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Current Events and Musings => News of the Day => Topic started by: MuffyBee on April 14, 2012, 10:45:34 AM



Title: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 14, 2012, 10:45:34 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-04-14/titanic-anniversary/54274518/1
Events around the world mark 100 years since Titanic tragedy
April 14, 2012

LONDON (AP) – From Titanic's birthplace in a Belfast shipyard to its resting place in the North Atlantic, thousands were gathering Saturday to remember the cruise ship that embarked on its maiden voyage as an icon of Edwardian luxury but became, in a few dark hours 100 years ago, an enduring emblem of tragedy.
The ship was traveling from England to New York, carrying everyone from plutocrats to penniless emigrants, when it struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. It sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, with the loss of more than 1,500 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.
 ::snipping2::
The most famous maritime disaster in history is being highlighted around the world, even in places without direct links to it.

Venues in Las Vegas, San Diego, Houston and even Singapore are hosting Titanic exhibitions that include artifacts recovered from the site of the wreck. Among them: bottles of perfume, porcelain dishes, even a 17-foot piece of hull.

The centenary of the disaster has been marked with a global outpouring of commemoration and commerce. Events have ranged from the opening of a glossy new tourist attraction telling the ship's story in Belfast to a 3-D rerelease of James Cameron's 1997 romantic weepie Titanic, which awakened a new generation's interest in the disaster.


Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 14, 2012, 08:49:45 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57414169/events-around-world-mark-titanic-centenary/
Events around world mark Titanic centenary
April 14, 2012

Video and Photo Gallery with 13 Images at Link


Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 07:10:42 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-15/titanic-human-remains/54287488/1
Officials say evidence of human remains at Titanic wreck
April 15, 2012


NEW YORK (AP) – Human remains may be embedded in the mud of the North Atlantic where the New York-bound Titanic came to rest when it sank 100 years ago, a federal official said Saturday.
A 2004 photograph, released to the public for the first time this week in an uncropped version to coincide with the disaster's centenary, shows a coat and boots in the mud at the legendary shipwreck site.

"These are not shoes that fell out neatly from somebody's bag right next to each other," James Delgado, the director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, told the Associated Press in a phone interview.
The way they are "laid out" makes a "compelling case" that it is where "someone has come to rest," he said.

The image, along with two others showing pairs of boots resting next to each other, were taken during an expedition led by NOAA and famed Titanic finder Robert Ballard in 2004. They were published in Ballard's book on the expedition. Delgado said the one showing a coat and boots was cropped to show only a boot.
More...
(see photo at link)


Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 09:06:29 AM
http://www.ktvu.com/gallery/ap/transportation/treasures-titanic/gfYJ/#1442439
Treasures of the Titanic
Slide Show


Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 02:15:53 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/15/us-britain-titanic-idUSBRE83E0ES20120415
Titanic's dead mourned 100 yrs later in poignant ceremony at sinking site
April 15, 2012

(Reuters) - At the shrill sound of a ship's whistle in the North Atlantic, relatives of some of the more than 1,500 people who died when the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg remembered their ancestors in a poignant ceremony a century later.

On a still, starry night and with little glare from the moon, the memorial cruise ship MS Balmoral floated above the wreckage of the famous 'unsinkable' luxury liner precisely 100 years to the day it foundered.

"At 2:20 am all was quiet, as it would have been 100 years ago when it went deathly quiet, when the screaming stopped," British Titanic historian Philip Littlejohn told Reuters on Sunday. Littlejohn's grandfather, Alexander Littlejohn, was a 1st class steward in charge of lifeboat 13 when the ship began to go down.

About 700 people were rescued that night, including his grandfather, but there were too few lifeboats to save the rest.
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Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 05:46:32 PM
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120415/1912-post-offices-titanic-naming-requests-120415?hub=OttawaHome
In 1912, post offices lined up to be named 'Titanic'
April 15, 2012

A curious thing happened at the headquarters of Canada's postal system in 1912 following the sinking of the Titanic, according to a Saskatchewan author.

Bill Barry says dozens of requests poured into Ottawa from postmasters across the country asking for permission to change the names of their post offices to honour the stricken liner.

Barry says a little postal station named Mourney near Duck Lake, about 100 kilometres north of Saskatoon, was the first, which meant it got to be the only post office in the country named "Titanic."

"I've always found it a bit macabre that people wanted to celebrate this great disaster, but celebrate it they did," says Barry, who has written several books on place names in Saskatchewan.

Barry says Mourney had been named after the local Catholic priest. There wasn't much to Mourney at the time -- just a country store and a church. The area was populated with French-speaking settlers and there were about 30 or 40 families in the area, Barry says.

Not far away in 1885, the first battle of the Northwest Rebellion took place between North West Mounted Police and Metis troops at Duck Lake.

Many rural post offices, Barry says, weren't much more than an orange crate inside a farmhouse. In those days the roads weren't very good so people couldn't travel far to get their mail.

"When the great ship went down, the postmaster, a fellow by the name of (J.E.) Dionne, sent an application of to Ottawa saying 'I'd like to change the name of my post office to Titanic."'

"Apparently from the research that I did there were about 30 applications for the same thing that arrived at the postmasters office. But they went with Saskatchewan's because it was the first one that got there."

And it's not the only thing in Saskatchewan named after the ship, Barry says, noting there was also a Titanic School near Swift Current, in the province's southeast, that was named immediately after the sinking.
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Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 05:48:06 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17513240
Titanic anniversary: Piecing together story of ship's captain
By Kevin Leonard
April 15, 2012

The actions of the Titanic's captain on its fateful voyage 100 years ago have inspired numerous colourful accounts, but for one man with a closer link to events than most, they will only ever tell part of the story.

Depending on which version of events you believe, in the time leading up to the ship sinking, Captain Edward Smith may have been heroically rescuing a child, hiding away in his quarters, or just doing his job.

There are also his celebrated, but possibly apocryphal, last words to his crew: "Be British".

Regardless of fact and fiction, it is fair to say a number of colourful stories have attached themselves to his last hours.
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Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 05:50:42 PM
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/15/titanic-anniversary/?__lsa=a4e8d5de
The Titanic’s 1,500 dead remembered 100 years after the tragedy
April 15, 2012

BELFAST — At sea and on land Sunday, wreaths were cast, memorials unveiled and people stood in silence to remember the 1,500 people who died in the sinking of the Titanic ocean liner a century ago.

In Belfast, the city that built the Titanic, a memorial garden containing the first-ever monument to contain all the victims’ names was unveiled during a commemorative service attended by about 300 members of the public.

Earlier, wreaths were thrown into the Atlantic at the site of the wreck from MS Balmoral, a cruise ship that has traced the doomed liner’s route across the ocean, while people also held a minute’s silence.
And in Halifax, the port city from where ships sailed to retrieve bodies from the icy Atlantic waters following the sinking on April 15, 1912, and where 150 of Titanic’s victims are buried, church bells pierced the night.

Final ceremonies were due in Halifax later on Sunday.
More...
Photos at Link


Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 15, 2012, 05:53:31 PM
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Texas-eatery-serves-12K-10-course-Titanic-meal-3483448.php#photo-2819521
Texas eatery serves $12K, 10-course Titanic meal
RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press
April 15, 2012

HOUSTON (AP) — Crystal tinkles as women clad in dinner best bow their heads over champagne glasses, listening attentively to the captain's evening address. The Armagnac they sip is circa 1900. The dishes, crystal and silverware also hark back to a bygone era — one when the Titanic sailed the high seas, destined for disaster.

On this evening, though, the captain is Ryan Roberts, executive director of Cullen's restaurant in Houston.

"We're here to remember the people who perished on that fateful night, so if we could just bow our heads in a moment of silence," Roberts said, his white-gloved hands reminiscent of the opulence of the Edwardian era that birthed the lush first-class cabins and dining rooms of what was then the world's largest ship.

It's the 100th anniversary of the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, which hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on a frigid, dark night, killing 1,514 people. And to mark the occasion, 12 people in Houston enjoyed a replica of the lavish 10-course dinner the wealthiest people aboard the ship enjoyed just before the crash.

The dinner was one of many served from New York to Memphis, Tenn., and across the oceans to Hong Kong, as chefs attempted to transport diners to a time when waiters in starched coats and napkins hanging from their arms served an upper class that was far removed from the common man, who filled the lower portions of the Titanic and went largely unnoticed by the wealthy until they perished together in the cold sea.
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Title: Re: The Titanic Tragedy Remembered 100 Years Later
Post by: MuffyBee on April 16, 2012, 01:57:51 PM
http://normantranscript.com/cnhi_special_projects/x101449138/Ticket-to-Titanic-maiden-voyage-sold-at-NY-auction
Ticket to Titanic maiden voyage sold at NY auction
By VERENA DOBNIK
April 16, 2012

NEW YORK — A New York auction house has sold an original ticket to the 1912 launch of the Titanic and a dinner menu from the ill-fated ocean liner, plus items recovered from the wreckage miles underwater.

On the block Sunday at Bonhams were various Titanic remnants offered to mark the centennial of its sinking.
The historic admission ticket fetched $56,250, including the auction house premium. The menu, touting choices like Surrey capon and ox tongue and beef sirloin with horseradish, sold for $31,250.

Both went to private American buyers, said Gregg Dietrich, Bonhams' maritime consultant.

He said one surprise at the auction was the comparatively low price paid for a telegraph that read, "We have struck an iceberg."

That message — sold for $27,500 — was sent to Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, about three hours before the Titanic sank just days into its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York. Only about 700 of the luxury liner's more than 2,200 passengers survived.

One important item that did not sell is a handwritten account from the captain of the Carpathia that rescued the survivors, Dietrich said.
 ::snipping2::
The biggest sale of Titanic lore has yet to come: 5,000 artifacts with a value of hundreds of millions of dollars owned by RMS Titanic Inc.

A New York auction planned for April was put on hold because of talks with various parties for the possible purchase of the collection, ranging from passengers' personal possessions and parts of the hull to china and the ship's fittings.

In article - INTERACTIVE: See Titanic artifiacts up for auction