Speaker 1: I guess what, mango, what's that? Well, you remember a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago when the artist banks He pulled
Speaker 1: that incredible prank on the entire auction world. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was when his painting just self destructed in front of everyone.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it worth over a million dollars? It's actually one
Speaker 1: point four million dollars. And the crazy part is they
Speaker 1: say it's probably worth even more now and the person
Speaker 1: who had bid on it, you know, has agreed to
Speaker 1: pay that price. That's crazy. I mean, I guess it
Speaker 1: does make it more unique, but it's still really weird
Speaker 1: how much people will pay for things. No, it definitely is.
Speaker 1: And actually I find this kind of thing fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's always interesting to see what people will pay
Speaker 1: big money for an auction. So I was recently looking
Speaker 1: at this list of the things people have been on
Speaker 1: over the years that are related to the Titanic disaster,
Speaker 1: and one thing that went for even more than that
Speaker 1: banks He painting is the violin played by William Hartley
Speaker 1: as the Titanic sank that many of us have heard
Speaker 1: this legend before, and it's of course impossible to verify,
Speaker 1: you know, every piece of it, but the ideas that Hartley,
Speaker 1: who was the band leader, that he asked his seven
Speaker 1: musicians to keep playing as this ship was going down,
Speaker 1: And so some tell the story that he led his
Speaker 1: crew in playing Near My God to the and you know,
Speaker 1: that may not be completely true. It does appear that
Speaker 1: the musicians did maintain their composure and they continued playing
Speaker 1: something what we don't know exactly what it was, but
Speaker 1: that violin that hardly played sold back in two thousand
Speaker 1: thirteen for one point seven million dollars. And I guess
Speaker 1: it's really no surprise because, you know, more than a
Speaker 1: hundred years after the tragic event, we're still fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: So today we'll try to better understand why that is,
Speaker 1: you know, and ask some of the questions like what
Speaker 1: did people know about the Titanic before it set sail,
Speaker 1: what was life like on board, and what were some
Speaker 1: of the strange ways people chose to remember the ship
Speaker 1: after the disaster. So let's get started, Hey, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer
Speaker 1: and on the other side of the soundproof glass, wearing
Speaker 1: a button that just says proud member of the Just
Speaker 1: Mystic Club. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know this, but Tristan very
Speaker 1: nearly booked himself on a trip on the Titanic back
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve. Thankfully, the plan fell apart at the
Speaker 1: very last minute, you know, on account of his not
Speaker 1: having been born yet, so ultimately he missed the boat,
Speaker 1: which is just such a lucky break. But you know,
Speaker 1: Tristan isn't alone in telling tall tales about how he
Speaker 1: narrowly escaped death on the Titanic. In fact, just five
Speaker 1: days after the sinking, there are already press reports about
Speaker 1: the so called just missed a Club and how it
Speaker 1: already had six thousand, nine four members, And so this
Speaker 1: was obviously tongue in cheek, but it was also kind
Speaker 1: of true. Like a suspiciously large number of people had
Speaker 1: come forward claiming they'd missed the boat because they've been
Speaker 1: running late that morning, or they've gotten sick or whatever,
Speaker 1: but everyone knew most of the stories were completely made up.
Speaker 1: Like in one of the press reports I mentioned, they
Speaker 1: had a sarcastic quote from a guy who said quote,
Speaker 1: I count it lucky that I didn't have the money
Speaker 1: to go abroad this year. If all of us who
Speaker 1: just missed it had got aboard the Titanic, she would
Speaker 1: have sunk at the Liverpool Dock from the overload. I'm
Speaker 1: glad the public didn't fall for all these stories. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such a strange compulsion in the first place, you know,
Speaker 1: to lie like that because I don't know, because you
Speaker 1: want to attach yourself to a tragedy. But I guess
Speaker 1: that goes to show how captivated people were by the
Speaker 1: story of the Titanic. And the really amazing thing is
Speaker 1: that more than a hundred years later, many of us
Speaker 1: are still just as captivated. So at this point the
Speaker 1: disaster it feels like it's taken on kind of a
Speaker 1: mythical status and world culture, and it's become one of
Speaker 1: those stories that everybody seems to know. In fact, I
Speaker 1: read in Smithsonian that Titanic is actually the third most
Speaker 1: recognized word in the world, just below God and Coca cola.
Speaker 1: And you know, while it's true that interest in the
Speaker 1: story has ebbed and flowed over time, it's still something
Speaker 1: that we always seem to come back to. So today
Speaker 1: we'll take a look at why that is and why
Speaker 1: Titanic still fascinates us all these years later, and help
Speaker 1: answer that. We'll talk about the impact the tragedy has
Speaker 1: had on the world, both in the short term and
Speaker 1: the long term, and we'll also dig a little deeper
Speaker 1: into life aboard the ship, which you know, includes the
Speaker 1: surprising stories of a few standout passengers. It's definitely a
Speaker 1: lot to cover, so let's get to it. But but
Speaker 1: where do you want to start, Mango, Well, I thought
Speaker 1: we could start with one of the biggest reasons that
Speaker 1: people have stayed invested in the Titanic, and that's just
Speaker 1: the ship itself. So most of us know that at
Speaker 1: the time it was the largest ocean liner ever constructed,
Speaker 1: and more broadly, the large just men made moving object
Speaker 1: in the world. It was about eight feet long and
Speaker 1: a hundred seventy five ft tall, which means the ship
Speaker 1: was as long as three football fields and as tall
Speaker 1: as a seventeen story building. Isn't that insane? Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 1: it was definitely a massive ship for its time, no
Speaker 1: question about that, But it wouldn't really be that impressive
Speaker 1: today though, right, I mean, we have cruise ships that
Speaker 1: are more than four times that size now, So it
Speaker 1: does make me wonder, like why the size of the
Speaker 1: Titanic still captures people's interest. So I think it's partly
Speaker 1: the perception that the Titanic was kind of tempting fate
Speaker 1: in a way, like the fact that the ship held
Speaker 1: that title as the world's largest and and then it
Speaker 1: ended up sinking on his maiden voyage. It feels like
Speaker 1: this cautionary tale about man's hubris in some people's minds,
Speaker 1: Like it's almost like a Tower of Babble situation or
Speaker 1: something where man kind of overreached and then was made
Speaker 1: to suffer for it. And I think that still resonates
Speaker 1: for people, especially since we've heard so many stories now
Speaker 1: about how luxurious and decadent the ship was, especially compared
Speaker 1: to others at the time. All right, well, before we
Speaker 1: get to that fateful night with the iceberg, I do
Speaker 1: want to spend a little more time on board and
Speaker 1: and talk about a few of those decadit details that
Speaker 1: you alluded to. So, for example, the Titanic was one
Speaker 1: of the first ships to have electric lights in all
Speaker 1: of its rooms. It also had way more amenities than
Speaker 1: most other ships, and so just looking at the list,
Speaker 1: here among those were four elevators, heated swimming pool, two
Speaker 1: libraries to barbershops, a squash court, a Turkish bath, and
Speaker 1: even it's on onboard newspaper called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
Speaker 1: So I hadn't heard about the paper. I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: means that they had a printing press on board. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was a small print shop on the
Speaker 1: D deck and and of course this was close to
Speaker 1: the butcher's shop in case you're wondering, now I know
Speaker 1: where I get my pastrom that's right. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it really does feel like they thought about everything. My
Speaker 1: favorite Titanic community, though it is probably the onboard gymnasium,
Speaker 1: Like it had all the best equipment naturally, including old
Speaker 1: standards like rowing machines, weights, punching bags, but it also
Speaker 1: had this cutting edge gear, like they had two static
Speaker 1: bicycles with two foot dials attached to show the distance
Speaker 1: that had been traveled. And there were also a few
Speaker 1: electric horses, which were these big mechanical saddles meant to
Speaker 1: mimic riding a horse. I mean, does that even count
Speaker 1: as exercise? It kind of feels like it would be
Speaker 1: less of a workout for the rider than for the horse,
Speaker 1: or I guess the saddle in this case. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it was supposed to strengthen your core or
Speaker 1: maybe some leg muscles, but either way, I doubt any
Speaker 1: of the passengers worked up that much of a sweat. Like,
Speaker 1: if you look at pictures from floating gyms on the
Speaker 1: Titanic and other ships of the era, most of the
Speaker 1: passengers are exercising while they're wearing their full get up,
Speaker 1: So it's like a bunch of releasedate and calm looking
Speaker 1: people in these three piece suits or or like big
Speaker 1: Edwardian dresses and hats, and they're just kind of halfheartedly
Speaker 1: peddling on the bikes or whatever. It's it's pretty lazy looking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've actually seen some of these pictures, and honestly, my
Speaker 1: guess is that it's the first time in a gym
Speaker 1: for most of them, because nobody looks like they know
Speaker 1: what they're doing at all. I mean, it's a good
Speaker 1: thing that they had a personal trainer on board the Titanic.
Speaker 1: This is real. His name was Thomas McCauley, and it
Speaker 1: was this guy's job to show passengers how to use
Speaker 1: the equipment and even to provide one on one training sessions.
Speaker 1: And it seems like McCauley took his job super seriously
Speaker 1: because the night the ship sank, he actually chose to
Speaker 1: stay at his post in the gym and go down
Speaker 1: with the ship. Wait, seriously, I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak ill of the dead, but that sort of
Speaker 1: seems a little bit unnecessary. I mean, we did talk
Speaker 1: about how the band chose to continue playing as the
Speaker 1: ship sank, and to me though, that makes sense because
Speaker 1: it was a way to sacrifice and to calm the passengers,
Speaker 1: or to give them at least some sense of peace.
Speaker 1: But I mean, why keep the gym open. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine anybody was thinking, like, I think, I'll just get
Speaker 1: in a few more reps before whatever happens here happens. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably not. If anyone was trying to burn like a
Speaker 1: few calories for the road, I really wouldn't blame them.
Speaker 1: I mean, the meals on board the Titanic were pretty epic,
Speaker 1: at least for the first class passengers, and so the
Speaker 1: dinners were gourmet affairs with up to thirteen courses, each
Speaker 1: of which came with its own paired wine. There was
Speaker 1: also a pre dinner cocktail service that was added as
Speaker 1: a concession to American passengers. Apparently European passengers weren't fans
Speaker 1: of this idea because they thought mixed drinks ruined your
Speaker 1: palette before eating. But from start to finish, these elaborate
Speaker 1: meals could last as long as four or five hours,
Speaker 1: and because the first class menu was actually later recovered,
Speaker 1: we actually know exactly what the wealthiest Titanic passengers had
Speaker 1: for dinner the night the ship went down, and it
Speaker 1: was an incredible spread. The feast started with raw oysters
Speaker 1: and a selection of order ivs, followed by a choice
Speaker 1: of two soups. Then came a lightly pushed Atlantic salmon
Speaker 1: topped with a rich moose. For the fourth and fifth courses,
Speaker 1: passengers chose from such rich entrees as a filet mignon
Speaker 1: or a lamb with mint sauce. And then at the
Speaker 1: halfway point the meal this is on you get a
Speaker 1: palate cleanser. It's it's a punch romain, which I guess
Speaker 1: is a boozy mix and wine, rum and champagne. And
Speaker 1: then once you've regained your appetite, the feasting resumes. There's
Speaker 1: a roast squab course, cold asparagus, vinaigrette fois gras, and
Speaker 1: then there's dessert, which includes peaches and shark trees, jelly chocolate,
Speaker 1: Vanilla Claire's French ice cream, and then to close off
Speaker 1: the meal, there's a variety of fruits, nuts, and cheeses
Speaker 1: with coffee, poor cigars and cordials. It's pretty It feels
Speaker 1: like they just accidentally went ahead and cooked everything for
Speaker 1: the week for one meal. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: these people would get up and walk after eating all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. I don't feel like I could make
Speaker 1: it through a single meal, I know, but if you
Speaker 1: did want to try. They're actually places all over the
Speaker 1: world that now offer dinners that recreate that last meal
Speaker 1: that the first class passengers eight on the ship. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of a cop but some people claim it's
Speaker 1: a great way to humanize the tragedy or to understand
Speaker 1: the history of it. The ethics acide like. The biggest
Speaker 1: drawback is probably the price of these dinners. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's one restaurant in Houston it offers a ten course
Speaker 1: menu for a thousand dollars per person. There's also a
Speaker 1: version of this on a luxury hotel in Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: where um, the prices doubled because it reportedly serves this
Speaker 1: vintage seven bottle of wine that's actually salvage from the
Speaker 1: wreck of the Titanic. I like this idea that it's
Speaker 1: somehow humanizes the tragedy by just sitting there and stuffing
Speaker 1: yourself with all of this and drinking fancy old wine.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. Yeah, well, I guess so. I guess they
Speaker 1: know exactly what it was like to be on the
Speaker 1: Titanic then, But it feels a little too rich for
Speaker 1: my blood. I feel like maybe i'd spring for a
Speaker 1: recreation of maybe like the third class dinner. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's got to be a lot cheaper, right, Like I
Speaker 1: imagined there were a bit more down to earth at
Speaker 1: the second and third class tables, right, So I think
Speaker 1: that's a really funny idea, But not as much as
Speaker 1: you think, right. Like, so, the first and second class
Speaker 1: dining rooms actually shared a galley, so there was probably
Speaker 1: a good bit of crossover when it comes to what
Speaker 1: was served, kind of like business of first class on
Speaker 1: a plane or something. But the main difference would have
Speaker 1: been that second class diners wouldn't have had all the
Speaker 1: crazy wine pairings, a few of the other frills that
Speaker 1: the first class people enjoyed, and honestly, even third class
Speaker 1: passengers didn't have it too bad when it came to food.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot less lamb with mint sauce
Speaker 1: and a lot more roast beef and boiled potatoes. But
Speaker 1: you actually wouldn't hear that many people complaining about it.
Speaker 1: At the time, most ocean liners required third class passengers
Speaker 1: to bring their own food to last the entire voyage,
Speaker 1: which would have made the Titanics prepared meals seemed really
Speaker 1: decadent to most people. I mean, the same can't be
Speaker 1: said for the accommodations, though there were actually only two
Speaker 1: bathtubs for all seven third class passengers to share. Oh gosh, well,
Speaker 1: let's let maybe let's not dwell on that. But getting
Speaker 1: back to the food, it's hard for me to even
Speaker 1: wrap my head around the amount of work that must
Speaker 1: have gone into feating this many people and multiple times
Speaker 1: a day, Like there were need two hundred people aboard
Speaker 1: the Titanic. You've got passengers nine crew members, so they're
Speaker 1: just doing the math, like three meals a day, that
Speaker 1: sixty meals that the kitchens had to crank out every
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, and it must have been a pretty
Speaker 1: colossal effort. It definitely was. So I read this interview
Speaker 1: with Dana McCauley. She co wrote a book called Last
Speaker 1: Dinner on the Titanic, and she says the Titanics kitchen
Speaker 1: crew included a hundred thirteen cooks, fifteen first cooks who
Speaker 1: supervised things, twelve pastry chefs, six bakers, five butchers, and
Speaker 1: five sous chefs. And you know, you think about that,
Speaker 1: that's not even mentioning the dozens of waiters or bus
Speaker 1: boys that each meal required. Yeah, I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty huge staff, but I'm actually a bit surprised it's
Speaker 1: not even bigger when you consider how many people they
Speaker 1: were feeding and just the level of sheer variety on
Speaker 1: those menus that you talked about. But you know, since
Speaker 1: you mentioned the Titanics bakers, I want to take a
Speaker 1: second and talk about the ship's chief baker. He was
Speaker 1: a guy named Charles Joffin, and he was a sort
Speaker 1: of either of the wreck and live for decades afterward,
Speaker 1: but he was also examined as part of a British
Speaker 1: inquiry after the accident, and the picture he paints during
Speaker 1: his testimony is really pretty amazing. So after the Titanic
Speaker 1: hits the iceberg, sorry for the spoiler there, but Charles
Speaker 1: immediately gets to work and he starts rounding up all
Speaker 1: the bread he can find to help bolster their provisions
Speaker 1: and all the lifeboats. Now he ends up sending something
Speaker 1: like forty pounds of bread loaves to the upper decks,
Speaker 1: and then he heads back to his cabin where he
Speaker 1: proceeds to steal himself with what he called, quote a
Speaker 1: drop of liqueur, and I have a feeling was a
Speaker 1: little more than a drop, And honestly, in that situation,
Speaker 1: who can blame him. But then Charles heads to the
Speaker 1: a deck and he starts helping to load the lifeboats.
Speaker 1: Now this is something I hadn't heard before, but apparently
Speaker 1: many of the passengers were reluctant to leave the ship,
Speaker 1: Like in the first hour or so after the collision,
Speaker 1: when only the lower decks were flooding. At that point,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people tried to wave off the
Speaker 1: danger and actually refused to get on these lifeboats. So
Speaker 1: Charles knew better in this situation, and so when he
Speaker 1: found women and children just squatting on the deck. Refusing
Speaker 1: to budge, he and other crew members began picking up
Speaker 1: these stubborn passengers and actually throwing them into the lifeboats.
Speaker 1: And then when these last lifeboats were filled and lowered,
Speaker 1: Charles went back down to his cabin, had himself another
Speaker 1: drop of liqueur, and went right back on the deck. Now,
Speaker 1: at this point, the ship was sinking in earnest and
Speaker 1: it was clear that the majority of the passengers were
Speaker 1: still on board. So he was helpful to the very
Speaker 1: last minute, and he tossed some fifty odd deck chairs
Speaker 1: into the water so that people would have something to
Speaker 1: cling onto when the ship inevitably went under. That that
Speaker 1: really is inspiring. Also, can I just say how perfect
Speaker 1: an activity he chose given his circumstances, Like checking deck
Speaker 1: chairs into the ocean is exactly the thing you should
Speaker 1: do if you're trapped on a sinking chip and you've
Speaker 1: had a few drinks. No, it does seem pretty fitting
Speaker 1: in that scenario. But here's where really achieves legend status
Speaker 1: in my eyes, Like he was actually still aboard the
Speaker 1: Titanic when it's split in half. In fact, he reportedly
Speaker 1: climbed over the railing rode the ship down as it sank,
Speaker 1: and when asked during his enquiry if he had been
Speaker 1: dragged under with the ship, Charles just replied, I do
Speaker 1: not believe my head went underwater at all. It may
Speaker 1: have been wetted, but no more. Okay, so this guy's
Speaker 1: my new hero. Well, and that's really saying something because
Speaker 1: there are a ton of stories about passengers behaving bravely
Speaker 1: while the ship went down. And of course these days
Speaker 1: a lot of people say chivalry is dead, but that
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't the case aboard the Titanic. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: I think most people know the famous policy about evacuating
Speaker 1: women and children first, and that really was an explicit
Speaker 1: order that Captain Smith gave the night the Titanic sank.
Speaker 1: But what I never knew before this week is that
Speaker 1: Titanic actually approved the exception in that regard rather than
Speaker 1: the rule, because it turns out that in most maritime disasters,
Speaker 1: men have had a significantly higher survival rate than women
Speaker 1: and children. Really, I don't think I would have guessed that.
Speaker 1: But all right, we'll have a ton of questions to ask,
Speaker 1: and at some point we do need to talk about
Speaker 1: the crash itself. But before we get to any of that.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius and we're talking about the enduring legacy of the
Speaker 1: RMS Titanic, all right, Mago. So before the break, you
Speaker 1: were saying that when disaster strikes at sea that men
Speaker 1: generally fair better than women and children. So can you
Speaker 1: explain what you mean by that? Sure? So this comes
Speaker 1: from the sweetest study where researchers looked at eighteen maritime
Speaker 1: disasters that happened between eighteen fifty two and two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and what they found was that women and children survived
Speaker 1: in greater numbers than men in only two of the
Speaker 1: eighteen cases. It was for the HMS Broken Stock in
Speaker 1: eight fifty two and the Titanic in In all other cases,
Speaker 1: men came out ahead with an average survival rate of
Speaker 1: compared to scent for women and just fifteen percent for children.
Speaker 1: And that was the only surprise to come out of
Speaker 1: the study either, because it turns out the crew members
Speaker 1: actually have the highest survival rate. They come out with
Speaker 1: a whopping sixty. And you know this romantic idea of
Speaker 1: captains choosing to go down with the ships, right, that
Speaker 1: apparently doesn't happen as often as we assume, because even
Speaker 1: captains tend to have a higher survival rate than passengers.
Speaker 1: But you're saying that wasn't the case the night the
Speaker 1: Titanic sank exactly So with Titanic, women actually had a
Speaker 1: seventy survival rate compared to just seventeen percent for men.
Speaker 1: And it's the same with children. Half the kids aboard
Speaker 1: the Titanic survived the ordeal, all right, So do we
Speaker 1: know why that is? Like, what made the Titanic so different?
Speaker 1: Was its crew just like that much better at following
Speaker 1: the correct procedure or what happened there? That's the thing.
Speaker 1: The whole women and children first was an explicit and
Speaker 1: it wasn't this like written rule at the time. And
Speaker 1: in fact, as we see with those other sixteen cases,
Speaker 1: the real policy is closer to first come, first serve,
Speaker 1: or even every man for himself. But that's one way
Speaker 1: in which Birkenstock and Titanic stick out from the others,
Speaker 1: because in both those cases, the captains gave this direct
Speaker 1: order that women and children should be evacuated first. So
Speaker 1: if that's the case, then the higher survival rates for
Speaker 1: women and children it's really things more to the captains
Speaker 1: and crew like, not necessarily the passengers of the Titanic
Speaker 1: being chivalrous was really more than captain, So that is
Speaker 1: one way to look at it. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: we do have plenty of reports of crew members and
Speaker 1: even passengers who chose to remain on board and help
Speaker 1: others rather than take up space and lifeboats. I mean,
Speaker 1: supposedly there were just people on deck just standing and
Speaker 1: smoking cigars, drinking brandy while others fled for their lives.
Speaker 1: And while that might sound kind of silly or naive
Speaker 1: to us, I think those guys absolutely knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing. They were willing to die in order to
Speaker 1: give other people a shot at living, all right, So
Speaker 1: then what do we make of this? Like, are we
Speaker 1: saying the pastors of Titanic And I guess Birkin Stock
Speaker 1: just happened to be more selfless than you know, people
Speaker 1: in these other ship breaks, And I feel like there's
Speaker 1: got to be more to it than that. I read
Speaker 1: the study from an Australian economist. His name's David Savage,
Speaker 1: and he actually suggested that Titanics passengers behaved more altruistically
Speaker 1: simply because they had the time to do so. Like,
Speaker 1: if you think about the wreck of the Lusitania, which
Speaker 1: was this other luxury liner from the era, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've heard of it. It had a similar number
Speaker 1: of passengers and survive us to the Titanic. But whereas
Speaker 1: the Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes, Titanic took
Speaker 1: nearly three hours. And that's why Savage suggests that the
Speaker 1: longer timeline allowed social norms to assert themselves aboard the Titanic.
Speaker 1: So instead of giving into the panic self interest as
Speaker 1: passengers aboard the Lusitania and most of the other ships did,
Speaker 1: the people aboard the Titanic had enough time to tamp
Speaker 1: down their self preservation instincts and really act in favor
Speaker 1: of the group instead. And you know, I have to
Speaker 1: wonder if that, in itself is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that people are still so affected by the Titanic story today. Like,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, this was one of those
Speaker 1: rare tragedies where the people involved actually had the time
Speaker 1: to think about their circumstances and how they wanted to
Speaker 1: spend their final moments. And that's not really a luxury
Speaker 1: that many have had, and major disasters in the last
Speaker 1: century well, and think about how much worse things could
Speaker 1: have gone if the passengers didn't have that extra bit
Speaker 1: of time. I mean, as it stands, there were only
Speaker 1: about seven hundred survivors from Titanic, which means roughly people
Speaker 1: lost their lives that night, and if there had been
Speaker 1: mass panic, it's likely that even more people would have
Speaker 1: died in the process. Yeah, though I do question how
Speaker 1: much better things really could have been. Like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, the ship just didn't have anywhere
Speaker 1: near the number of lifeboats it would have technically taken
Speaker 1: to save everyone on board. And that's what the ship
Speaker 1: at half capacity like the Titanic technically could have fit
Speaker 1: another people on board, which undoubtedly would have made an
Speaker 1: even bigger tragedy. Yeah, that's true, And you know, people
Speaker 1: often point to those lack of lifeboats aboard the Titanic
Speaker 1: is another example of the hubrists of the ship's owners
Speaker 1: and creators. And you know, to a certain extent that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like one of the stories I hear a
Speaker 1: lot is how the ship could have easily carried twice
Speaker 1: the amount of lifeboats that it had, only the designers
Speaker 1: didn't want to ruin the aesthetics by cluttering the deck
Speaker 1: with more boats. I mean, it's just absurd. And well,
Speaker 1: that may be true, it's worth noting that Titanic was
Speaker 1: completely up to code when it came to lifeboats. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was actually more compliant than it even had to be,
Speaker 1: because instead of having sixteen lifeboats as the Board of
Speaker 1: Trade required, the ship actually had twenty. I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous, like like a ship as big as the
Speaker 1: Titanic was only required to have sixteen lifeboats. How is
Speaker 1: that even possible? Like didn't they know how many people
Speaker 1: were going to be on board? Well they did, but
Speaker 1: the thing is like the number of passengers wasn't actually
Speaker 1: a factor and the hermiting this. So prior to Titanic,
Speaker 1: the number of lifeboats needed was based solely on a
Speaker 1: ship's weight. So whether the ship the size of the
Speaker 1: Titanic was sailing half full or completely empty, it would
Speaker 1: have still been required to carry just sixteen lifeboats. Now,
Speaker 1: the good news is that Titanic shine to light on
Speaker 1: how little since this made and practice, and so thanks
Speaker 1: to that public scrutiny and sending inquiries that took place
Speaker 1: in the days after the disaster, regulations definitely changed and
Speaker 1: the number of lifeboats started to be determined by the
Speaker 1: number of people on board, not by how much a
Speaker 1: ship weight, which just seems weird that we even have
Speaker 1: to say that, because who else would be getting on
Speaker 1: these lifeboats other than the people on the ship. Definitely
Speaker 1: a smart change, and you know, there were actually a
Speaker 1: couple of other positive things to come out of the
Speaker 1: Titanic tragedy. For example, maritime agencies began using round the
Speaker 1: clock wireless maryring to keep track of ships and to
Speaker 1: make sure that few distress calls were missed, and that's
Speaker 1: a thing that made a huge difference during World War One,
Speaker 1: when large ships were frequent targets for enemy torpedoes. In fact,
Speaker 1: the ship that rescued the Titanic, I think it was
Speaker 1: called the Carpathia, It was sunk six years later by
Speaker 1: a torpedo fired from a German U boat. But thanks
Speaker 1: to the lessons from Titanic, the Carpathia had plenty of
Speaker 1: lifeboats in a direct line to call for help. And
Speaker 1: as a result of this preparedness, not a single crew
Speaker 1: member or passenger drowned that day. That's pretty amazing, And
Speaker 1: you know, actually we neglected to mention what's probably my
Speaker 1: favorite advancement to come out of Titanic, and that's the
Speaker 1: creation of what's called the International Ice Patrol. Now, this
Speaker 1: was established the very next year after the Titanic sank,
Speaker 1: and the organization has spent the last hundred plus years
Speaker 1: just patrolling the North Atlantic and tracking the movement of icebergs.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the way that it worked in
Speaker 1: the early days is that a patrol ship would just
Speaker 1: head out into the open ocean, find the southernmost iceberg
Speaker 1: and then just kind of keep an eye on it
Speaker 1: for the rest of the season. And so it would
Speaker 1: follow the iceberg wherever it went and then just report
Speaker 1: those movements so that the other boats would know how
Speaker 1: to steer clear, which is awesome. And you said, this
Speaker 1: is something that still goes on today. Yeah, the Patrol
Speaker 1: is actually part of the U. S. Coast Guard now
Speaker 1: and so these days they mostly do their scouting by plane,
Speaker 1: but satellites are also a factor now, and of course
Speaker 1: sometimes the team will still take a ship out and
Speaker 1: babysit the icebergs, really kind of the old fashioned way. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, we also wanted to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the impact that Titanics had on culture, both in the
Speaker 1: US and abroad. But before we do that, let's take
Speaker 1: one more quick break. Okay, well, so let's talk about
Speaker 1: the first time Titanic fever gripped society, which of course
Speaker 1: was back when news of the ships sinking first broke.
Speaker 1: And the guy who actually got the scoop was this
Speaker 1: journalist named Carlos Heard who happened to be in just
Speaker 1: the right place at just the right time. But you
Speaker 1: don't tell me he was actually a passenger on the Titanic,
Speaker 1: was he? No? But super close? He He was actually
Speaker 1: one of the original passengers on board the Carpathia before
Speaker 1: it was rerouted to aid in the rescue operation. So
Speaker 1: during the four day trip to New York, Carlos was
Speaker 1: able to interview many of the Titanic survivors and then
Speaker 1: turned those accounts into a five thousand words story. So
Speaker 1: is it true like the public didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: the disaster until his story came out? Well, where did
Speaker 1: the collision reach the mainland? Thanks to wireless messages sent
Speaker 1: from both the Titanic and the Carpathia, But these communications
Speaker 1: were short on details, and they came nowhere close to
Speaker 1: capturing the full scope of the tragedy, and while there
Speaker 1: was plenty of time to fill people in during the
Speaker 1: voyage to New York, like, the captain of Carpathia actually
Speaker 1: banned everyone on board from sharing any information with the
Speaker 1: media aside from a list of which passengers had survived
Speaker 1: and which had perished. And so did people honor his wishes?
Speaker 1: Definitely not, because when the Carpathia finally arrived at port,
Speaker 1: it was immediately surrounded by small boats that have been
Speaker 1: chartered by overeager news companies. According to the Smithsonian quote,
Speaker 1: reporters shouted through megaphones on their tug boats offered terrific
Speaker 1: sums of money for information exclusives, but Captain Rosstron said
Speaker 1: he would shoot any pressman who dared ventured aboard his ship. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: so then how did Carlos Herd get his story out?
Speaker 1: Because I'm gonna have to imagine he and others were
Speaker 1: stuck on the boat for a while once they got
Speaker 1: to New York, and especially if they were so besieged
Speaker 1: by the press. That is true, which is why Carlos
Speaker 1: had to get creative if he was going to crack
Speaker 1: one of the biggest stories of the decade. And this
Speaker 1: is incredible. So you know, he sent the secret wireless
Speaker 1: message to a friend at a New York newspaper telling
Speaker 1: him to charter a tug boat, and then the guys
Speaker 1: sailed to the Carpatia that evening. Then behind the captain's back,
Speaker 1: Carlos stuffed his story into a waterproof bag and discreetly
Speaker 1: tossed it onto this waiting vote. And later that very night,
Speaker 1: the New York Evening World published his story. It was
Speaker 1: the first include accurate details about what had happened. And
Speaker 1: it's wild to look back and see just how fast
Speaker 1: the story spread and kind of took root in people's
Speaker 1: minds after that, and all in the days before television
Speaker 1: or really even the radio craze for that matter. And
Speaker 1: for instance, I was reading how manufacturers rushed to produce
Speaker 1: Titanic merchandise and the days following the crash, so in
Speaker 1: a matter of weeks the market was flooded with all
Speaker 1: sorts of commemorative products, from postcards and dinner plates to
Speaker 1: music boxes, whiskey jiggers. I was even reading about this
Speaker 1: German toy company called Steve that released a limited edition
Speaker 1: Titanic teddy bears shortly after the ships sank, and it's
Speaker 1: really weird, like it was actually called the Morning Bear
Speaker 1: because it was made to look like it was grieving
Speaker 1: the victims, like it had all black fur and these
Speaker 1: red rimmed eyes to make it look like the bear
Speaker 1: had been crying, and it's just gross, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you. And apparently the idea had come from a
Speaker 1: report about the Titanic senior engineer William Moves, who went
Speaker 1: down with the ship and supposedly he had a Steve
Speaker 1: Teddy bear on board with him, so the company decided
Speaker 1: to release a memorial bear in his honor. And the
Speaker 1: craziest part is that today the Steve Morning Bears typically
Speaker 1: go for upwards of twenty grand apiece at auction. That
Speaker 1: is insane. So one of the biggest surprises in preparing
Speaker 1: for today's episode was really that, like seeing just how
Speaker 1: quickly people began to capitalize on Titanic. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the best examples of that is the fact
Speaker 1: that exactly one month after the ship went down, the
Speaker 1: very first movie about Titanic premiered in theaters. Wait did
Speaker 1: you say one month after? Like I obviously knew the
Speaker 1: movie wasn't the first to tackle this subject. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't see any way that something could have come
Speaker 1: out that quickly one month after such a real life tragedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you haven't even heard the wildest part yet, because
Speaker 1: this movie, which was called Saved from the Titanic, actually
Speaker 1: started a young silent film actress named Dorothy Gibson, and
Speaker 1: Dorothy and her mother were both survivors of the real Titanic.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you even imagine like living through a
Speaker 1: nightmare like that and then re enacting the whole thing
Speaker 1: just two weeks later? I mean, I can't imagine that,
Speaker 1: nor would I want to. But what on earth made
Speaker 1: her want to do this? So Dorothy apparently did not
Speaker 1: want to do the movie at all, but she got
Speaker 1: talked into it by her producer slash boyfriend, who is
Speaker 1: I guess this unscrupulous Hollywood mogul type like. His name
Speaker 1: was Jules Brulator. He had put together this news reel
Speaker 1: on the Titanic that proved to be this huge hit.
Speaker 1: So he figured that a dramatization of the event starring
Speaker 1: an actual survivor would make a great next act, and so,
Speaker 1: with the help of a thousand dollar engagement ring, he
Speaker 1: made his pitch to Dorothy, and she ultimately agreed to
Speaker 1: make this one reel film about her experience, but as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, it was not easy. For the sake
Speaker 1: of realism, she chose to wear the same evening dress,
Speaker 1: coat and shoes that she'd worn the night Titanic sank,
Speaker 1: and Dorothy reportedly burst into tears multiple times during the shooting,
Speaker 1: and once the film had wrapped, she walked away from
Speaker 1: the movie business for good. She stated simply that she
Speaker 1: felt quote dissatisfied. I mean, I can't blame her for
Speaker 1: wanting to get away from an industry that would push
Speaker 1: her into reliving a trauma like that. But honestly, though,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to men, I would be curious
Speaker 1: to see the movie, and the truth is, you're not
Speaker 1: the only one. So Save from the Titanic is actually
Speaker 1: one of the holy grails for silent movie buffs. And
Speaker 1: that's because two years after it was made, this massive
Speaker 1: fire broke out at the studio and all the known
Speaker 1: prints were destroyed. So nobody's seen the movie since its
Speaker 1: original run in theaters over a hundred years ago. And
Speaker 1: as much as I wish the film could have been
Speaker 1: preserved for posterity, it's kind of poetic that no one
Speaker 1: can make her re enact that experience every again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess there's a certain kind of justice
Speaker 1: in that, But I mean what I find ironic is
Speaker 1: that there are plenty of people today who will go
Speaker 1: to great links and great expense to sort of relive
Speaker 1: the experience of the Titanic. I mean, you mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: how people pay big money to recreate the ships lavish meals,
Speaker 1: and they're also companies that offer one hundred thousand dollar
Speaker 1: submarine voyages to see the actual Titanic wreckage and all
Speaker 1: its glory. And I actually I read about an American
Speaker 1: couple that even got married and a tiny subduct on
Speaker 1: the bow of the tiny shipwreck. So I'm sure that
Speaker 1: made for some pretty amazing wedding fishers. But it does
Speaker 1: seem a little disrespectful to me, right, like it's effectively
Speaker 1: this mass grave. Well, I mean, you're not the only
Speaker 1: one to point that out, And in fact, listen to
Speaker 1: what the company that put on the undersea wedding said
Speaker 1: in its defense. It said, Um, what's got to be
Speaker 1: remembered is that every time a couple gets married in church,
Speaker 1: they have to walk through a graveyard to get to
Speaker 1: the altar. Yeah. I mean, plenty of people get married
Speaker 1: in churches that have on site cemeteries, but in those
Speaker 1: cases the graveyard isn't the selling point like it is
Speaker 1: with the Titanic. Well, I think the Titanic tourism stuff
Speaker 1: probably comes from that same place, as as those just
Speaker 1: missed it stories we talked about at the top of
Speaker 1: the show, and that kind of weird desire that people
Speaker 1: feel to tie themselves to someone else's tragedy. But I mean,
Speaker 1: in this case, I feel like it goes a little
Speaker 1: too far, which sounds right, but I pretty much signed
Speaker 1: with Robert Ballard, who is the oceanographer who first discovered
Speaker 1: the Titanic wreckage back in eighty five, and he refused
Speaker 1: to divulige to the ship's exact location for fear that
Speaker 1: treasure hunters and corporations would swoop into exploit it. And
Speaker 1: it's an act that Ballard actually saw his tantamount to
Speaker 1: grave robbing. Of course, the coordinates eventually leaked anyway, and
Speaker 1: not more than a hundred forty people have visited the
Speaker 1: shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland altogether, though these visitors
Speaker 1: have extracted some five thousand artifacts and done untold damaged
Speaker 1: the ship itself in the process. It's always a little
Speaker 1: unsettling to see the final resting place of so many
Speaker 1: people picked apart like that. But actually I read somewhere
Speaker 1: that the Titanics under UNESCO protection now, though, isn't it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: ever since the hundredth anniversary of the wreck. I believe so.
Speaker 1: Then it's considered like this underwater cultural heritage site or
Speaker 1: something like that, and so any kind of excavation would
Speaker 1: actually be off limits at this point. Yeah, that's true,
Speaker 1: and legal protections, even ones that are a few decades
Speaker 1: too late, are a nice deterrent to these would be
Speaker 1: pirates and scavengers. But the reality is that Titanic won't
Speaker 1: be around much longer, no matter what we do. And
Speaker 1: that's because about a decade ago, scientists discovered a new
Speaker 1: species of bacteria that's been slowly devouring the ship's iron hull.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but as the microbes munch away, they
Speaker 1: formed these icicle like communities called rusticles. And this happens
Speaker 1: all over the ship, inside it out. And as the
Speaker 1: rusticles get heavier and heavier, they start to pull the
Speaker 1: ship apart piece by piece. Meanwhile, the mollusks have made
Speaker 1: short work of the wood from Titanic, and of course
Speaker 1: any human remains were consumed by marine life long ago.
Speaker 1: So at this point most researchers think it's just another
Speaker 1: decade or two until the ship is gone forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that will really be the end of an era.
Speaker 1: But of course, with all the biographies and movies and
Speaker 1: Teddy Bears and themed dinners, I mean, I think we'll
Speaker 1: always have plenty to remember the Titanic and its passengers
Speaker 1: by absolutely, And speaking of remembrances, Robert Ballard gave a
Speaker 1: really touching one shortly after he found the shipwreck, and
Speaker 1: it kind of works as a eulogy for the ship
Speaker 1: and for the event as a whole. So I thought
Speaker 1: it might be a nice way to close out the show.
Speaker 1: Do you mind if I read it and then we
Speaker 1: can go straight to the fact off. Yeah, go for it, Okay.
Speaker 1: So this is what Ballard said. Quote. The Titanic lies
Speaker 1: now in thirteen thousand feet of water on a gently
Speaker 1: sloping alpine looking countryside, overlooking a small canyon below. Its
Speaker 1: bow faces north. The ship sits upright on its bottom,
Speaker 1: with its mighty stacks pointed upward. There is no light
Speaker 1: at this great depth, and little life can be found.
Speaker 1: It is a quiet and peaceful place, and a fitting
Speaker 1: place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies
Speaker 1: to rest forever. May it remain that way, and may
Speaker 1: God bless these now found souls. So one of the
Speaker 1: weirder things to read about is all the ways people
Speaker 1: plan to try to bring the Titanic back up to
Speaker 1: the surface. And some of the weird ones that I
Speaker 1: just jotted down here are One was filling polyester bags
Speaker 1: with vasoline, and the idea here is that vasoline would
Speaker 1: harden then become buoyant, and that that would somehow lift
Speaker 1: the Titanic. Another was filling the whole of the ship
Speaker 1: with thousands of ping pong balls. Uh. And then another
Speaker 1: one is in case the ship in ice, which would
Speaker 1: basically be the equivalent of creating a big ice cube
Speaker 1: and a drink, and that we all know what happens
Speaker 1: with ice cubes and a drink. They they float. So
Speaker 1: these were all brilliant ideas, but somehow none of these
Speaker 1: ideas came to life. So back in six the writer
Speaker 1: William t Stead wrote a fictional piece about a male
Speaker 1: steamer wrecking and then most of his passengers dying because
Speaker 1: there weren't enough lifeboats. And in the story he pointed
Speaker 1: out the fact that there really lax regulations didn't require
Speaker 1: ships to have enough lifeboats for every person on the ship.
Speaker 1: Just a few years later, Steve came back to his
Speaker 1: theme and wrote about a ship crashing into ice. And
Speaker 1: then we fast forward a couple of decades and one
Speaker 1: of the passengers who died in the Titanic tragedy was
Speaker 1: none other than Steed, and he did so because there
Speaker 1: were enough lifeboats on board. Wow. Well, we talked about
Speaker 1: this before, about how anytime there's a disaster like this,
Speaker 1: lots of people claim that they were almost a part
Speaker 1: of it. But there's actually one famous person that has
Speaker 1: pretty good proof of this. It turns out that Milton
Speaker 1: Snavely Hershey, you know, the man behind the legendary chocolate
Speaker 1: brand things like her She's Kisses her She chocolate bars.
Speaker 1: Do you need me to give more examples? Mango or
Speaker 1: with her Sheah? Well, anyway, he was scheduled to be
Speaker 1: on the ship. So if you head to Hershey, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and visit the community archives there, you can see a
Speaker 1: three hundred dollar check that hers She had written to
Speaker 1: the White Star Line, and it's believed to be a
Speaker 1: deposit tour a stateroom, but it turns out that he
Speaker 1: had more urgent business back in the States, and so
Speaker 1: Hershey and his wife took an earlier ship, the America,
Speaker 1: which strangely was one of the mini ships that sent
Speaker 1: back warnings to the Titanic. You know the iconic scene
Speaker 1: in the movie Titanic where Roses lying on the driftwood
Speaker 1: and staring up at the sky. Right, So Neil deGrasse
Speaker 1: Tyson apparently saw the scene and decided to send a
Speaker 1: note to James Cameron to point out that the star
Speaker 1: Rose was looking up at wouldn't have actually been the
Speaker 1: one she would have seen at that real place in time.
Speaker 1: The only issue is that Tyson didn't see this movie
Speaker 1: until about a decade after its initial release. But Cameron
Speaker 1: is such a perfectionist that he decided to reshoot the
Speaker 1: scene in preparation for the release of the three D edition,
Speaker 1: so more than a decade later. That's pretty wild and
Speaker 1: also pretty impressive that we made it near the end
Speaker 1: of the fact off before we really did a fact
Speaker 1: about the movie. Yeah, alright, Well, we all know that
Speaker 1: the Titanic sunk after fighting with an iceberg, but some
Speaker 1: believe that there was a massive coal fire in the
Speaker 1: bunker of the ship that actually caused significant structural weakening
Speaker 1: of the outside of the ship. Now, journalists sin and
Speaker 1: Maloney has been researching this subject for decades now, and
Speaker 1: he points to these photographs of the Titanic right before
Speaker 1: its final trip, and the photos show this huge black
Speaker 1: mark on the whole of the ship, which is of
Speaker 1: course where the ship would later hit the iceberg. Now,
Speaker 1: Maloney also believes that the owners of the Titanic were
Speaker 1: well aware of this damage, but not wanting to delay
Speaker 1: a trip, which would of course cost them a bunch
Speaker 1: of money, they decided to just ignore it. Now. I
Speaker 1: should note that many engineers looking at the situation have
Speaker 1: said it's difficult to tell how much that prior damage
Speaker 1: really contributed to the disaster. It may have all happened anyway,
Speaker 1: but it's still pretty interesting to look at this theory.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is crazy that their conspiracy theories about
Speaker 1: the Titanic. It's pretty fascinating. So there's a restaurant near
Speaker 1: Halifax Harbor. It's the seafood plants called Five Fishermen Restaurant,
Speaker 1: and it's supposedly a fantastic restaurant, but it's got a
Speaker 1: strange claim to fame. It was actually an old mortuary,
Speaker 1: the city's oldest. In fact, it was called Snow and
Speaker 1: Company undertakers, and it received the bodies of not just one,
Speaker 1: but two major tragedies in the early nine hundreds. It
Speaker 1: turns out that Halifax was the base of many of
Speaker 1: the rescue operations, and many of the bodies from the
Speaker 1: Titanic disaster were brought to Snow's funeral home. And then
Speaker 1: five years later, when the Halifax explosion took place, it
Speaker 1: was the largest human made explosion in history at the time,
Speaker 1: many of the bodies were once again brought to Snow
Speaker 1: and Company. Wow, such a weird coincidence. And you said
Speaker 1: it's a seafood place. Now it is, And well, well,
Speaker 1: I do like that fact. I think you're ping pong
Speaker 1: ball ice cube fact lifting the Titanic is is probably
Speaker 1: the happiest one of the slots. I think you deserve
Speaker 1: the prize this week. Thanks so much, And hopefully one
Speaker 1: day they will try all of those at one time.
Speaker 1: These just great rising of the ship. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's been interesting to dive into this one. I know
Speaker 1: there are facts out there that we certainly left out.
Speaker 1: We always love hearing those from you. You can email
Speaker 1: us those anytime part Time Genius at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is
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