Here is everything you need to know about the tragic passenger liner which was immortalised on the big screen and is set to return with Titanic II…
When did the Titanic sink?
The RMS Titanic was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
It was the largest passenger ship the world had seen when it set off on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, from Southampton to New York City.
Just five days into the journey, it collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic with around 2,224 passengers and crew on board.
At 11.40pm, the lookout sounded the alarm and telephoned the bridge warning: "Iceberg, right ahead".
But tragically the warning came too late and 37 seconds later, Titanic struck the iceberg – tearing a series of holes along the side of the hull.
The iceberg was around 100 feet tall and came from a glacier in Greenland.
Titanic's chief naval architect Thomas Andrews said to Captain Edward John Smith the ship would certainly sink. Captain Smith went down with his ship and was last seen in the wheelhouse.
THE UNSINKABLE SHIP – FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT THE TITANIC
Titanic was the world's largest passenger ship when it entered service – measuring 269 metres – and was the largest man-made moving object on Earth.
It burned around 600 tonnes of coal a day and almost 100 tonnes of ash were ejected into the sea every 24 hours.
There were 20,000 bottles of beer on board, 1,500 bottles of wine and 8,000 cigars – all for the use of first-class passengers.
Up to 246 injuries and two deaths were recorded during the ship’s 26-month construction in Belfast.
The last supper served to first-class passengers consisted of 11 courses.
First-class passengers were given a book containing 352 songs, with musicians on board required to know all of them in case requests were made.
James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic about the disaster has grossed more than £1.5bn, won 11 Oscars and is one of the highest grossing film of all time.
Six of the watertight compartments at the front of the ship's hull were breached – five of them flooding within the hour.
Musicians played for two hours and five minutes as the ship sank.
At 2.20am, the Titanic broke in two sending all remaining passengers plunging into the below-freezing waters of the Atlantic.
Three hours after the ship hit the iceberg, it lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean nearly 4km down.
How many people died when the Titanic sank?
More than 1,500 people were killed – making it one of the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.
Only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible boats were carried on board – enough to accommodate 1,178 people – but only one-third of the ship's total capacity.
Edward Smith, the ship’s captain, went down with the vessel. His last words were: “Well boys, you've done your duty and done it well. I ask no more of you. I release you. You know the rule of the sea. It's every man for himself now, and God bless you.”
Only 306 bodies were found and they were taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its Maritime Museum has a dedicated section to the victims that includes a deckchair recovered from the wreck, mortuary bags, and the shoes of an unknown victim.
What happened to the survivors?
At 4am, the RMS Carpathia arrived and transported around 705 survivors to New York, where they were met by 40,000 people.
Clothing and transportation to shelters was offered to survivors by the Women's Relief Committee, the Travelers Aid Society of New York, and the Council of Jewish Women.
Many left New York immediately, and the 214 surviving crew members were taken to the Red Star Line's steamer SS Lapland.
The last remaining survivor of the disaster, Millvina Dean, died on May 31, 2009, aged 97. She was two months old at the time.
Where is the wreck?
The wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985, 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada.
It is 12,500ft below the surface and the ship's bow penetrated 18 metres into the seabed.
A tour operator is now launching trips to the wreck in a submarine – but it will set punters back an eye-popping £86,000 – the same price a First Class passenger would have paid for a ticket on the actual ship back in 1912, when the $4,350 fare is adjusted for inflation.
The submarine trip is part of an eight-day cruise with Blue Marble Private.
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