How many people aboard the titanic

Of the 2, passengers and crew on board, more than 1, lost their lives in the disaster. The Titanic was the product of intense competition among rival shipping lines in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, the White Star Line found itself in a battle for steamship primacy with Cunard, a venerable British firm with two standout ships that ranked among the most sophisticated and luxurious of their time.

The same year that Cunard unveiled its two magnificent liners, J. Bruce Ismay, chief executive of White Star, discussed the construction of three large ships with William J. Pirrie, chairman of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff. In March , work began in the massive Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, on the second of these three ocean liners, Titanic, and continued nonstop for two years. More than , people attended the launching, which took just over a minute and went off without a hitch.

According to some hypotheses, Titanic was doomed from the start by a design that many lauded as state-of-the-art. The Olympic-class ships featured a double bottom and 15 watertight bulkhead compartments equipped with electric watertight doors that could be operated individually or simultaneously by a switch on the bridge.

The second critical safety lapse that contributed to the loss of so many lives was the inadequate number of lifeboats carried on Titanic. Titanic could carry up to 2, passengers, and a crew of approximately brought her capacity to more than 3, people. As a result, even if the lifeboats were loaded to full capacity during an emergency evacuation, there were available seats for only one-third of those on board. Titanic created quite a stir when it departed for its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, on April 10, Absent was financier J.

Morgan , whose International Mercantile Marine shipping trust controlled the White Star Line and who had selected Ismay as a company officer. Morgan had planned to join his associates on Titanic but canceled at the last minute when some business matters delayed him.

The wealthiest passenger was John Jacob Astor IV, heir to the Astor family fortune, who had made waves a year earlier by marrying year-old Madeleine Talmadge Force, a young woman 29 years his junior, shortly after divorcing his first wife. The employees attending to this collection of First Class luminaries were mostly traveling Second Class, along with academics, tourists, journalists and others who would enjoy a level of service and accommodations equivalent to First Class on most other ships.

But by far the largest group of passengers was in Third Class: more than , exceeding the other two levels combined. It was Third Class that was the major source of profit for shipping lines like White Star, and Titanic was designed to offer these passengers accommodations and amenities superior to those found in Third Class on any other ship of that era. Its the most dreadful sound and there is a terrible silence that follows it. The dead came up holding children in their arms.

The poor people never had a chance. Of the children traveling on the Titanic, almost half were killed when the ship sank — 53 children in total. To my poor fellow-sufferers: My heart overflows with grief for you all and is laden with sorrow that you are weighed down with this terrible burden that has been thrust upon us.

May God be with us and comfort us all. Critics faulted him for allowing the ship to travel close to its maximum speed despite reports of ice in the area, but it was later noted that Smith was abiding by standard maritime practice. At the time, ice was viewed as fairly harmless and even when previous ocean liners had experienced head-on collisions, the damage had been recoverable.

Reports vary widely on how Smith, played by Bernard Hill in Titanic, reacted to the sinking ship. Some eyewitness claim he actively helped women and children onto the lifeboats and did his best to prevent panic, while others say he had become paralyzed with fear and turned ineffective during the evacuation. In the end, he was believed to have made a final sweep of the ship's deck and offered this simple advice to his crew: "Well boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves.

He and his pregnant wife, Madeleine, booked a trip on the Titanic to return to the U. According to eyewitnesses, Astor clung to the side of a raft, but as his body froze to death in subfreezing temperatures, he let go and drowned. Thomas Andrews wasn't just any passenger on the Titanic — the Irishman was its architect. Andrews' purpose for traveling on the ship's maiden voyage was to make observations and offer suggestions for improvement.

However, when the hull of the ship collided with the iceberg, the shipbuilder knew Titanic's fate was sealed. While legend has it that Andrews, played by Victor Garber in the movie, was last seen standing in the first-class smoking room gazing at a painting of Plymouth , many eyewitness accounts claim he was last seen actively assisting women and children into lifeboats and throwing chairs into the water for others to use as flotation devices.

His body was never identified. Sharing a cabin with his valet Victor Giglio, the two slept through the initial iceberg collision and didn't quite realize the severity of the circumstances at hand. After getting dressed and helping his lover and some of his staff into Lifeboat No. It's just a repair. Tomorrow the Titanic will go on again. After realizing there were no more lifeboats and that no one was going to rescue them, Guggenheim and Giglio returned to their cabin and got dressed in their evening wear.

The two men entered the Grand Staircase area and Guggenheim was said to have remarked, "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. Read on to discover even more fascinating facts and figures about the people on board the ship. Astor died in the sinking of the Titanic, and his body picked up by the Mackay-Bennett.

Cats were commonly taken aboard ships to bring good luck and to control pests. However, contrary to popular belief, no cats were taken aboard the Titanic.