$87 million of this is attributed to John Jacob Astor IV. The estimated overall wealth of the passengers in first class was $500 million There were 324 in First Class, 284 in Second, and 709 in Third.īetween 1,490 and 1,635 of these people died as the ship sank, including the Captain. In 1912, there were 908 crew members, but fewer passengers.
Room for one (thousand) moreĪround 2,200 people were on board when the Titanic sank in 1912, but her maximum capacity was around 3,500. The third and biggest ship, the Britannic, went into production after the Titanic disaster and sank in 1916 after hitting a mine. She was the only one of the three to survive more than half a decade. The Olympic rescued soldiers from the sinking British battleship, Audacious, in October 1914, and served as a troop ship carrying Canadian soldiers to the European front. After the former sank, however, improvements included lifeboats for all and, in October 1912, the installation of a watertight inner skin. Less of the attention to detail applied to the aesthetic of the Titanic was used on the Olympic. Photograph by official photographer of Harland & Wolff RMS Titanic (right) at the fitting out wharf in Belfast, whilst RMS Olympic (left) gets repaired on 2 March 1912. For the next twelve months, the fractionally smaller Olympic was the largest liner in the world. Instead, she was built alongside two sister ships, both of which also had eventful lifetimes.Ĭonstruction of the RMS Olympic began first, and the ship was launched on 20 September 1910. One of threeīecause of her size and the new equipment it would require, it would have been too expensive to build the Titanic alone. Titanic’s unprecedented size resulted from competition between her owners at White Star Line, and Cunard Line. The ship therefore had one purely decorative stack.
Thomas Andrews’ efficient original design, however, necessitated only three. From keel to bridge she was 32 metres high, 53 metres to the top of the stacks.īecause of her grandeur, it was felt that the Titanic should have four exhaust stacks. She was 269 metres long and 28 metres wide. On her launch, the Titanic became the largest movable man-made object. At 12:10 on, an estimated 10,000 people watched as the massive ship slid from the yard onto the River Lagan.ĭobbin was crushed during the process of removing the timber stays which had been holding the ship upright. Most of the 8 were killed by injuries sustained from falling either from the ship or the staging surrounding it.Ī 43-year-old shipwright, James Dobbin, was actually killed on the day of the Titanic’s launch. As the Titanic cost £1.5 million to build, 15 deaths could have been anticipated. This was a smaller number than expected for the time, which was one death for every £100,000 spent. People died on the Titanic even before it set outĭuring the 26 month construction of the Titanic at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, 28 serious accidents and 218 minor accidents were recorded. In the midst of the many myths and fictions surrounding the famous cruise liner and her ill-fated maiden voyage, here are 10 facts about the Titanic. The Titanic: her name is synonymous with those of Jack and Rose, fictional passengers on her maiden voyage.