First we looked at the timeline:
We looked at information on the BBC Newsround website which told us that at 11.40pm on Sunday April 14th 1912 Titanic was four days into its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York when it hit an iceberg and sank. She was the biggest, fastest and most luxurious passenger ship of the time, built by the White Star Line Company, but despite this it only took her 2 hours and 44 minutes to sink.
We also watched a clip from the Blue Peter website of an interview with Eva Hart who was 7 years old when she travelled aboard Titanic. She conducted her interview when she was 82 in 1987 and died in 1996, aged 91.
There were 2224 passengers and crew on board but there were only 16 lifeboats because Titanic was considered the safest ship ever built; also the White Star Company thought that more lifeboats would spoil the appearance of the decks.
Work on the construction of Titanic began in March 1909 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Captain of the Titanic was Edward John Smith who was on his final voyage before retirement. He went down with the ship and his body was never found.
The Carpathia was the first rescue ship to reach the disaster area and her crew saved 705 survivors. Here is a photograph of some of the survivors:
Tomorrow we will be thinking about why Titanic sank and who was responsible. Was it Bruce Ismay, the owner of the White Star Line, who wanted Titanic to be the fastest ship to travel across the Atlantic? Or was it Thomas Andrew, the architect of Titanic, who designed airtight compartments which were too small in order to give the first class passengers higher ceilings in their cabins?
No comments:
Post a Comment