Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And I can say with one hundred percent certainty that neither one of us went down with the Titanic, Right, that's true. Try to dispute that fact, you can't do it.
Yeah, we're talking a little bit. I know we did an episode on the Titanic, but I don't know that we really dug into the data of survivors. And I can't remember why I was looking at this, but I just it might've just been a story that came my way, but I just thought it was kind of interesting to look a little bit about, like not the ones who perish, but the people who survived, and like who were these people?
Yeah, it's always about the ones that perished.
Yeah, Leo slipping under the cold, murky depths, even though he could have fit on that door.
Totally. Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous, but still it was a great ending. Yeah, So well, just kind of go over the basic facts here, right. Titanic at left Southampton, England for New York City on April tenth, nineteen twelve four days later April fourteenth, maybe three days, I can't remember if it was right, before the fourteenth or right before the fifteenth. I really kind of meandered, there.
Is the night of the fourteenth, so it went into the fifteenth.
Okay, so we got that wrong.
I feel dumb.
Four days into this cruise aboard. Seriously, what was the most luxurious luxury liner, And there are plenty of luxury lines, this was the cream of the crop. With twenty two hundred and forty people on board, nine hundred of which were crew. It struck an iceberg and within less than three hours the whole ship, massive ship, had completely submerged sunk.
That's right. If you're looking at the overall survival rates, women survived obviously more than men, pretty significantly, seventy four percent of the female passenger survived twenty percent of the male passengers obviously because of the notion of women and children first, which has always sort of been the calling card of any situation, disaster, situation, and not only the literally Captain Edward john Smith, you know, making that an order in the evac process, but just the general idea
that you know, you're going to prioritize the women and children. Yeah, and they actually did instinctively.
Yeah, it's nice to see, like you can say, just statistically speaking, they definitely did. Seventy four percent of female passengers did survive, but only twenty percent of male passengers survived. You're like, oh, great, let's call it. Ah, it ended just great as far as.
Those things are, Oh call it a day.
The thing is is, if you start digging into the classes, there's some disparities that emerge that are a little disturbing, and by a little, I mean pretty disturbing and sad.
Yeah. So there were three classes aboard first, second, and third, and then the crew members, and they go as follows. Sixty two percent of the first class passenger survived. For a couple of reasons. Obviously, they were prioritized just because unfortunately that's how it worked back then, maybe still how it works a little bit. You're given priority on those lifeboats.
But also just because of the sheer fact that when you're up on a higher floor you're going to be closer to those life boats, you're gonna be able to get there quicker and get information relayed to you quicker.
Yes, Plus all of them were automatically enrolled in the Titanic's VIP Life Saving Members Club policy. Yeah, so the second class passengers. They didn't fare quite as well, but still not that bad. Forty three percent of them survived. Actually it's pretty bad. The reason why is for the
opposite reasons of what you just said. They were further away from the lifeboats, the crew paid less attention to helping them get off of the Titanic and onto those life boats, and so so, yeah, more than half of the people in second class died, and I saw that second So something I saw about this is that the third class passengers, which we'll talk about in a second, they actually had little cabins that were nicer than second
class accommodations on other liners. Oh yeah, but that the second class passengers had the kind of the jankiest because for some reason, not all of the second class cabins got finished because Titanic's construction was so rushed. Oh interesting, and apparently there were reports of people who were in second class that were finding half eaten sandwiches that the workmen had left behind. That's how I wonder recently it was completed.
I wonder if they were that's remarkable. First of all, think I wonder if they were like, well, you got two crews, let's start building from the top and from the bottom, and then they ran out of time in the middle.
Man, I was on a flight, you mean, I went to Dominican Republic years ago, and it was one of those ones where you walk out on the tarmac and climb the stairs to board. Oh yeah, I've never seen this before in my life. But the ground crew opened the front and the side door and said have at it, And so people had no idea which door to go up, and we're like having to pass one another in the middle of the airplane trying to get to their seats. It was the dumbest boarding I've ever seen in my life.
I'm still it still takes my breath away. I couldn't believe it was going on. It was just absolutely hilarious.
You knew who also? I wonder if I should name this person? Is that bad to say that someone had a VIP experience that you witnessed.
Is this about Hodgman?
It has to be no usher?
Oh okay, what about them?
When I got on my flight coming home from our Christmas vacation to the Bahamas, we were just about to step onto the plane literally, and the airline employees were like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys moved to the side, and this group of about twenty people they just shuttle by us, which I wasn't like what's going on here? I was just like what's going on here? I was just more like, this is weird. Who are they? I get on the plane and the very first person I see is Usher sitting
there on the front first row. I was like, wait a minute. I was like, Usher didn't he didn't walk by us in that crew, he was already on the plane. Interesting thought about it a little bit on the flight. And then when we get to Atlanta, Usher's up in front of us, obviously, and he he takes a left out of that door where you like put your baby stroller and doesn't walk up the jetway. And I was like,
what's going on? And I looked out of that door and there were probably fifteen Matt Black BMW sitting on the tarmac.
Oh.
I was like, Oh, Usher doesn't even have to walk through an airport. No, And I'm sure we can pay for that kind of experience.
Oh yeah, for sure. I'm doog that he even flew commercial. If you're doing that kind of stuff, why wouldn't you just fly private?
We asked ourselves that same question. If he, I mean, he clearly is paying for like a lot of his family and extended family to take this awesome vacation. Okay, there were so many people, it seems like it would have been more cost effective to probably rent a plane.
Yeah, you'd think, so, come on, not sure, let's get it together.
But they weren't sitting in first class, and he had his family back there and coach. Really most of them. I think I saw a few in delta comfort, but there you go. You know, he was up there with his wife.
He didn't fly private because he was sacrificing for his family members because he didn't want to fly them private.
Yeah, I don't be graduated. Good for him if he can afford that. More power to you.
Man who thought Usher was going to make an appearance in this Titanic Survivor short stuff?
Not me at all. So maybe and Usher, but not the Usher.
Sure, So let's real quick before we take a break go through.
So third class, Oh geez, is that where we were?
Yeah, they were the worst off of all. Only twenty six percent of people in third class one hundred and seventy four out of seven hundred and nine passengers survived.
Yeah, and I just should point out that that's obviously due to them being lower, but then also they're not prioritized and they're not getting They didn't even bother telling them what to do. Basically, they were like, figure it out yourself, and they may not have even understood figure it out yourself in a lot of cases because as we know, fun a good the three and then the Titanic movie. Can't remember his name, Billy Zane Leo's Italian buddy.
Giuseppe, was that his name? I don't remember he had that.
I don't think the guy was really Italian, but he You know, a lot of times those third class passengers on the Titanic may not have spoken English, so there was a language barrier on top of everything, right.
Yeah. Ironically that actor was native American playing in a how in person.
And he cried when he saw trash in the ocean.
So you said one more thing though, that they're in the lower decks. It's not just harder to get up to the upper decks in the lifeboats. That's also the first area to flood with seawater when ship strikes in Iceberg. Right, So yeah, crew members actually only twenty four percent of the crew members survived. Yeah, that's actually the lowest number, kind of a heartfelt number because most of them died saving other people's lives. Yeah, let's take a break and
we'll come back and run through some notable survivors. How about that.
Let's do it, jaw all right, we promise talk of notable survivors. We have a good list here, but we're just going to kind of pick and choose some of our faves. So I'll go first, if I may, yes, please. The first person I'm gonna pick is a little bebie, a nine week old baby named Milvina Dean, the youngest survivor of the Titanic, and I did a little more research on Milvina. Milvina was from England. Her parents ran a pub and decided they wanted to move to Kansas.
I think they had family in Kansas, or maybe it was misery. I can't remember one of the two, and either way, they're immigrating to the US. They sold their pub Dad bought a third class family ticket. Ironically, they were not even supposed to be on the Titanic. Like a lot of the passengers, there was a coal strike that relocated them to the Titanic, and when the incident happened, when the iceberg was struck, Dad instructed the family to go up, up, up to the lifeboats. They survived mom, brother,
and little nine week old Milvina. Sadly Dad did not survive. They went back to England afterward because they didn't really you know, just the mom and the two kids went back to what was more familiar and she ended up being the oldest living survivor just died in two thousand and nine at ninety seven years old. And one other quick thing, she did not even know she was a passenger on the Titanic until she was eight years old.
Oh wow, yeah, crazy, that's a good one, Chuck, I got one.
What you got?
There was a very famous survivor, a woman named Margaret Molly Brown and sinkable, yes, very famously dubbed the unsinkable Molly Brown, because not only did she survive the Titanic, she was instrumental in helping like organize the survivors aboard the Carpathia. She helped with language barriers. She was originally from Ireland, so she was able to speak to some
of the Irish immigrants who didn't speak English. And not only that, she raised ten thousand dollars, which is equal to about three hundred and twenty thousand dollars today among the first class passengers to help the second and third class passengers who had lost family members before the Carpathia even reached New York.
Oh wow.
Yeah. The other notable thing about her, and there's plenty of notable things, but the press dubbed her of the unsinkable Molly Brown. She never used the name Molly in her entire life. It was always Margaret.
Is that I didn't know that was even a nickname.
Yeah, the unsinkable Oh Molly for Margaret. Yeah, I didn't know that either. I thought Molly was just Molly.
Yeah, me too, Yeah or e Come on, all right, I've got a couple here that are linked. A gentleman named Carl the k Bear and a gentleman named Dick Norris Richard nor Williams the third. I mentioned these guys together because they were both tennis players, like tennis stars. I believe Carl Bert was traveling with his fiance, Helen Newsom, or maybe they weren't engaged yet, but she became his wife at some point.
Yeah.
No, they were engaged and he did help her onto a lifeboat. They were separated, but he got a spot on a different lifeboat. Richard Norris Williams, the second, was traveling with his father. They were separated, but he was rescued. I didn't see about his father.
Yeah, I didn't either.
But Williams was rescued. And again I mentioned them together because they ended up competing against one another post Titanic.
On the tennis courts.
Pretty crazy, and I'm sure some Wiseacre said something about it being like a Titanic of a match or something.
Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I've got one more. Then how about you do one more?
No, let just let's just finish up with yours.
Oh okay, this is well, Now I have to choose.
Okay.
So there's a woman named Edith Rosenbaum Russell. At the time, she was just Edith Rosenbaum. She became a fashion journalist and a fashion buyer. Had she not survived, the pantsuit might never have been invented. But what she's famous for is that she had a toy pig that she brought with her that her mother had given her while she was grieving the loss of her husband, who had died in an auto accident like a year or two before.
So she carried this toy pig with her everywhere. Edith did, and she said that she was spending time locking her trunks because just in case the ship went down, she wanted to float, or she wanted she didn't want people stealing from them. She didn't plan on getting out of the Titanic at all. But some random crew member grabbed the pig from her, from her arm and said, if you, if you, if you're not gonna save your baby, I will,
and threw the pig into one of the lifeboats. And so Edith said she she realized very clearly that that was a sign that her mother would want her to survive, because her mother had given her the pig. So she followed the pig into the lifeboat and survived. And now the pig is in the National Maritime Museum in London.
That's right, you know what, I am going to mention one more just quickly, because I thought you were going to pick this guy. Yeah, but we should mention that Bruce Ismay, who was the managing director of the White Star Line that was you know that ran the Titanic. He survived, was A guy that was in the movie was played by Jonathan Hyde, and he got a lot
of obviously got a lot of criticism. It was on one of the last lifeboats, but still people were like, hey, women and children are perishing and the guy who runs the whole show gets himself on a lifeboat. Ye, you should have prioritized other people's safety. So he didn't have the best reputation after that.
But you know what that means.
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