21 curious facts about the sinking of the Titanic

On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic sank within hours of colliding with a giant iceberg. Many films have since been made to tell the story of the “shipwreck” ship that failed to complete even its maiden voyage.

Some of the scenes in the movies were based on real facts and you might not even imagine. Check out some of the real curiosities about Titanic:

1. It took the Titanic two hours and forty minutes to sink completely after colliding with the iceberg.

2. If only four compartments of the Titanic filled with water, the ship would not sink, but six of them were flooded.

3. Thirteen couples were celebrating their honeymoon aboard the vessel.

4. The wreckage of the ship was not found until 73 years later, in 1985, about 600 km off the coast of Newfoundland and almost 4 km below sea level.

5. There was a Japanese survivor of the Titanic, but when he returned to his homeland he was called a coward because he should have died with the other passengers.

6. Many of the lifeboats were not at full capacity on board. If they were, it would be possible to save 53.4% ​​of the passengers, but only 31.6% of them survived.

7. Of the nine dogs on board, only two survived, one Pomeranian lulu and one Pekingese.

8. James Cameron's film based on the tragedy had a higher production cost than the construction of the vessel.

9. There was emergency training scheduled with the passengers on the same date the ship sank, but the captain for some reason decided to cancel. If the scheduled training had really taken place, probably more people would have been saved.

10. In the images of the ship you can see four chimneys, but only three of them actually worked. The fourth chimney was merely decorative.

11. The Titanic was the only ocean liner in history that sank because of an iceberg.

12. It is estimated that the iceberg that caused the Titanic disaster in 1912 began to form in 1000 BC.

13. If the iceberg warning came at least 30 seconds earlier, it would have been possible to avoid the collision.

14. As in the movie, the ship's musicians actually continued playing for more than two hours as the ship sank in an attempt to calm the passengers.

15. The water temperature reached -2 ​​° C and most people could not survive more than 15 minutes due to hypothermia.

16. Charles Joughin worked in the ship's kitchen and managed to survive in the water for two hours in freezing temperatures because he had drunk too much whiskey before the wreck, which kept his body warm long enough for rescue.

17. The closest vessel to the Titanic that night was the SS Californian, but the ship failed to answer the rescue calls. By the time the crew finally received the distress messages, Carpathia had rescued the survivors. If the Californian had promptly responded to the distress calls, more people would have survived.

18. Daniel Buckley was one of the survivors, but was only able to get off a boat that would be a priority for women and children because one of the passengers threw a shawl over his head and he managed to pretend that he was the opposite gender.

19. The Titanic's crew kept the ship at full speed even after receiving information about icebergs in the area.

20. There were only 20 lifeboats aboard the ship, but the Titanic was capable of carrying up to 64 and the initial plan was for it to carry 48. The number was reduced to make the deck look unorganized.

21. The last survivor of the Titanic, Millvina Dean, died on May 31, 2009. She was only nine weeks old when the Titanic sank.