One of the worst maritime disasters in history. The British luxury liner Titanic (46,000 gross tons) of the White Star Line, on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City, struck an iceberg about 153 km (about 95 mi) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland just before midnight on April 14, 1912. Of the more than 2220 persons aboard, about 1513 died, including the American millionaires John Jacob Astor , Benjamin Guggenheim, and Isidor Straus.

The ship had been proclaimed unsinkable because of its 16 watertight compartments, but the iceberg Punctured five of them, one more than had been considered possible in any accident, and the Titanic sank in less than three hours. Subsequent investigations found that the ship had been steaming too fast in dangerous waters, that lifeboat space had been provided for only about half of the passengers and crew, and that the Californian, close to the scene, had not come to the rescue because its radio operator was off duty and asleep. These findings led to many reforms, such as lifeboat space for every person on a ship, lifeboat drills, the maintenance of a full-time radio watch while at sea, and an international ice patrol.

The sinking of the Titanic has been the subject of several books and films , but not until September 1985 was the actual wreck found and the area photographed, by a joint French-U.S. expedition, through the use of robot submersibles equipped with television cameras . In July 1986 the U.S. researchers explored the Titanic in the three-person Alvin submersible; they took pictures of the interior, but recovered no artifacts. The following year a controversial French salvage effort retrieved dishes, jewels, currency, and other artifacts, which were exhibited in Paris in September 1987.

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