Little-Known Facts About The Titanic That Show The Disaster In A New Perspective
The infamous ocean liner left England for New York in 1912, but never arrived in the Big Apple. Beyond that basic storyline, however, there are plenty more facts and figures that paint a fuller picture of the doomed vessel and its final journey. For starters, it was easy to believe that the Titanic truly was unsinkable...
A floating city that covered four whole blocks
As you might expect from its name, the RMS Titanic was a massive ship. Simply saying it was just over 882 feet, however, barely does the vessel justice. Some additional numbers can put its jaw-dropping design in perspective, though. In terms of pure length, the Titanic's 882 feet is roughly the equivalent of four urban blocks! Talk about taking the concept of a "floating city" literally. The craft came together in incredible fashion.
3,000 workers, over 1,000 passengers, and millions of rivets
All of that metal didn't form a ship on its own! An army of 3,000 workers used 3 million rivets to build what was, at the time, the largest vessel to sail the seven seas. In fact, everything about the Titanic was, well, titanic. On April 10, 1912, 1,317 ticketed passengers started boarding the Titanic for its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Once the ship set sail, though, the impressive numbers didn't stop rolling in. Much work had to be done to keep everyone happy.
A "pantry" the size of a warehouse
In terms of supplies, the ship's pantry was stocked to the brim with 40,000 eggs, 36,000 oranges, and other "essentials" like bottles of beer. Having fresh products available, especially at sea, was quite the luxury in 1912. That food, however, doesn't cook itself and the Titanic employed a small army in its kitchen. According to NPR, there were 113 cooks, 15 first cooks, 12 pastry chefs, 6 bakers, 5 butchers, and 5 sous chefs aboard, plus many more servers.
Cavernous below-deck storage, including one thousand bottles of wine
In the bowels of the ship, for example, there were 1,000 bottles of wine stored in a carefully maintained cellar. While that may sound excessive, the Titanic was a luxury ship, after all! Not every passenger had access to the full access to that pantry and the fruits of the kitchen staff's labor, though. Aboard the Titanic, passengers were divided into three distinct categories.
