Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm to
Speaker 1: Blinded Chuck Reporting and I'm fair. And there was a
Speaker 1: very important historical anniversary earlier this year that we just
Speaker 1: couldn't let go by without commemorating, especially since it's one
Speaker 1: our listeners are still really intrigued by. And that's the
Speaker 1: one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the now legendary
Speaker 1: passenger liner, the RMS Titanic, on April fourteenth, nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: after it collided with an iceberg during its maiden voyage
Speaker 1: from the UK to New York City. And it was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest non wartime maritime disasters ever. More
Speaker 1: than fift undred people died, and so it really continues
Speaker 1: to haunt people and fascinate researchers who are still examining
Speaker 1: artifacts and unraveling the stories of the people who traveled
Speaker 1: on this ill fated ship. And so of course there
Speaker 1: was a lot of coverage because of all that fascination,
Speaker 1: even some news which we're going to be discussing in
Speaker 1: a bit and events to commemorate this anniversary, to including
Speaker 1: a memorial cruise aboard the MS Memoral Cruise ship which
Speaker 1: retraced the Titanic's exact route and gathered on the deck
Speaker 1: at eleven forty pm on April fourteenth, which was the
Speaker 1: time the Titanic hit the iceberg a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: and held a memorial service, and according to the Daily Mail,
Speaker 1: about fifty of the people who were aboard this memorial
Speaker 1: cruise had a direct family connection to the Titanic, including
Speaker 1: relatives of the ship's doctor and relatives of some of
Speaker 1: the passengers. There was also the presentation of five bronze
Speaker 1: plaques which includes all the names of the dead from
Speaker 1: all the classes aboard the ship, first, second, and third class.
Speaker 1: And it's said to be the first time that all
Speaker 1: of these people are included together and one memorial. That
Speaker 1: point was really striking to me that it took a
Speaker 1: hundred years for that to happen. It's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: That is surprising, especially since there have been several memorials
Speaker 1: and remembrances, and this is our own sort of memorial
Speaker 1: that we have here today to the Titanic sinking. It's
Speaker 1: another look at a classic episode of Stuffy Miston History
Speaker 1: Class from two thousand eight on the Titanic by Candice
Speaker 1: and Jane. So we're gonna check that out first and
Speaker 1: then talk a little bit more about it afterwards. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined
Speaker 1: by staff writer Jane McGrath. Jane, I don't think that
Speaker 1: there's anything as big and posh and attention catching in
Speaker 1: the annals of naval history as the Titanic. That was true,
Speaker 1: I don't think many people would not have. I guess
Speaker 1: I should say a marine history rather than naval history.
Speaker 1: So it was a seagoing vessel and it was almost
Speaker 1: like a hotel on the water. And the idea behind
Speaker 1: it was precisely that j Bruce is May and Lord
Speaker 1: Pierie of Harlem and Wolf shipbuilders. They were at dinner
Speaker 1: one night and they were talking about the Cunard lines
Speaker 1: newest liners, the Mauritania and Lusitania, and they said to themselves,
Speaker 1: we can make one or three. Even with their plan,
Speaker 1: they were gonna have a triumvirate of ships that were
Speaker 1: even bigger and better, the Olympic, the Gigantic and the Titanic.
Speaker 1: That's right. And they wanted to make these not only fast,
Speaker 1: so like the Kuniard line, but but luxurious and attractive
Speaker 1: for for the you know, the aristocratic passengers to spend
Speaker 1: you know, a pretty penny to go on exactly the
Speaker 1: idea of being that the more comfortable and luxurious the ship,
Speaker 1: the longer distance people would be willing to travel. And
Speaker 1: so they weren't just selling you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: dollars worth of tickets to people. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: first class ticket than in today's dollars is equivalent to
Speaker 1: about forty three thousand dollars to about eighty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which is a ton of money. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: even know people who spend that on airfare, you know,
Speaker 1: flying halfway across the world. Maybe you do, if you do,
Speaker 1: write me because I want to travel with you. So
Speaker 1: then what made the Titanic so special? Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because it was so incredibly lush, and you know, the
Speaker 1: first class passengers, you know, they were they were used
Speaker 1: to being treated nicely, but not as nicely as on
Speaker 1: this as on this ship, I mean they had such
Speaker 1: Uh they had a squash court, I think, and that
Speaker 1: you mentioned in the article, and uh there's gem there
Speaker 1: were Turkish bad Yeah, and these things are amenities that
Speaker 1: people had to pay a little bit extra for. But
Speaker 1: you bring up an important point about the first class
Speaker 1: and what they had access to. And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: all of you know this, but there were three distinct
Speaker 1: classes on board the Titanic, first, second, and steerage, and
Speaker 1: so it's really important to sort of go ahead in
Speaker 1: your mind as you're picturing the Titanic and that I
Speaker 1: think the nine different deck levels of it, that it
Speaker 1: was very stratified. There were places that first class were
Speaker 1: permitted to go. I mean, they could go anywhere they wanted,
Speaker 1: really because they paid that much, but they weren't going
Speaker 1: to wander down to steerage cabins. But then the third
Speaker 1: class was pretty much restricted to the bottom of about
Speaker 1: second class sort of in the middle. And this was
Speaker 1: such a gigantic ship that it required some really special
Speaker 1: engineering to make it go. And I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 1: to you. I'm no engineer. I'm not going to profess
Speaker 1: to know everything about horsepower, etcetera, etcetera. But I do
Speaker 1: know that it had two giant engines that were about
Speaker 1: four stories tall, and these two three blade propellers that
Speaker 1: were like twenty three ft across, and so that's big,
Speaker 1: and it enabled the ship to go about twenty four
Speaker 1: knots and that may sound slow to us today, but
Speaker 1: back then it was really fast, that's true. And they
Speaker 1: put it in the running against the Junior Line, which
Speaker 1: was the ships that they wanted to compete against, and
Speaker 1: it was faster than them. But it's sort of broke
Speaker 1: down in the process. But we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned with the class distinctions,
Speaker 1: you know that might strike our modern sensibilities, is classism,
Speaker 1: which I yeah, it is. But it's interesting to notice
Speaker 1: that UM the third Class were even treated, maybe even
Speaker 1: better than other ships UM of the time because they
Speaker 1: had their own enclosed rooms and that was kind of
Speaker 1: a luxury in itself. It was a lot of them
Speaker 1: didn't even have that where they were coming from. And
Speaker 1: the White Star Line, which was the manufacturer of these
Speaker 1: three ships, knew that many of the Steerage members were
Speaker 1: European immigrants who were going to New York to start
Speaker 1: a new life, and they really sort of approached this
Speaker 1: with a delicate sensibility and they wanted to make this
Speaker 1: a very special and memorable passage for them. And to
Speaker 1: that end, the quarters they had aboard the Titanic were
Speaker 1: so much nicer than anything they would have seen in
Speaker 1: any other ship. For instance, there were real mattresses, whereas
Speaker 1: on other ships Steerage would have had straw filled sacks
Speaker 1: to sleep on. Now that's not to say that it
Speaker 1: compared with the private and semi private baths of the
Speaker 1: upper class ducks, but I think that there was sort
Speaker 1: of a continuous design and feeling that pervaded the entirity
Speaker 1: of the ship. But it wasn't just the third class
Speaker 1: it had top of the line, it was everyone. That's true.
Speaker 1: If you look at the on on and everything like
Speaker 1: they had this the whole ship had the sort of
Speaker 1: airy designed to it, with palm trees. Everything was lush,
Speaker 1: and you know, they wanted to promote this this luxurious
Speaker 1: atmosphere so much that if you look at like the decks,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to clutter them up too much with
Speaker 1: even safety equipment for instance. They yes, so we have
Speaker 1: these wide open swaths of gleaming with decks. And Thomas Andrews,
Speaker 1: who was the ship's designer, he designed the ship to
Speaker 1: be unsinkable. And it's interesting too. I mean you look
Speaker 1: at both the engineers and the passengers aboard were pretty confident.
Speaker 1: Um just the sheer size of the Titanic. It was
Speaker 1: so gigantic that they felt really comfortable there that you know,
Speaker 1: it was a safe ride, sort of like when you're
Speaker 1: an evolved station wagon. Yeah, nothing, nothing can harm you.
Speaker 1: It's just so large. And it wasn't just the size
Speaker 1: of the ship that made people think it was unsinkable.
Speaker 1: The ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, designed watertight doors to draw
Speaker 1: down between each of the sixteen compartments and the bottom
Speaker 1: of the ship, the idea being that if something happened
Speaker 1: to the ship, up to three of those compartments could
Speaker 1: flood and the ship wouldn't sink, and even in a stretch,
Speaker 1: four could take on from water and the ship would
Speaker 1: still stay afloats. And they'll make me feel pretty secure,
Speaker 1: I mean, And we go back to the idea that
Speaker 1: they didn't have a lot of safety equipment on the decks,
Speaker 1: and that leads me to my question actually that I
Speaker 1: have for you, is that is it true? A lot
Speaker 1: of people say that if they did have enough lifeboats,
Speaker 1: they would have been able to save a lot more
Speaker 1: people from the sinking. That sadly is fiction. Really Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because that's a point that people really
Speaker 1: harp on and attached to it, that there were not
Speaker 1: enough life boats to save everyone on the Titanic. I
Speaker 1: think people really latch onto this idea because we would
Speaker 1: like to think that history could be changed if there
Speaker 1: were more precautions. But the fact of the matter is,
Speaker 1: there were so many things that went wrong with the
Speaker 1: Titanic even before I picked up passengers that I think
Speaker 1: it was doomed to sink from the start. That's right,
Speaker 1: even if you look at for a bay is the
Speaker 1: construction of it. I mean people say that, um, the
Speaker 1: constructors used substandard iron even in in the materials to
Speaker 1: you to make to make the ship and uh, and
Speaker 1: even the the technology, the Marconi wireless telegraphy, it was
Speaker 1: seen as maybe two cutting inge because a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there on the boats they didn't know how
Speaker 1: to use it necessarily or to to decipher it right.
Speaker 1: So when the Titanic was thinking and it sent out
Speaker 1: it's distress called people couldn't interpret it. It was like
Speaker 1: speaking a totally different language. And there's some information out
Speaker 1: there about there not being enough rivets and the ship
Speaker 1: or the rivets weren't tightened properly, and we know for
Speaker 1: a fact that it only underwent about six or seven
Speaker 1: hours worth of testing, and I think it turned once
Speaker 1: or twice, but it was never even sailed at its
Speaker 1: top speed. And what's more, a lot of the crew
Speaker 1: didn't get on board until an hour or stay before
Speaker 1: the passengers did, and they weren't even told what their
Speaker 1: jobs were until after they got on the ship. So
Speaker 1: how can you be a proper lookout for a ship
Speaker 1: when you haven't been trained in that post? That sure,
Speaker 1: it doesn't leave a lot of time for training. And
Speaker 1: also if you look at the design of the ship,
Speaker 1: even um I read that the rudder was actually kind
Speaker 1: of an old fashioned design and it was smaller than
Speaker 1: the even the competition's rudders, and so this made it
Speaker 1: so the ship itself a little less maneuverable, and they
Speaker 1: couldn't shift out of an emergency situation as fast as
Speaker 1: they should have. So when you have something that large,
Speaker 1: it's like if you're you're driving an RV and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're you're nearing a stop sign. You
Speaker 1: need to know ahead of time that you need to
Speaker 1: go ahead and start breaking slowly. You can't just slam
Speaker 1: on the brakes and expect things do okay. It's not
Speaker 1: like you know, my idioty Honda Civic, where I have
Speaker 1: time to do that. The Titanic was the same way.
Speaker 1: If they saw something in the water that they needed
Speaker 1: to avoid um and Iceberg, they had to think about
Speaker 1: it a couple of miles ahead. And the same goes
Speaker 1: for turning. You still need you know, a bigger radius
Speaker 1: to turn something that large. And one of my favorite
Speaker 1: points about how ill prepared the Titanic was for this voyage,
Speaker 1: and it's just max of conspiracy, is that JP Morgan
Speaker 1: was one of the big financial backers, and there's some
Speaker 1: recent evidence lightly that he kept encouraging the shipbuilders to
Speaker 1: use cheaper and cheaper materials because he wanted as much
Speaker 1: bang for his buck as he could get. Scandalous scandalous. Well,
Speaker 1: here's where it gets even juiced here. He was supposed
Speaker 1: to be on the maiden voyage and then just a
Speaker 1: couple of hours beforehand, Summa business came up and he
Speaker 1: didn't ride. It's a little suspicious, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: But all that aside back to the lifeboats in question.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you guys some numbers just so
Speaker 1: you can help visualize it. And I wanted to clarify
Speaker 1: too that there are so many numbers out there when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Titanic, because Parliament conducted an inquiry
Speaker 1: since it sets sail from England, but the US Senate
Speaker 1: also conducted an inquiry. And that may sound kind of funny,
Speaker 1: and it kind of is. One of the senators, Senator
Speaker 1: William Smith, knew the captain of the Titanic, John Smith,
Speaker 1: and he'd sailed with him before and thought, he said,
Speaker 1: to get captain, how could this happened? And so the
Speaker 1: Senate got involved to again kind of marking conspiratorial. So
Speaker 1: did the different investigations come up with different different results? No,
Speaker 1: just about the same thing, but the numbers are a
Speaker 1: little bit different. So we know that there were enough
Speaker 1: lifeboats to hold one thousand, one seventy six passengers, and
Speaker 1: that's only if they were filled to capacity. So on
Speaker 1: board again numbers from the U. S Senate, we know
Speaker 1: there were two thousand people and eight crew members. So
Speaker 1: even if you're doing the math that fast, you know
Speaker 1: that's not enough if you can't get all those people
Speaker 1: into boats, and the reason why they had so few
Speaker 1: lifeboats on board sixteen is that the Board of Trade
Speaker 1: was the governing body that set the rules for ocean
Speaker 1: liners at this time, and the number of requisite lifeboats
Speaker 1: for ships up to ten thousand tons was sixteen. Well,
Speaker 1: the Titanic was forty five thousand tons, but no one
Speaker 1: had bothered to sit down and do the math and say,
Speaker 1: we need this many more lifeboats to combate that of friends.
Speaker 1: So the Board of Trades regulations sort of went up
Speaker 1: to it was sort of an old fashioned maximum. They
Speaker 1: weren't sort of expecting something as big as a Titanic
Speaker 1: needing the regulation exactly. And you hit on the point earlier, Jane,
Speaker 1: when you were talking about not wanting to clutter up
Speaker 1: the decks. I think that Titanics builders and designers conveniently
Speaker 1: misinterpreted the guidelines. They could have filled in the number
Speaker 1: they needed, but they didn't because they wanted their decks
Speaker 1: to look shiny and open and clean. But okay, so
Speaker 1: you asked, would everyone have been saved, that there have
Speaker 1: been enough life But it didn't matter now, not really,
Speaker 1: because when I was talking about how inefficient the crew
Speaker 1: was and how ill prepared they were, and how little
Speaker 1: testing this ship had undergone. I think vainly practice lowering
Speaker 1: what two to four lifeboats? Is that right? I think?
Speaker 1: I think I remember hearing those that. So they didn't
Speaker 1: have an accurate time estimation for how long it would
Speaker 1: take to get that many people ever board. And if
Speaker 1: you you look at the survivors talk about it, you'll
Speaker 1: notice that not even all of the lifeboats, they weren't
Speaker 1: filled to capacity, some of them, and that's pretty scandalous. Um.
Speaker 1: There was one survivor who wrote um that the passengers
Speaker 1: saw that these loath boats would have to take a
Speaker 1: fifty ft drop, and I kind of scared them, and
Speaker 1: they thought, well, I'm gonna stick on the unsinkable Titanic.
Speaker 1: You guys can go ahead. And this one survivor claims
Speaker 1: that he asked to be on this this on on
Speaker 1: filled lifeboat, and they said women and children first, see
Speaker 1: you later, and they lowered the boat. And so it's
Speaker 1: a kind of testament to they didn't really know what
Speaker 1: they were doing when they were lowering these boats. No
Speaker 1: one did. And there were two evacuations on either side
Speaker 1: of the ship, and one of the people conducting the
Speaker 1: investigation on one side said women and children. First, the
Speaker 1: guy on the other side was letting anyone who could
Speaker 1: get in get in. But when we say anyone, we
Speaker 1: mean first class and then second class. Third class wasn't
Speaker 1: even told that the ship was sinking until well after
Speaker 1: the fact. And it was such a quiet disaster when
Speaker 1: the ship scraped the iceberg. It happened so quickly and
Speaker 1: so quietly that no one really realized and damage had
Speaker 1: been done until Thomas Andrews inspected and said, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: certain it's going to sink. And it's sort of scary
Speaker 1: to think about the panic that must have ensued down
Speaker 1: in the steerage decks because even if people saw water
Speaker 1: filling up their cabins, like we said, they weren't allowed
Speaker 1: just free room over the ship like the other class
Speaker 1: passengers were. Can you imagine them just getting lost in
Speaker 1: the bottom as you know, imagine they'd be riots and
Speaker 1: and you know, fights all over the place. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was, I mean, it was essentially struggle to survive.
Speaker 1: And later on when White Star Line sent out rescue
Speaker 1: craft to search for the bodies or any survivors, they
Speaker 1: got really confused because they saw so many corpses wearing
Speaker 1: garments of first class passengers, but essentially crew and steerage
Speaker 1: had raided the cabins and put on whatever they could
Speaker 1: to stay warm. It's terrible. It sounds like they went
Speaker 1: through a lot of havoc and panic the few moments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine how scary it was. And the
Speaker 1: recovery efforts for disasters too. I mean, when the news
Speaker 1: broke that the Titanic had sunk, the world was stunned.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was the unsinkable ship, and I think
Speaker 1: it took nearly a week to even compile a list
Speaker 1: of all the survivors and all that deceased. So and
Speaker 1: it sort of captures the imagination even to today. I mean,
Speaker 1: people are obsessed with knowing what actually happened, you know,
Speaker 1: um people they have deferring historical accounts, Who's to blame,
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty intense debate all around the board.
Speaker 1: And people are obsessed with the story of the titan
Speaker 1: The Titanic. Yeah, and that's because there were so many
Speaker 1: passengers on board and everyone had a different story, and
Speaker 1: everyone had a different eye witness account. There are people
Speaker 1: who said that the ship broke in half before you saying.
Speaker 1: There are people who didn't report that. And later on
Speaker 1: I think people called it a litigation nightmare because, like
Speaker 1: we said, Parliament and the Senate conducted investigations, but any
Speaker 1: lawsuits that were brought on the White Star line were
Speaker 1: brought on by families the individual passengers for either people
Speaker 1: lost or property lost. And how I mean, how could
Speaker 1: you even prove anything with all the different testimonies. That's right?
Speaker 1: And one, uh, one scandal that people disagree on, uh
Speaker 1: is about the chairman and managing director of the Star
Speaker 1: the White Star is that it the Star the White
Speaker 1: Star lying. His name is bruce' is Mays, as you said,
Speaker 1: and he actually jumped on one of these not quite
Speaker 1: filled lifeboats, and um, people say, oh, what a coward,
Speaker 1: like he took someone else's space when really like it
Speaker 1: would not have been taken by by another person. At
Speaker 1: least some organizations like the Titanic Crostoricals Society tried to
Speaker 1: defend him and say, like he had a wife and
Speaker 1: kids and no one else was around, and he just
Speaker 1: took his opportunity to save his life and otherwise he
Speaker 1: just would have been, you know, sunk with the ship.
Speaker 1: And it was sad because after he he survived, and
Speaker 1: after he got to America he was sort of ridiculed
Speaker 1: by uh like William Randolph Hurst and his newspapers and
Speaker 1: and England sort of they accepted him, but America he
Speaker 1: got maligned. I'm sure he did. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the other two arguably other important figures on board
Speaker 1: from like Thomas the Andrews, the ships just miner and
Speaker 1: then the captain of the ship, Captain Smith, they both
Speaker 1: sort of quietly waited on board and went down with
Speaker 1: the ship. And Thomas Andrews in particular. I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you think about James Cameron's Titanic, that really poignant
Speaker 1: scene where he says, I wish I could have builty
Speaker 1: a better ship ms Rose, that really is sort of
Speaker 1: how it happened. That was where is necessarily, but he
Speaker 1: didn't put on a life vest and he sat in
Speaker 1: one of the first class lounges and just quietly waited.
Speaker 1: And it's just so eerie even today if you go
Speaker 1: and you look at pictures of artifacts that have been
Speaker 1: um like photographed underneath the surface of the water, or
Speaker 1: artifacts that have been brought up like one of the
Speaker 1: most haunting things. I thought that, um, there's a traveling
Speaker 1: Titanic exhibit called Titanic Aquatic, and you can see all
Speaker 1: these things that r M. S. Titanic has recovered, that
Speaker 1: particular society and they have sole ownership over the shipwreck.
Speaker 1: And one of them, it's just um. It was a
Speaker 1: China hutch that went down and it was made of
Speaker 1: wood and it had these porcelain of gratten dishes in it.
Speaker 1: And over time the wood from the China cabinet disintegrated,
Speaker 1: but the o Grattan dishes were left perfectly stacked and
Speaker 1: neat Little Rose. And that's how they are right now
Speaker 1: and the display they're stacked and neat Little Rose. And
Speaker 1: it's so creepy. That is fascinating because like the rest
Speaker 1: of the Titanic and you just see like even the
Speaker 1: exterior of the ship underwater. It's it's really creepy to
Speaker 1: see because of what what the pressure and the water
Speaker 1: has done to it. Um. But to see something that
Speaker 1: has survived that, that's really weird. It is and I
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. Like if you see pictures,
Speaker 1: haven't you see this sort of like weird seaweed things
Speaker 1: sort of waving the water off the ship's rail. Archaeologists
Speaker 1: have a word for them. They're called rusticles because essentially
Speaker 1: all these little tiny microbes underwater are just feasting on
Speaker 1: the ship, and they suspect that in another I think,
Speaker 1: like fifty to ninety years time, the ship is just
Speaker 1: going to collapse and implode in on itself and it's
Speaker 1: going to be over. So there's a lot of argument
Speaker 1: right now about whether or not we should actually raise
Speaker 1: what's left of the hall. That's really interesting because I mean,
Speaker 1: as someone who's fascinated with the story, I of course
Speaker 1: like I want to be in supportive like bring it up,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to see such an interesting artifact
Speaker 1: of history destroyed just by you know, nature, And I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to take a sham be on the
Speaker 1: other side, really, and not even just to play Devil's advocate.
Speaker 1: I really feel that that's where it belongs. Because even
Speaker 1: in the recovery efforts of of those bodies, not all
Speaker 1: of them are brought up, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: steerage and crew members that were recovered, their bodies were
Speaker 1: actually tied to iron rods and thrown beneath the water,
Speaker 1: so they were in essence buried at sea. And so
Speaker 1: I think that you know that's where the ship belongs
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, that's true. So it's always interesting to
Speaker 1: revisit a past topic, especially when it's one that we
Speaker 1: still get requests for all your time I have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think since the beginning of this year, we've been
Speaker 1: hearing what are you going to do for the hundred
Speaker 1: of the anniversary? You guys should do a Titanic episode,
Speaker 1: and we've all we said, well, we've got one in
Speaker 1: our archives. But there is some new information to this story.
Speaker 1: It's worth an update. Yeah, there is some recent news
Speaker 1: to this, and I feel like we're always bringing that
Speaker 1: up when we do these update podcasts. But we did
Speaker 1: mention the news and the intro to this podcast, and
Speaker 1: so we should deliver on it now. It was very
Speaker 1: conveniently time to the anniversary, and it involves newly released
Speaker 1: photos that were taken in two thousand four during an
Speaker 1: expedition by Titanic reck discoverer Robert Ballard. They were originally
Speaker 1: featured in Ballard's book about the expedition, but they were
Speaker 1: cropped at the time when they were shown there. So
Speaker 1: this was the first time that the uncropped versions of
Speaker 1: the photos were released, and they show a coat and
Speaker 1: boots line next to each other on the ocean floor
Speaker 1: at the shipwreck sites actually kind of poignant. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: James Decaldo, who is the director of Maritime Heritage at
Speaker 1: the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration Noah, told the Daily Mail, quote,
Speaker 1: these are not shoes that fell out neatly from somebody's back,
Speaker 1: right next to each other. And he went on to
Speaker 1: say that the way these items are laid out into
Speaker 1: the coach and the shoes right next to each other
Speaker 1: makes a quote compelling case that it is where quote
Speaker 1: someone has come to rest. Uh So, Yeah, you probably
Speaker 1: saw a lot of headlines about that recently. And Delgado
Speaker 1: was the chief scientists on a expedition that mapped the
Speaker 1: entire wreck site, and he believes that these items do
Speaker 1: point to the probable presence of human remains buried under
Speaker 1: the sediment in that spot, and um so there could
Speaker 1: continue to be new research and this could continue to
Speaker 1: add insight to the stories of the people who were
Speaker 1: lost aboard the wreck. He also said that this find
Speaker 1: or this you know, this photo, they really points to
Speaker 1: the need to preserve the wreck site, which has been
Speaker 1: hard to do since it's an international waters although the
Speaker 1: site did come under UNESCO protection this year, so that's
Speaker 1: good news. We also have some other random Titanic news
Speaker 1: of a more romantic nature than human remains, if if
Speaker 1: that strikes your fancy a little better. It's also interesting,
Speaker 1: especially for those who are fans of James Cameron's Titanic movie.
Speaker 1: In April, Discovery News published an article about the real
Speaker 1: Titanic love Story, which discusses the life of an Italian
Speaker 1: immigrant named Emilio Portolupi, who might have provided part of
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the character of Jack Dawson and Cameron's movie.
Speaker 1: And incidentally, there is a grave for an actual Jay
Speaker 1: douphin which people have speculated about. I mean, you can imagine.
Speaker 1: But Porta Loupe's story is apparently quite similar to the
Speaker 1: story of Dawson's character in the movie, and particularly in
Speaker 1: the love department. So Porta Loupi, who was said to
Speaker 1: be a well respected Stonemason who had immigrated to America
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh three, was on his way back from
Speaker 1: a visit back home to Italy when he ended up
Speaker 1: totally by chance, on the Titanic. He was originally supposed
Speaker 1: to have been on an other ship the Oceanic too.
Speaker 1: How he got on the Titanic is sort of the
Speaker 1: crux of the matter. He was invited aboard the ship
Speaker 1: by the Asters, a famous wealthy American couple. John Astor
Speaker 1: the fourth was a millionaire from one of America's wealthiest families,
Speaker 1: and the couple apparently wanted wanted Porta Loupe to work
Speaker 1: for them, wanted him to use his stonemasonry skills at
Speaker 1: their villa in Newport, Rhode Island. Yeah, they were on
Speaker 1: their way back from vacation in Egypt, I guess, and
Speaker 1: they were kind of like, hey, hop on their honeymoon,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. And he traveled first class as the couple's
Speaker 1: guest and was invited to dinner with other first class
Speaker 1: passengers the night the iceberg hit the ship, and he
Speaker 1: went to bed that night and woke up when the
Speaker 1: ship hit the iceberg thinking that they had reached New York.
Speaker 1: So some other details that might kind of fall in
Speaker 1: line with what you know from the movie. But port
Speaker 1: Loupi had Or developed a crush on Astor's young beautiful wife,
Speaker 1: Madeline Talmadge Aster, but no one really knows the full
Speaker 1: extent of their relationship. We know about the crush, though, because,
Speaker 1: unlike the movie character he said to have inspired, poor
Speaker 1: Lupie survived the Titanic sinking and lived to the ripe
Speaker 1: old age of seventy three. He died in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: and no one really knows for sure how he survived, though,
Speaker 1: because he gave different versions of his story sure did.
Speaker 1: In In one, he put on a life belt and
Speaker 1: jumped fifty feet into the water, where he swam to
Speaker 1: a cake of ice and managed to stay afloat there
Speaker 1: until he was eventually rescued by a lifeboat. And another
Speaker 1: he fell in the water trying to board a lifeboat
Speaker 1: and swam for two hours before he was rescued by
Speaker 1: lifeboat fourteen, which was the boat that Lady Astor was on,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the last lifeboats to get away.
Speaker 1: This is probably unlikely, though a lot of people think
Speaker 1: it's unlikely, just because it seems impossible that he would
Speaker 1: have survived for lotter for two hours. Yeah, I see,
Speaker 1: I see cold water. Uh. Some believe, however, that he
Speaker 1: may have escaped by disguising himself as a woman because
Speaker 1: of the Women and Children Edict, The Women and Children
Speaker 1: First Edict that Candison Jane discussed a little bit. He
Speaker 1: was first listed as Mrs Porta Loupi when the names
Speaker 1: of the rescued were transmitted initially, So this is I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe see why people think this whatever happened with
Speaker 1: Porta Loupie. Though lady ASTs husband did not survive, but
Speaker 1: she and Porta Lupie never got together after the rack,
Speaker 1: I mean that's understandable. I think a pretty dramatic experience.
Speaker 1: She did remarry, and he may have married as well,
Speaker 1: even though he was already married at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was already married before the Titanic. True. Lots of
Speaker 1: stories like this on fates of survivors um including the Iceberg,
Speaker 1: And I saw an interesting news story this year also
Speaker 1: about what people thought happened to the Iceberg and kind
Speaker 1: of the background behind and whether there are little pieces
Speaker 1: of it left and right, or that it probably didn't
Speaker 1: survive past nineteen because the water is around it in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic were too warm. So always plenty of things
Speaker 1: to investigate here about the Titanic sinking, and always new
Speaker 1: things that are coming out about it. As we said,
Speaker 1: I think there's even a Titanic to a new Titanic
Speaker 1: ship that's being built, or at least a project that's
Speaker 1: been conceived of. Yeah, so there might be a better, newer,
Speaker 1: safer version of the Titanic that comes out by two
Speaker 1: thousands sixteen. I think would it be marketed for cruising?
Speaker 1: I think it is going to be a passenger ship. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well don't quote me on that, but will certainly be
Speaker 1: looking for more stories about that. Yeah. If you have
Speaker 1: any favorite Titanic developments or discoveries that weren't discussed in
Speaker 1: the classic podcast and weren't discussed today, feel free to
Speaker 1: write to us. We're a history podcast at Discovery dot
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Speaker 1: have a Titanic article, Don't we Do? Written by Canada
Speaker 1: Keena herself, and you can find that by visiting our
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