TITANIC: Amazing and Extraordinary Facts

Among the bright lights and comfortable surroundings, the hustle and bustle of embarkation and the petty dramas and excitements of exploring a new ship, how many could have foreseen that in a little over 100 hours' time three quarters of their number would be dead and adrift on the freezing Atlantic, and the world's largest moving object - the apotheosis of human engineering achievement, wrought in iron and crewed by master mariners - would like broken up in stone cold pitch darkness 12,000 feet down on the sea bed, never to reach her destination a thousand miles away? It is a story with all the elements of high drama, tragedy, heroism, hubris, humanity and at times grim comedy - at every stage the Titanic's story is a highly sensory tale. Discover which novel predicted the disaster a whole 14 years before the maiden voyage, how a bottle of whiskey saved one of the crew and was a fire burning within the ship the real cause of its downfall? Find the answers to many amazing aspects in this absorbing collection of stories and trivia from stowaways to kidnapping, conspiracy theories and wreckage. The story travels from Belfast, Liverpool, Southampton, America and the characters of Captain Smith, Chief Officer Henry Wilde, John Jacob Astor IV, bedroom steward Henry Etches and stories from steerage to dressing Guggenheim. And stories of the Carpathia to the rescue, Cunard collecting the casualties, the tragic inactivity of the Californian, US and British enquiries, the indomitable Violet Jessop to memorabilia and Titanic in the cinema, it is a story of tragedy, tourism and trade. 144pp, line art.