those other sixteen cases, the real policy is closer to first come, first serve,

or even every man for himself. But that's one way in which Birkenstock and Titanic stick out from the others, because in both those cases, the captains gave this direct order that women and children should be evacuated first. So if that's the case, then the higher survival rates for women and children it's really things more to the captains and crew like, not necessarily the passengers of the Titanic being chivalrous was really more than captain, So that is

one way to look at it. But on the other hand, we do have plenty of reports of crew members and even passengers who chose to remain on board and help others rather than take up space and lifeboats. I mean, supposedly there were just people on deck just standing and smoking cigars, drinking brandy while others fled for their lives. And while that might sound kind of silly or naive to us, I think those guys absolutely knew what they

were doing. They were willing to die in order to give other people a shot at living, all right, So then what do we make of this? Like, are we saying the pastors of Titanic And I guess Birkin Stock just happened to be more selfless than you know, people in these other ship breaks, And I feel like there's got to be more to it than that. I read the study from an Australian economist. His name's David Savage, and he actually suggested that Titanics passengers behaved more altruistically

simply because they had the time to do so. Like, if you think about the wreck of the Lusitania, which was this other luxury liner from the era, which I'm sure you've heard of it. It had a similar number of passengers and survive us to the Titanic. But whereas the Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, Titanic took nearly three hours. And that's why Savage suggests that the longer timeline allowed social norms to assert themselves aboard the Titanic.

So instead of giving into the panic self interest as passengers aboard the Lusitania and most of the other ships did, the people aboard the Titanic had enough time to tamp down their self preservation instincts and really act in favor of the group instead. And you know, I have to wonder if that, in itself is one of the reasons

that people are still so affected by the Titanic story today. Like, if you think about it, this was one of those rare tragedies where the people involved actually had the time to think about their circumstances and how they wanted to spend their final moments. And that's not really a luxury that many have had, and major disasters in the last century well, and think about how much worse things could have gone if the passengers didn't have that extra bit

of time. I mean, as it stands, there were only about seven hundred survivors from Titanic, which means roughly people lost their lives that night, and if there had been mass panic, it's likely that even more people would have died in the process. Yeah, though I do question how much better things really could have been. Like at the end of the day, the ship just didn't have anywhere near the number of lifeboats it would have technically taken

to save everyone on board. And that's what the ship at half capacity like the Titanic technically could have fit another people on board, which undoubtedly would have made an even bigger tragedy. Yeah, that's true, And you know, people often point to those lack of lifeboats aboard the Titanic is another example of the hubrists of the ship's owners and creators. And you know, to a certain extent that

makes sense. Like one of the stories I hear a lot is how the ship could have easily carried twice the amount of lifeboats that it had, only the designers didn't want to ruin the aesthetics by cluttering the deck with more boats. I mean, it's just absurd. And well, that may be true, it's worth noting that Titanic was completely up to code when it came to lifeboats. In fact, it was actually more compliant than it even had to be, because instead of having sixteen lifeboats as the Board of

Trade required, the ship actually had twenty. I mean that sounds ridiculous, like like a ship as big as the Titanic was only required to have sixteen lifeboats. How is that even possible? Like didn't they know how many people were going to be on board? Well they did, but the thing is like the number of passengers wasn't actually a factor and the hermiting this. So prior to Titanic, the number of lifeboats needed was based solely on a

ship's weight. So whether the ship the size of the Titanic was sailing half full or completely empty, it would

have still been required to carry just sixteen lifeboats. Now, the good news is that Titanic shine to light on how little since this made and practice, and so thanks to that public scrutiny and sending inquiries that took place in the days after the disaster, regulations definitely changed and the number of lifeboats started to be determined by the number of people on board, not by how much a ship weight, which just seems weird that we even have to say that, because who else would be getting on

these lifeboats other than the people on the ship. Definitely a smart change, and you know, there were actually a couple of other positive things to come out of the Titanic tragedy. For example, maritime agencies began using round the clock wireless maryring to keep track of ships and to make sure that few distress calls were missed, and that's a thing that made a huge difference during World War One,

when large ships were frequent targets for enemy torpedoes. In fact, the ship that rescued the Titanic, I think it was called the Carpathia, It was sunk six years later by a torpedo fired from a German U boat. But thanks to the lessons from Titanic, the Carpathia had plenty of lifeboats in a direct line to call for help. And as a result of this preparedness, not a single crew

member or passenger drowned that day. That's pretty amazing, And you know, actually we neglected to mention what's probably my favorite advancement to come out of Titanic, and that's the creation of what's called the International Ice Patrol. Now, this was established the very next year after the Titanic sank, and the organization has spent the last hundred plus years just patrolling the North Atlantic and tracking the movement of icebergs.

And so, you know, the way that it worked in the early days is that a patrol ship would just head out into the open ocean, find the southernmost iceberg and then just kind of keep an eye on it for the rest of the season. And so it would follow the iceberg wherever it went and then just report those movements so that the other boats would know how to steer clear, which is awesome. And you said, this

is something that still goes on today. Yeah, the Patrol is actually part of the U. S. Coast Guard now and so these days they mostly do their scouting by plane, but satellites are also a factor now, and of course sometimes the team will still take a ship out and babysit the icebergs, really kind of the old fashioned way. Well, I know, we also wanted to talk about some of the impact that Titanics had on culture, both in the US and abroad. But before we do that, let's take

one more quick break. Okay, well, so let's talk about the first time Titanic fever gripped society, which of course was back when news of the ships sinking first broke. And the guy who actually got the scoop was this journalist named Carlos Heard who happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. But you don't tell me he was actually a passenger on the Titanic, was he? No? But super close? He He was actually one of the original passengers on board the Carpathia before

it was rerouted to aid in the rescue operation. So during the four day trip to New York, Carlos was able to interview many of the Titanic survivors and then turned those accounts into a five thousand words story. So is it true like the public didn't know anything about the disaster until his story came out? Well, where did

the collision reach the mainland? Thanks to wireless messages sent from both the Titanic and the Carpathia, But these communications were short on details, and they came nowhere close to capturing the full scope of the tragedy, and while there was plenty of time to fill people in during the voyage to New York, like, the captain of Carpathia actually banned everyone on board from sharing any information with the media aside from a list of which passengers had survived

and which had perished. And so did people honor his wishes? Definitely not, because when the Carpathia finally arrived at port, it was immediately surrounded by small boats that have been chartered by overeager news companies. According to the Smithsonian quote, reporters shouted through megaphones on their tug boats offered terrific sums of money for information exclusives, but Captain Rosstron said

he would shoot any pressman who dared ventured aboard his ship. Alright, Well, so then how did Carlos Herd get his story out? Because I'm gonna have to imagine he and others were stuck on the boat for a while once they got to New York, and especially if they were so besieged by the press. That is true, which is why Carlos had to get creative if he was going to crack one of the biggest stories of the decade. And this

is incredible. So you know, he sent the secret wireless message to a friend at a New York newspaper telling him to charter a tug boat, and then the guys sailed to the Carpatia that evening. Then behind the captain's back, Carlos stuffed his story into a waterproof bag and discreetly tossed it onto this waiting vote. And later that very night, the New York Evening World published his story. It was

the first include accurate details about what had happened. And it's wild to look back and see just how fast the story spread and kind of took root in people's minds after that, and all in the days before television

or really even the radio craze for that matter. And for instance, I was reading how manufacturers rushed to produce Titanic merchandise and the days following the crash, so in a matter of weeks the market was flooded with all sorts of commemorative products, from postcards and dinner plates to

music boxes, whiskey jiggers. I was even reading about this German toy company called Steve that released a limited edition Titanic teddy bears shortly after the ships sank, and it's really weird, like it was actually called the Morning Bear because it was made to look like it was grieving the victims, like it had all black fur and these red rimmed eyes to make it look like the bear had been crying, and it's just gross, to be honest

with you. And apparently the idea had come from a report about the Titanic senior engineer William Moves, who went down with the ship and supposedly he had a Steve Teddy bear on board with him, so the company decided to release a memorial bear in his honor. And the craziest part is that today the Steve Morning Bears typically go for upwards of twenty grand apiece at auction. That is insane. So one of the biggest surprises in preparing for today's episode was really that, like seeing just how

quickly people began to capitalize on Titanic. And I think one of the best examples of that is the fact that exactly one month after the ship went down, the very first movie about Titanic premiered in theaters. Wait did you say one month after? Like I obviously knew the movie wasn't the first to tackle this subject. But I mean, I can't see any way that something could have come

out that quickly one month after such a real life tragedy. Yeah, and you haven't even heard the wildest part yet, because this movie, which was called Saved from the Titanic, actually started a young silent film actress named Dorothy Gibson, and Dorothy and her mother were both survivors of the real Titanic. I mean, can you even imagine like living through a nightmare like that and then re enacting the whole thing just two weeks later? I mean, I can't imagine that,

nor would I want to. But what on earth made her want to do this? So Dorothy apparently did not want to do the movie at all, but she got talked into it by her producer slash boyfriend, who is I guess this unscrupulous Hollywood mogul type like. His name was Jules Brulator. He had put together this news reel on the Titanic that proved to be this huge hit.

So he figured that a dramatization of the event starring an actual survivor would make a great next act, and so, with the help of a thousand dollar engagement ring, he made his pitch to Dorothy, and she ultimately agreed to make this one reel film about her experience, but as

you can imagine, it was not easy. For the sake of realism, she chose to wear the same evening dress, coat and shoes that she'd worn the night Titanic sank, and Dorothy reportedly burst into tears multiple times during the shooting, and once the film had wrapped, she walked away from the movie business for good. She stated simply that she felt quote dissatisfied. I mean, I can't blame her for wanting to get away from an industry that would push

her into reliving a trauma like that. But honestly, though, I mean, I have to men, I would be curious to see the movie, and the truth is, you're not the only one. So Save from the Titanic is actually one of the holy grails for silent movie buffs. And that's because two years after it was made, this massive fire broke out at the studio and all the known prints were destroyed. So nobody's seen the movie since its

original run in theaters over a hundred years ago. And as much as I wish the film could have been preserved for posterity, it's kind of poetic that no one can make her re enact that experience every again. Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a certain kind of justice in that, But I mean what I find ironic is that there are plenty of people today who will go to great links and great expense to sort of relive

the experience of the Titanic. I mean, you mentioned earlier how people pay big money to recreate the ships lavish meals, and they're also companies that offer one hundred thousand dollar submarine voyages to see the actual Titanic wreckage and all its glory. And I actually I read about an American couple that even got married and a tiny subduct on the bow of the tiny shipwreck. So I'm sure that

made for some pretty amazing wedding fishers. But it does seem a little disrespectful to me, right, like it's effectively this mass grave. Well, I mean, you're not the only one to point that out, And in fact, listen to what the company that put on the undersea wedding said in its defense. It said, Um, what's got to be remembered is that every time a couple gets married in church, they have to walk through a graveyard to get to

the altar. Yeah. I mean, plenty of people get married in churches that have on site cemeteries, but in those cases the graveyard isn't the selling point like it is with the Titanic. Well, I think the Titanic tourism stuff probably comes from that same place, as as those just missed it stories we talked about at the top of the show, and that kind of weird desire that people

feel to tie themselves to someone else's tragedy. But I mean, in this case, I feel like it goes a little too far, which sounds right, but I pretty much signed with Robert Ballard, who is the oceanographer who first discovered the Titanic wreckage back in eighty five, and he refused to divulige to the ship's exact location for fear that treasure hunters and corporations would swoop into exploit it. And it's an act that Ballard actually saw his tantamount to

grave robbing. Of course, the coordinates eventually leaked anyway, and not more than a hundred forty people have visited the shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland altogether, though these visitors have extracted some five thousand artifacts and done untold damaged the ship itself in the process. It's always a little unsettling to see the final resting place of so many people picked apart like that. But actually I read somewhere

that the Titanics under UNESCO protection now, though, isn't it? Yeah, ever since the hundredth anniversary of the wreck. I believe so. Then it's considered like this underwater cultural heritage site or something like that, and so any kind of excavation would actually be off limits at this point. Yeah, that's true, and legal protections, even ones that are a few decades too late, are a nice deterrent to these would be pirates and scavengers. But the reality is that Titanic won't

be around much longer, no matter what we do. And that's because about a decade ago, scientists discovered a new species of bacteria that's been slowly devouring the ship's iron hull. Not only that, but as the microbes munch away, they formed these icicle like communities called rusticles. And this happens all over the ship, inside it out. And as the rusticles get heavier and heavier, they start to pull the

ship apart piece by piece. Meanwhile, the mollusks have made short work of the wood from Titanic, and of course any human remains were consumed by marine life long ago. So at this point most researchers think it's just another decade or two until the ship is gone forever. Yeah, I mean, that will really be the end of an era.

But of course, with all the biographies and movies and Teddy Bears and themed dinners, I mean, I think we'll always have plenty to remember the Titanic and its passengers by absolutely, And speaking of remembrances, Robert Ballard gave a really touching one shortly after he found the shipwreck, and it kind of works as a eulogy for the ship and for the event as a whole. So I thought it might be a nice way to close out the show. Do you mind if I read it and then we

can go straight to the fact off. Yeah, go for it, Okay. So this is what Ballard said. Quote. The Titanic lies now in thirteen thousand feet of water on a gently sloping alpine looking countryside, overlooking a small canyon below. Its bow faces north. The ship sits upright on its bottom, with its mighty stacks pointed upward. There is no light at this great depth, and little life can be found. It is a quiet and peaceful place, and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies

to rest forever. May it remain that way, and may God bless these now found souls. So one of the weirder things to read about is all the ways people plan to try to bring the Titanic back up to the surface. And some of the weird ones that I just jotted down here are One was filling polyester bags with vasoline, and the idea here is that vasoline would harden then become buoyant, and that that would somehow lift the Titanic. Another was filling the whole of the ship

with thousands of ping pong balls. Uh. And then another one is in case the ship in ice, which would basically be the equivalent of creating a big ice cube and a drink, and that we all know what happens with ice cubes and a drink. They they float. So these were all brilliant ideas, but somehow none of these ideas came to life. So back in six the writer William t Stead wrote a fictional piece about a male steamer wrecking and then most of his passengers dying because

there weren't enough lifeboats. And in the story he pointed out the fact that there really lax regulations didn't require ships to have enough lifeboats for every person on the ship. Just a few years later, Steve came back to his theme and wrote about a ship crashing into ice. And then we fast forward a couple of decades and one of the passengers who died in the Titanic tragedy was none other than Steed, and he did so because there

were enough lifeboats on board. Wow. Well, we talked about this before, about how anytime there's a disaster like this, lots of people claim that they were almost a part of it. But there's actually one famous person that has pretty good proof of this. It turns out that Milton Snavely Hershey, you know, the man behind the legendary chocolate brand things like her She's Kisses her She chocolate bars. Do you need me to give more examples? Mango or

with her Sheah? Well, anyway, he was scheduled to be on the ship. So if you head to Hershey, Pennsylvania and visit the community archives there, you can see a three hundred dollar check that hers She had written to the White Star Line, and it's believed to be a deposit tour a stateroom, but it turns out that he had more urgent business back in the States, and so Hershey and his wife took an earlier ship, the America, which strangely was one of the mini ships that sent

back warnings to the Titanic. You know the iconic scene in the movie Titanic where Roses lying on the driftwood and staring up at the sky. Right, So Neil deGrasse Tyson apparently saw the scene and decided to send a note to James Cameron to point out that the star Rose was looking up at wouldn't have actually been the one she would have seen at that real place in time. The only issue is that Tyson didn't see this movie

until about a decade after its initial release. But Cameron is such a perfectionist that he decided to reshoot the scene in preparation for the release of the three D edition, so more than a decade later. That's pretty wild and also pretty impressive that we made it near the end of the fact off before we really did a fact

about the movie. Yeah, alright, Well, we all know that the Titanic sunk after fighting with an iceberg, but some believe that there was a massive coal fire in the bunker of the ship that actually caused significant structural weakening

of the outside of the ship. Now, journalists sin and Maloney has been researching this subject for decades now, and he points to these photographs of the Titanic right before its final trip, and the photos show this huge black mark on the whole of the ship, which is of course where the ship would later hit the iceberg. Now, Maloney also believes that the owners of the Titanic were well aware of this damage, but not wanting to delay a trip, which would of course cost them a bunch

of money, they decided to just ignore it. Now. I should note that many engineers looking at the situation have said it's difficult to tell how much that prior damage really contributed to the disaster. It may have all happened anyway, but it's still pretty interesting to look at this theory. I mean, it is crazy that their conspiracy theories about the Titanic. It's pretty fascinating. So there's a restaurant near

Halifax Harbor. It's the seafood plants called Five Fishermen Restaurant, and it's supposedly a fantastic restaurant, but it's got a strange claim to fame. It was actually an old mortuary, the city's oldest. In fact, it was called Snow and Company undertakers, and it received the bodies of not just one, but two major tragedies in the early nine hundreds. It turns out that Halifax was the base of many of the rescue operations, and many of the bodies from the

Titanic disaster were brought to Snow's funeral home. And then five years later, when the Halifax explosion took place, it was the largest human made explosion in history at the time, many of the bodies were once again brought to Snow and Company. Wow, such a weird coincidence. And you said it's a seafood place. Now it is, And well, well, I do like that fact. I think you're ping pong ball ice cube fact lifting the Titanic is is probably the happiest one of the slots. I think you deserve

the prize this week. Thanks so much, And hopefully one day they will try all of those at one time. These just great rising of the ship. But you know, it's been interesting to dive into this one. I know there are facts out there that we certainly left out. We always love hearing those from you. You can email us those anytime part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me, thanks so much

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