A Titanic Buff's Pocket Book
Written: Aug 14 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It's small in size, but not in information.
Cons: The information is not organized and separated.
The Bottom Line: This book is priced at $6.95 and worth every cent.
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| fostrmom2mny's Full Review: David Downs - Titanic Trivia |
I have always been intrigued about Titanic. I’m not one to normally research something without a reason, but with the Titanic, it has been different. When the movie came out which starred Leo De Caprio, I was of course there on its opening night. My daughter came along as well. When she was given the assignment to write a report for English, it was easy for her to choose the subject about the Titanic. We watched several movies, both on videos and documentaries from TV and I went to the bookstore and purchased the Titanic Trivia by David Downs and Ken Beck.
This report was written from the sources.
Doomed For Disaster
Could the “unsinkable” Titanic’s disaster have been predicted some 14 years before her fateful sinking? Did the Catholic Church destine the Titanic to destruction? Perhaps it was a curse from one piece of its cargo. Namely an ancient mummy of an Egyptian Princess. Could the worst peacetime sea-disaster have been avoided, or at least the losses of lives have been considerably less than the 1500+? We can all speculate, debate and research the different theories, but in the end, there is nothing any of us can do to change history.
In 1898, fourteen years before the Titanic sank; author Morgan Robertson wrote a novel named Futility. It was a fictional story about a ship named Titan that runs into an iceberg on it’s maiden voyage from England to New York City, and it sinks with many victims because it didn’t have enough life boats. The similarities between the book and the Titanic are eerily close. The book’s Titan sinks in the month of April. The Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40P.M. April 14, 1912. It crashed to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at a speed estimated to be between 25 to 30mph at 2:20A.M. on April 15,1912. The book’s Titan was 800’ in length, where the Titanic was 882’ in length. The Titan had 2000 passengers, and the Titanic had 2200 passengers on board.
A number of people at the shipyard in Belfast, Ireland where the Titanic was built, swore the ship was doomed because of the ship’s hull number. It was 390904. Many of the Catholic workers believed that the mirror image of the hull’s number read the words “NO POPE.” They felt that this was a bad omen and it even slowed the construction till the shipyard hired enough workers to work 10-hour shifts, 24 hours around the clock.
The Titanic’s “true” demise was published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other numerous reputable publications. They said the sinking was due to the curse of an Egyptian Princess’ mummy that was part of the Titanic’s cargo. In interviews with surviving passengers of the Titanic, it was revealed in vivid detail about a passenger, William T. Stead telling passengers about an American collector who was having the mummy of an Egyptian Princess from Amen_Ra transported on board from a museum in Britain to America. He went on to tell that it was cursed, as most mummies are believed to be. William T. Stead did not survive the sinking but it was rumored that the mummy was put in a lifeboat after the collector bribed the crew.
The true reasons behind the sinking could more than likely than not be the number of human errors and haughtiness from the Chairman of the Board to the White Lines, Bruce Ismay. If the ship had only had more than it’s 20 life boats, if the undersized rudder had been larger to make it easier to maneuver the ship better, as well as her “new and improved” propellers been the “old” fashioned style, perhaps the crew could have avoided the iceberg sooner. If the lookout crew had their binoculars, they would surely have seen the iceberg sooner. It was revealed in later years, that the missing binoculars were indeed in storage box where they were kept, only the key to the box had been misplaced. If the iceberg warnings had ALL been taken to the captain (the last warnings were directly from other ships who were also maneuvering in the same area as the Titanic) and if the captain would have heeded them and slowed down his speed, instead of ignoring the ones that he had received and ordered full speed ahead, perhaps the ship would have been moving at a speed that the crew could have avoided the iceberg once it was sited. Perhaps if Bruce Ismay hadn’t been so hell bent on breaking the Olympic’s record crossing the Atlantic, Captain Smith may have not ordered the full speed ahead. If only the Californian had responded to the Titanic’s flares, it would have reached the Titanic in plenty of time to rescue hundreds more lives that were instead lost. If the wireless operator of the Titanic had accepted help from a German owned ocean-liner (White Star’s competition) instead of telling them that the Titanic need no assistance from them, to be on their way. The German ocean-liner was much closer than the Cerpathia, which was 58 miles away.
A person can only speculate whether the sinking of the Titanic was predicted 14 years ahead of time, or if it was doomed by the Catholic Church, or if it was cursed by an Egyptian mummy. No matter how you look at it, human error was a huge factor in this disaster. The Atlantic doesn’t give up ghosts buried two miles below the ocean’s surface, very easily. One thousand three hundred twenty nine men; one hundred nine women; and fifty-three children lost their lives on that fateful night. Titanic, the unsinkable ship’s maiden voyage lasted 4 days, and 17 hours. Her final resting-place was located in 1985 by Robert Ballard who said, “To me, this is hallowed ground. It really is a special place. It’s a devastated piece of wreckage. You’ll never raise it. You’ll never want to do anything but put a wreath on it-which is what we did.”
Titanic Trivia book is a little larger than pocket sized which makes it easy to carry and keep up with. It is packed with 127 pages of Titanic Trivia, which includes a great many details about the ship’s construction, accessories and passengers. I would recommend this book for any serious Titanic buff, or for anyone that is need of details for a report. I can’t say that it would be a book that I would want to read for pure enjoyment, since most of the trivia is written in short snippets, such as written like this.
Fact # 92 There were 13 honeymoon couples, including eight traveling first class. Among the first class newly weds were Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, John and Nelle Snyder, Daniel and Mary Marvin. Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Marvin lost their husband when the Titanic sank.
Fact #57 The Titanic was 11 stories high and nearly four city blocks long.
For anyone who would be interested in researching more info about the Titanic, here is a link to a website that has a lot of information including the passenger list of names.
Encyclopedia Titanica
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/index.html
Another information site is here. It explains and describes the Orlando exhibit, Titanic, The Ship Of Dreams
Titanic, the Exhibit
http://www.disboards.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=601526#post601526
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Gerri Mullendore
Location: Choctaw, OK
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I'm a foster mom for children with disabilities. I'm a PROUD American!
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