British steamship that sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, while on its maiden voyage. Launched on May 31, 1911, Titanic was the largest ship of its time, 882.5 feet long, 104 feet high, with a displacement of 66,000 tons, and a top speed of 25 knots; it could carry up to 3,000 passengers but had lifeboats for only 1,178. Titanic’s owners, the White Star Line, made much of both the ship’s luxurious first-class accommodations and its compartments, which were supposed to make the ship virtually unsinkable.
The Titanic left Southampton bound for New York on April 10, 1912, with more than 2,200 people aboard. At 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, while steaming at high speed about 350 miles southeast of Newfoundland, in casual defiance of several radio reports of pack ice and icebergs, the ship suffered a collision with a gigantic iceberg that buckled plates along a third of the length of the hull. Thirty minutes later, Captain E. J. Smith ordered the lifeboats launched, but in the general confusion and as a direct consequence of the preferential treatment accorded first-class passengers the already inadequate lifeboats were not filled to capacity. Thus, when Titanic began its bowfirst plunge at 2:20 A.M., more than 1,500 people were still aboard. The steam ship Carpathia arrived on the scene two hours later and rescued 705 persons who were in lifeboats and in the water. The wreck was discovered on September 1, 1985, by a joint U.S.-French expedition.