A ship thought unsinkable hit an iceberg in 1912 and took about 1,500 people down with her

historyWikipedia1912 · North Atlantic Ocean

A ship thought unsinkable hit an iceberg in 1912 and took about 1,500 people down with her

the gist

RMS Titanic, the largest ocean liner in service, sank in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. She struck an iceberg at 23:40 on 14 April while travelling at roughly 22 knots, despite having received seven ice warnings. The glancing blow opened six of her sixteen compartments, more than her design could survive. She carried only twenty lifeboats, so many were launched half empty, and most people who ended up in the freezing water died within minutes. The Carpathia reached the scene about ninety minutes later and rescued 710 survivors. The disaster caused outrage over the lifeboat shortage and the ignored warnings.

so what

The sinking led directly to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in 1914, which still governs maritime safety today. It remains a case study in how complacency and inadequate safety planning turn a survivable accident into a catastrophe.

fun fact

Titanic's lifeboat count met the rules of the time, which were based on the idea that lifeboats only needed to ferry people to nearby rescue ships.

more on this

background

RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Of the 2,208 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died (estimates vary), making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.

Titanic was operated by the White Star Line, one of the premier transatlantic services, and carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture. At the time of her voyage, she was the largest ship afloat upon entering service and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line.

From Wikipedia: Titanic (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Robert Welch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Courtesy of NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rh…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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