FACTS

The Titanic was impressive enough without embellishment.  her weight - 46,328 gross tons . . . 66,000 tons displacement.  Her dimensions - 882.5 feet long . . . 92.5 feet wide . . . 60.5 feet from waterline to boat deck, or 175 feet from keel to the top of her four huge funnels.  She was, in short, eleven storeys high and a sixth of a mile long.

Triple screw, the Titanic had two sets of four-cylinder reciprocating engines, each driving a wing propeller, and a turbine driving the centre propeller.   This combination gave her 55,000 registered horsepower, but she could easily develop at least 55,000 horsepower.  At full speed she could make 24 to 25 knots.

Perhaps her most arresting feature was her watertight construction.   She had a double bottom and was divided into sixteen watertight compartments.   These were formed by fifteen watertight bulkheads running clear across the ship.   Curiously, they didn't extend very far up.  The first two and the last five went only as high as D deck, while the middle eight were carried only up to E deck.   Nevertheless, she could float with any two compartments flooded, and since no one could imagine anything worse than a collision at the conjuncture of two compartments, she was labeled "unsinkable".

The unsinkable Titanic was launched at the Belfast shipyards of harland & Wolff on May 31, 1911.  The next ten months were spent in fitting her out.   She completed her trials on April 2, 1912, and arrived in Southampton on the third.   A week later she sailed for New York and never arrived.  At 11:40PM on April 14, 1912, the Titanic collided with an iceberg.  Here is what happened from there:

April 15, 1912

At 12:05AM orders were given to uncover the boats and to muster the crew and passengers.  At 12:15AM the first wireless call for help took place.  At 12:45AM the first rocket was fired.  The first boat, No. 7, was lowered at 12:45AM.   They fired their last rocket at 1:40AM.  The last boat, collapsible D, was lowered at 2:05AM.  The last wireless signals were sent at 2:10AM and the lights failed at 2:18AM.  By 2:20 the ship had foundered.  At 3:30AM Carpathia's rockets were sighted by boats from the Titanic.  By 4:10AM, the first boat, No. 2, was picked up by Carparthia.  At 8:30AM the last boat, No. 12, was picked up.  Carpathia heads for New York with 705 survivors at 8:50AM.

Information taken from: