Monday, April 14, 2008

Sinking of the Titanic

Yesterday, I was watching a late night Movie 'Titanic.' The sinking of Titanic was the worst maritime disasters in history. This British luxury liner 'Titanic' of the White Star Line, struck an iceberg about 153 km south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland just before midnight at 11.40 p.m. on April 14, 1912 and the sinking of the ship continued in the early hours of April 15, 1912 in the ice cold waters of North Atlantic. Titanic Disaster occured on the linear’s first voyage from Liverpool to New York city. Of the more than 2220 persons aboard, about 1513 died including the American millionaires John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Isidor Straus. The ship weighed 46,000 gross tons. It measured 269 metres in length. The ship had been proclaimed unsinkable because of its 16 watertight compartments, but the iceberg punctured five of them, one more than had been considered possible in any accident, and the Titanic sank in less than three hours. The ocean linear Carpathia responded to the distress calls of Titanic arrived two hours later after it had sunk.

Most of us have seen the movie but do you know, it was American built Alvin that can carry Oceanographers as deep as 3600 m (12000 ft). It is equipped with underwater lights, cameras, a television system and a mechanical manipulator to collect bottom samples. This was used in 1986 and took pictures of Titanic. Robert Submersible which go deep as 20000 ft. used for underwater exploration such as "Argo" was used in 1985 to locate the wreck of Titanic and a smaller Robot called "Jason" was used to explore the wreck.

Well, another sinking of the German Battle ship 'Bismark' was during World War II and it was first the Reuters reported news from Britain that the ship was sunk. You can find details of this warship here on wiki.

Btw, We all know, Leonardo Da Vinci began working in 1495 over the Last Supper painting. He finished The Last Supper in 1498 with all the controversies hovered around who was sitting next to Jesus. The Book "Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown reflects his research on the Code of Leonardo. Here is Leonardo Da Vinci's Profile as he was born on 14th April. Kids can add the profile in their Literature collection.

- ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for Kids with Resources for Parents and Teachers

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