Timeline - Back to Titanic Home

• 1867
  The unprofitable White Star Line is purchased by Thomas Henry Ismay and Sir Edward Harland.
• 1891
  Thomas Ismay's eldest son, J. Bruce Ismay is made a partner of White Star and one year later Thomas retires.
• 1898
  American author Morgan Robertson publishes the short novel "Futility" in which a British passenger liner called the Titan hits an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage without enough lifeboats in the month of April in the North Atlantic. The fictional ship is eerily similar to the yet-to-be conceived Titanic in size, speed, equipment, numbers of passengers (both rich and poor), and those lost.
• 1902
  White Star Lines is taken over by International Mercantile Marine Company created by J. Pierpoint Morgan. The purchase price is £10,000,000. J. Bruce Ismay stays on to eventually become the managing director of White Star.
• 1907
  J. Bruce Ismay and Lord James Pirrie, a partner in the firm of Harland and Wolff meet at a dinner party. Plans are made to build two luxury ships, the Olympic and the Titanic, with a third, the Gigantic (renamed Britannic), to be built later. Cost of each: £1,500,000.
• 1908-1909
  Construction of the Olympic and Titanic begins in Belfast, Ireland, at the Harland and Wolff shipyards.
• 1910 October 20
  The Olympic is successfully launched.
• 1911
  • May 31: The hull of the Titanic is successfully launched. 10 months of fitting out follow.
  • June: The Olympic leaves on her maiden voyage.
  • September 20: The Olympic, outbound from Southampton, has a major collision with H.M.S. Hawke, a British Royal Navy cruiser. Repairs made back at Harland and Wolff delay the fitting out of the Titanic one month.

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• 1912
• January:
  Sixteen wooden lifeboats, along with four collapsible canvas-sided boats, are fitted on board the Titanic.
• March 31:
  The outfitting of the Titanic is complete.
• April 10: Wednesday - Sailing day
  • 9:30 to 11:30 am: Passengers arrive in Southampton and board ship.
  • Noon: The Titanic casts off and begins her maiden voyage. She has a near miss with the steamer New York caused by the suction of Titanic's enormous displacement.
  • 6:30 pm: The Titanic rides anchor in Cherbourg, France.
  • 8:10pm: The Titanic leaves for Queenstown, Ireland.
• April 11:
  Thursday 1:30pm: Anchored off of Roche's Point, Queenstown, Ireland. Francis Browne, a Jesuit seminarian, disembarks and takes the last known photograph of the Titanic for the next 73 years. The Titanic leaves Queenstown for New York.
• April 12 and 13: Friday and Saturday
  The Titanic sails through calm, clear weather.
• April 14: Sunday
  Seven ice warnings are received during the day. Reports come in from the Noordamm, Caronia, Baltic, Amerika, Californian and Mesaba.
  • 10:30am: Church service held in first-class dining saloon.
  • 10:00pm: Lightoller relieved on bridge by First officer Murdoch. Lookouts in crow's nest relieved. Warning to watch for icebergs passed between the watches. Temperature is 32º F, sky cloudless, air clear.
  • 10:50pm: The Californian sends a wireless message directly to the Titanic telling them that they were stopped and surrounded by ice.
  • 11:39pm: The Titanic is steaming at 20.5 knots. Suddenly, lookouts, Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee, see an iceberg dead ahead about 500 yards away towering some 55-60 feet above the water. They immediately sound the warning bell with three sharp rings and telephone the bridge: "Iceberg right ahead." Sixth officer Moody on bridge acknowledges warning, relays message to Murdoch who instinctively calls "hard-a-starboard" to the helmsman and orders the engine room to stop engines and then orders full astern. Murdoch then activates the lever to close all watertight doors below the waterline. The helmsman spins the wheel as far as it will go. After several seconds, the Titanic begins to veer to port, but the iceberg strikes starboard bow side and brushes along the side of the ship and passes by into the night. The impact, although jarring to the crew down in the forward area, is not noticed by many of the passengers. Thirty-seven seconds have passed from sighting to collision.
  • 11:50pm: Captain Smith asks designer Thomas Andrews and the ship's carpenter to conduct a visual inspection of the damage. Water has poured in and risen 14 feet in the front part of the ship.
• April 15: Monday
  • 12:00am: Captain Smith is told by Andrews that the ship can only stay afloat for a couple of hours. He orders radio operators Harold Bride and Jack Phillips to send "CQD", the distress call. The Titanic's estimated position: 41º 46' N, 50º 14' W. The boilers are shut down and relief pipes against funnels blow off huge noisy clouds of steam.
  • 12:05am: Orders are given to uncover the lifeboats and to get the passengers and crew ready on deck. But there is only enough room in the lifeboats for about half of the estimated 2,228 people on board.
  • 12:10 to 1:50am: Several crew members on the Californian, some 10 to 19 miles away, see lights of a steamer. A number of attempts to make contact with the ship with Morse lamp fail. Rockets are observed, but as they appear so low over the ship's deck, and make no sound, they do not seem like distress rockets, and no great concern is taken. Distance between ships seem to increase until they are out of sight of each other.
  • 12:15 to 2:17am: Numerous ships receive the Titanic's distress signal, including her sister ship the Olympic, some 500 miles away. Several ships, including Mount Temple (49 miles away), Frankfort (153 miles away), Birma (70 miles), Baltic (243 miles), Virginian (170), and Carpathia (58 miles) prepare at various times to come to assist.
  • 12:25am: The order is given to start loading the lifeboats with women and children first. The Carpathia heads, full speed, to the rescue.
  • 12:45am: The first of the lifeboats is safely lowered away. It can carry 65 people but pulls away from the Titanic carrying only 28! The first distress rocket is fired. Eight rockets will be fired throughout the night.
  • 1:15am: Water begins to reach the Titanic's name on the bow. The tilt of the deck grows increasingly steeper. Lifeboats now begin to leave more fully loaded.
  • 1:40am: Most of the forward lifeboats have been lowered. Passengers now move towards the stern of the ship.
  • 2:05am: The last lifeboat leaves. There are now over 1,500 people left on board the sinking ship. The tilt of the Titanic's decks grows steeper by the minute.
  • 2:17am: Phillips continues to send last radio message. Capt. Smith tells crew members, "It's every man for himself," and returns to the bridge to await the end. Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder, is seen alone in the first-class smoking room staring into space. The Titanic's bow plunges under enabling the ensnared collapsible B to float clear upside down. Father Thomas Byles hears confession and gives absolution to over 100 second and third class passengers gathered at the aft end of the Boat Deck. The ships band stops playing. Many passengers and crew jump overboard The Titanic's forward funnel collapses crushing a number of swimming passengers. Collapsible A now floats free and about two dozen people in the water grab hold of it. It clears right side up, but is swamped and dangerously overloaded. Lowe, in boat no. 14, saves them just before dawn. Probably as many as half, however, have died.
  • 2:18am: Items in the ship are heard crashing through walls and falling toward the sinking bow. The ship's lights blink once and then go out. Several survivors see the ship break in two. The bow section sinks.
  • 2:20am: The Titanic's broken off stern section settles back into the water, becoming level for a few moments. Slowly it fills with water and again it tilts its end high into the air, before sinking vertically into the sea. Those struggling in the icy water slowly freeze to death. Over 1500 people perish.
  • 3:30am: The rescue ship, Carpathia's rockets are sighted by the survivors in the lifeboats.
  • 4:10am: The first lifeboat is picked up by Carpathia.
  • 8:50am: The Carpathia leaves the area bound for New York, carrying 705 survivors. J. Bruce Ismay wires White Star New York offices: "Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later."
• April 17: Hired by White Star, the Mackay-Bennet leaves Halifax to search for bodies at the disaster site.
• April 18: 9:00pm: The Carpathia arrives New York. She outruns hordes of newspaper reporters in boats clamoring for news. As the Carpathia passes Statue of Liberty, 10,000 people are on hand to watch. The Titanic's lifeboats hang at her sides. She passes the Cunard pier (no. 54) and steams on up-river to the White Star piers, there to lower the Titanic's boats. The Carpathia then returns to the Cunard pier to finally unload the survivors.
• April 19 to May 25: An inquiry into the Titanic disaster is conducted by the United States Senate, headed by Senator William A. Smith. Eighty-two witnesses are called.
• April 22 to May 15: Several ships are sent to the disaster site to search for bodies. A total of 328 bodies were found floating around the area.
• April 24: As the Titanic's sister ship Olympic is about to leave Southampton, her "black gang" (stokers) go out on strike. They will not work on a ship that does not carry enough lifeboats. 285 crew desert ship, and the Olympic's voyage is canceled.
• May 2 to July 3: British Board of Trade Inquiry is conducted. 25,622 questions are asked of 96 witnesses, including such expert witnesses as the inventor of radio, Marconi, and the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton regarding ice and icebergs. The only passenger witnesses are Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon and J. Bruce Ismay. Other witnesses include Capt. Lord of the Californian, Lightoller, who endures 1600 questions alone, members of the crew, the ship's owners, and members of the British Board of Trade. The final judgement recommends "more watertight compartments in ocean-going ships, the provision of lifeboats for all on board, as well as a better lookout."
• May 14: A one reel silent movie "Saved From the Titanic" is premiered. It starred actor Dorothy Gibson who was also a Titanic survivor.
• 1913 April:
  • As a result of the Titanic disaster, the International Ice Patrol is created to guard the North Atlantic sea lanes.
  • June: In the midst of public ridicule and rumors, J. Bruce Ismay loses his position as chairman of White Star Lines by the IMM board of directors.
• 1914
  February: The Titanic's second sister ship, the Britannic, is launched. She is sunk two years later during the First World War.
• 1932
  Molly Brown dies in New York City at age 65.
• 1935
  After 24 years of service, including war service carrying troops, and four major refittings, the Olympic is retired and scraped. She has crossed the Atlantic 500 times, steamed a million and a half miles and earned the nickname "Old Reliable."
• 1937
  A reclusive J. Bruce Ismay dies at the age of 74.
• 1955
  Walter Lord writes a non-fiction best seller, "A Night To Remember". Three years later a movie of the same title, based on the book, is made.
• 1964
  The film version of the Meredith Wilson's musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown is released starring Debbie Reynolds as the most famous Titanic hero.
• 1980
  • Clive Cussler's "Raise The Titanic" is made into a movie.
  • July: U.S. entrepreneur and explorer Jack Grimm funds a scientific expedition which set out to locate the wreck of the Titanic. Dogged by bad weather and equipment malfunctions, the expedition fails to find the Titanic.
• 1981 June:
  Jack Grimm unsuccessfully attempts to locate the Titanic on his second expedition.
• 1983 July:
  The third and final expedition funded by Jack Grimm fails to find the Titanic.
• 1985 September 1:
  A joint French - American scientific expedition, IFREMER/Woods Hole, led by Dr. Robert Ballard discovers the wreck of the Titanic at a depth of 12,500 feet.
• 1986
  Dr. Ballard returns to the Titanic and conducts extensive photographic exploration of the wreck. Towed submersible used to photograph much of the exterior. Manned dives with robot sub photograph significant sections of interior and exterior.
• 1987
  RMS Titanic Inc. is formed by an international group of businessmen anxious to see the Titanic's remains preserved. In cooperation with the French National Institute for Research and Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER), Titanic Inc. conducts research and recovery expeditions to the wreck site in 1987, 1993, 1994 and 1996. Some 5,000 artifacts have been recovered and are being preserved.
• 1991
  IMAX Corporation/P. P. Shirsov Institute films the Titanic in wide screen IMAX format. Biological studies and metallurgical sampling of the hull plating are performed.
• 1994
  The Wreck of the Titanic - a major exhibition - opens at the National Maritime Museum, London, displaying artifacts recovered by Titanic Inc. between 1987 and 1993.
• 1995
  P. P. Shirsov Institute & James Cameron conduct underwater filming for a fictional motion picture slated for release in late 1997.
• 1996
  August 26: IFREMER/RMS Titanic Inc. perform site mapping, artifact recovery, and photographic exploration of the interior and exterior. The expedition tries, but fails, to bring up an 11-ton piece of the hull.
• 1997
  December 18: The movie "Titanic", written and directed by James Cameron, begins its release around the world. At over $200 million, "Titanic" is the most expensive motion picture ever made. It goes on to win 11 Academy Awards.
• 1998
  August 10: George Tulloch leads IFREMER/RMS Titanic Inc. in recovering a 20 ton piece of Titanic's hull. It is successfully brought aboard the vessel Abeille.

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