Titanic 100th Anniversary
For 100 years we’ve been fascinated by the Titanic story. At the time of her launch in 1912 she was the largest passenger steamship in the world, designed by top-drawer engineers and featuring some of the most advanced technologies and safety features of the time.
And so it was, among much pomp and circumstance, that the Titanic set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 10th April 1912. Four days later she hit an iceberg, over 350 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Despite all her technology and safety measures, it took less than three hours for her to surrender to the icy Atlantic Ocean, with the loss of 1,517 lives.
The sinking of the ship on her maiden voyage, the terrible loss of life and the media interest in her famous victims, the legends of the disaster, the changes in maritime law and the discovery of the wreck in 1985 have all contributed to the enduring interest of the Titanic.
This interest in the history of the Titanic was further reignited with James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, ‘Titanic’. And with scientists now predicting the wreck’s body will finally sink to the ocean’s bed within 50 years, it’s a curiosity that’s never been greater.
To help commemorate the Titanic 100th anniversary, two new Titanic books have been launched. Featuring reprints of contemporaneous newspaper reports, they’re full of Titanic facts and pictures that provide a blow-by-blow account of the liner’s fateful voyage.