Puzzle #3 ·
The Sinking of the Titanic
1912
The answer
On 14–15 April 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York and sank. More than 1,500 of the roughly 2,224 people aboard died; the disaster transformed maritime safety law.
Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, the liner had been launched in 1911 and completed in March of the following year. Its first Atlantic crossing began at Southampton on 10 April. Titanic also called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before heading west, carrying passengers with very different circumstances and reasons for making the journey.
The ship received warnings about ice on 14 April. At approximately 11:40 that night, it struck an iceberg. The evacuation unfolded during the early hours of the next morning, with wireless distress calls seeking assistance from other ships. Titanic sank at about 2:20 a.m., leaving those who had not reached a lifeboat exposed to the North Atlantic.
Carpathia began taking survivors aboard at around 4:10 a.m. and later carried them to New York, arriving on 18 April. The scale of the loss made the voyage a lasting symbol of the limits of confidence in engineering. Personal belongings and survivor accounts preserve the human experience behind the famous ship. Its wreck was not located until 1985, more than seven decades after the sinking.
The five clues
- Clue 1
The largest moving object ever built sets out on its maiden voyage.
- Clue 2
The press has called this ship practically unsinkable.
- Clue 3
It carries lifeboats for barely half of the more than 2,200 people aboard.
- Clue 4
On a calm, moonless night in the North Atlantic, an iceberg is sighted too late.
- Clue 5
It sails from Southampton in April; survivors are picked up by the Carpathia, and a novel about a nearly identical sinking had been published 14 years earlier.
Background: The Sinking of the Titanic — Wikipedia
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