The RMS Titanic sank on this day in 1912.
Event Description
The RMS Titanic, a British luxury passenger liner, sank en route to New York City, and some 1,500 of its passengers perished. The ship had been designed and built by William Pirrie's firm of Harland & Wolff in Belfast, Ireland. A credulous public had believed that design innovations such as its 15 "watertight" bulkheads would make it "unsinkable."
Classroom Activity
Your students probably had some background knowledge about the Titanic even before the release of James Cameron's movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett. A nice way to begin your study is with the Internet Workshop model. You might use the recommended Websites from this calendar entry as part of the Internet Workshop.
Some questions you might ask students to explore are:
- Could this disaster happen today?
- What could have been done to prevent the disaster at that time?
- What really sank the Titanic?
- Did anything good happen as a result of this disaster?
Websites
Visitors to this website learn about Halifax, Nova Scotia's role during the tragedy's aftermath. Included is a transcript of Robert Hunston's wireless document The Titanic Disaster as Viewed from Cape Race.
This exhibit includes hyperlinks to facts about the Titanic and a large collection of historical photographs.
The Anderson Kill & Olick law firm offers this interactive mock trial of the Titanic's operators, the White Star Line.
The BBC's site contains 13 audio recordings of survivors relaying their experiences. The collection also includes six primary source documents.
This site has a collection of fifteen short videos about the Titanic. Included in that collection is an interactive infographic from History.com called "Titanic by the Numbers". The timeline starts with the construction of the Titanic and ends in 1913 with stories from survivors.