Ever wondered if we could actually lift the Titanic from the ocean floor? Well, turns out, it's not that simple – the wreck is buried deep and weighs a ton, literally! And did you know the youngest passenger on board was a tiny baby named Millvina Dean, just a few months old? Talk about an unexpected guest on history's most infamous voyage! But wait, there's more – enter the man who foresaw the Titanic's tragic fate, Morgan Robertson. He wrote a book years before the disaster, eerily similar to the real events. It's like he had a crystal ball or something! These hidden truths and surprising facts about the Titanic are like pieces of a giant puzzle, each revealing a new layer of intrigue and mystery.
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00:00 April 14, 1912. The Titanic crashed into a huge iceberg and sank. Yep, we've covered
00:07 that. But what if this time we use the ice to bring the ship to the surface? This requires
00:13 several thousand feet of wire mesh and a lot of liquid nitrogen. Our goal is to put the
00:18 Titanic in a huge block of ice that will raise the ship to the surface. Now to do this, you
00:24 need to wrap the wreck in a wire mesh and cover it with liquid nitrogen. The first problem
00:28 you face is the inability to wrap the ship completely. You need to somehow lift the ship
00:33 a little to put the mesh under it. Let's say that by some miracle you manage to do so.
00:39 Next, you need to transport hundreds of large tanks of liquid nitrogen. You're underwater,
00:44 opening the tanks, and it's so cold that the icy water of the Atlantic Ocean looks like
00:49 it's boiling. The nitrogen just sizzles, dissipates, and certainly doesn't create a block of ice
00:55 around the mesh. All right, new attempt. Raise the Titanic with the help of huge magnets.
01:01 For this, you need a large cruiser and some powerful magnets. You attach thick cables
01:06 to the magnets and lower them to the bottom. Bright projectors illuminate the black oak
01:11 chandels. Parts of the wreck are visible. The magnets descend lower and cling to the
01:16 iron hull of the ship. The cruiser pulls the cables and magnets up. Some of them detach
01:21 from the Titanic as the iron surface is covered with reefs and corals. Some parts of the wreck
01:26 break away from the ship and rise. The power of the cruiser is not enough. One of the cables
01:31 is torn. Not only the weight of the individual parts of the Titanic, but also the colossal
01:37 water pressure interferes with the operation. The sunken ship can't be raised completely,
01:42 only its small parts. In reality, there has already been an attempt to raise the Titanic
01:48 in parts. The $5 million operation failed. Nylon slings were attached to a large part
01:54 of the wreck. The other ends of the slings were connected to the diesel engines. For
01:58 the entire operation, they used a mini-submarine. A piece of the Titanic weighing 21 tons was
02:05 pulled up. But one of the slings broke because of the strong water pressure. Then, one by
02:10 one, the other cables began to snap, and a huge piece fell back to the sea floor. By
02:16 this time, all the participants of the rescue operation had run out of food supplies, and
02:21 it was far from the nearest shore. So, they decided not to make a second attempt. A book
02:27 was written and a movie was made about how the Titanic was lifted with compressed air.
02:32 In reality, no one even attempted this operation. To do this, you'd need several hundred large
02:38 cylinders of compressed air. At first, you install them inside the Titanic's hull and
02:43 wait for them to pull the ship to the surface. As soon as you lower the cylinders under the
02:48 water, they immediately float upwards. This greatly complicates the operation. You need
02:53 to fasten the cylinders with cables and pull them down to the bottom using a powerful submarine
02:58 or, better yet, several of them. Because of the high pressure, the cylinders might burst.
03:04 In this case, the blast wave would hit other cylinders and provoke a catastrophe. Too expensive
03:09 and unsafe. The most expensive and complex plan to raise the Titanic is probably the
03:16 one where scientists somehow extract hydrogen and oxygen from the ocean water. Then, these
03:21 extracted elements must fill special containers. Those containers are attached to the ship,
03:27 and the Titanic would rise to the surface. Even if you extract oxygen and hydrogen from
03:32 millions of tons of water, the rest of the ocean water will replace it. A machine that
03:37 will be capable of such filtering should cost billions of dollars. Or you can come up with
03:42 a chemical element that will use a chain reaction to purify all the water. In this case, the
03:48 entire world ocean will be left without vital oxygen. Someone once suggested blowing up
03:53 the Titanic. You'd need to lower several boxes of dynamite to the ocean floor. The
03:58 boxes must be completely sealed to prevent the dynamite from getting wet. Next, you need
04:03 to run several miles of wire conducting an electrical current to them. Once all this
04:08 is done, you sail to a safe distance. Now, you're going to press the button to pass
04:12 the current through the wire and activate the dynamite. 3, 2, 1, stop! Why would you
04:19 do this? Even if it works, the wreckage of the Titanic will be scattered in all directions
04:24 on the seabed. It will be impossible to lift the Titanic from the ocean. Imagine a huge
04:30 hook that can fetch the Titanic and lift it from the bottom like a fish. This hook must
04:35 be huge to pick up a sunken ship. Let's say you created it. Next, you're on a huge cruiser
04:42 sailing up to the crash site and lowering the hook down like an anchor. It falls right
04:47 on the Titanic but doesn't cling to it. You need special equipment to attach a bus-sized
04:52 hook to the Titanic. It would include a huge submarine with mechanical arms. To build such
04:58 a device and make it work under enormous pressure is already next to impossible. But let's say
05:04 you finally manage to hook the Titanic. It's then you realize the cruiser doesn't have
05:10 enough power to lift the ship, weighing more than 50 tons, and the hook that adds about
05:15 10 tons more. To complete your task, you'll need a few more cruisers and a few extra million
05:20 dollars. Hmm. Once hot wax cools, it hardens and floats on the water's surface. What if
05:27 we deliver it to the ocean floor and pour it inside the Titanic? This may work, given
05:33 that wax is not an expensive material. So you melt the wax, pour it into strong tanks,
05:39 and pull them to the bottom with the help of a submarine. The tanks can withstand enormous
05:43 pressure, and the submarine has enough power to lower the wax to such a depth. The containers
05:48 are placed inside the Titanic. Through a remote control, you open the containers, but the
05:54 wax doesn't pour out. The deeper you go, the colder the water gets. While you were
05:59 delivering the containers to the ship, the wax was cooling down and getting solid inside.
06:05 Several containers are pressed against the top of the ship, but it's not enough to lift
06:09 the Titanic. Other containers simply float away to the surface. And even if the containers
06:14 were thermostatic and kept hot inside all the time, once released, the wax would solidify
06:20 in an instant. There would just be no time for it to spread and cover the Titanic from
06:26 within, so it would just float up as well.
06:29 No one could ever have imagined that the unsinkable Titanic would collide with an iceberg. Except
06:36 for one man, William Thomas Dead. Well, not directly, of course. It's not like he jolted
06:42 out of bed one day, envisioning the fall of the Titanic. Rather, he wrote an empowering
06:47 short story called "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid-Atlantic by a Survivor"
06:53 on March 3, 1886, 26 years before Titanic sank.
06:58 Ok, let's do a super quick recap. Titanic was traveling from Southampton to New York
07:04 in April 1912 in the North Atlantic. The ship hit an iceberg, and less than 3 hours later,
07:09 it was completely underwater. Out of 2,208 people on board, just 706 survived, due to
07:17 the limited number of lifeboats and icy cold water. Another passenger ship, Carpathia,
07:23 heard the distress call, picked up the survivors, and brought them safely to New York.
07:28 The short story William Dead wrote was about Thomas, a British sailor, who got on a passenger
07:34 liner bound for the US. At one point, the protagonist realized there weren't enough
07:39 lifeboats for everyone on board the ship in case something happened. A couple of days
07:44 later, heavy fog covered everything inside. Luck was not on the liner's side, and it
07:49 collided with a stray ship, just like Titanic struck an iceberg. Only 200 out of the 916
07:56 people made it safely to the US. The main character managed to survive by jumping into
08:01 the water and climbing into one of the lifeboats.
08:04 Now, you'd think that the story riled up everyone in the industry to add extra lifeboats
08:10 on ships. But, sadly, it received very little attention when it was published. Even more
08:16 tragically, William Thomas Stead was on Titanic when it sank, and he didn't make it. The
08:23 survivors who knew Stead mentioned that he had always been cheerful and had loved to
08:27 chat during meals. He complimented the ship's design and how sturdy it was. Witnesses also
08:33 talked about how he'd been helpful when the ship had been sinking, having given his
08:38 life jacket to someone else. He was a journalist by profession and was on his way to New York
08:43 for a ceremony. One of his most important contributions to modern journalism was the
08:48 use of illustrations in every newspaper article. He also introduced newspaper interviews, and
08:54 they're still used to this day along with illustrations.
09:23 To 15 a.m., the ship collides with an iceberg. To 18 a.m., the lights go out. The ship reaches
09:31 an angle of 45 degrees and then quickly begins its final plunge into the ocean depths. To
09:37 20 a.m., only about three minutes later, the RMS Titanic disappears under the surface of
09:43 the ocean for good. The liner doesn't break. It just goes down as a whole piece. Of course,
09:50 this can't be true. In April 1912, the Titanic was not only the largest ship in the world,
09:56 but also the largest ship ever built. It's hard to believe that such a heavy vessel could
10:01 have gone down without breaking. That's just impossible. Well, I mean, you can't blame
10:07 the theorists. Before we found the wreckage, there were no other theories. Wait a minute,
10:12 or were there? The day after the disaster, the survivors gave their interviews. They
10:18 talked about what had happened, and some of them claimed that the ship had actually broken
10:23 in two when it had been flooded. For example, Jack Thayer, a 17-year-old boy, outlined the
10:30 sinking as he remembered it, and L.D. Skidmon drew a sketch based on his description. The
10:36 picture clearly showed the ship breaking in half. But no one believed Jack or other witnesses.
10:43 There was no evidence, so their claims were received with a grain of salt. But in 1985,
10:49 things changed.
10:52 First breakup theory. That's when Robert Ballard found the wreckage of the Titanic in the depths
10:58 of the ocean. When people saw the wreckage, it became clear that Jack and the other survivors
11:03 had been right. The Titanic did indeed break in two when it sank. So, it's time for a new
11:09 theory. 2.15am. The keel breaks, the starboard list eases, and the hull continues to bow
11:18 and crumble. 2.17am. The galley sections break off. The towers immediately drop under their
11:25 own weight. The lights go out. The stern is pulled into the air. The bow breaks off and
11:31 starts sinking. The aft is barely hanging on to the starboard side of the stern section
11:36 superstructure. The stern section slowly lists over to port as it begins sinking again. It
11:42 rises up one last time and pivots in a semicircle as it sinks.
11:48 It all sounds pretty convincing, right? But people began to find plot holes in this theory.
11:54 For example, the Titanic couldn't have held together until it reached such a high angle.
11:59 The breakup would have had to begin much earlier. This only meant there was still a vast field
12:05 for research and speculations. So, people started to come up with their own possible
12:10 scenarios. How about we look first at the ones no one likes?
12:15 1. V-break and Aaron 1912 V-break. According to the first breakup theory, the
12:22 Titanic reached a high angle and the weight of its unsupported stern caused it to crack
12:27 from the top down. But it's physically impossible. So, are there any other ideas?
12:34 In 2006, Roger Long, a naval architect, decided to research a so-called V-theory.
12:40 2.17am. The breakup begins at a shallow angle, perhaps as little as 11 degrees. The upper
12:49 structure fails and starts to crack. At this moment, only its double bottom is holding
12:55 the Titanic together. But it starts to bend under the strain too, failing the ship. Water
13:01 is pouring through the crack. It increases the weight in between the two sections, bending
13:07 the Titanic the other way and pulling it into shape somewhat resemblant to the letter V.
13:13 The upper decks get mangled and bent together. The bow heads for the bottom, and the stern
13:18 is the last to sink. This theory has since been disproven many
13:23 times though. Roger Long believed it because the broken edges of the upper decks in the
13:28 Titanic's bow section were all mangled and crushed. However, we have learned that it
13:33 happened because of the so-called hydraulic downburst, the force of the water crashing
13:39 into the deck as the Titanic hit the ocean floor.
13:44 Another V-break theory states that the bow had risen out of the water after the break.
13:49 This theory was mainly peddled by one former Titanic enthusiast. But not only has this
13:54 theory been proved to be physically impossible due to the bow's incredible mass, it was also
13:59 inspired by incorrect information. Remember Jack Thayer? Well, it was based on
14:06 his sketch and the words of a couple of passengers. But the truth is, none of them had ever seen
14:12 the Titanic break down like this. Jack himself even stated in an interview that the sketch
14:17 was completely out of context to what he had actually seen. It was drawn by a passenger
14:23 on the Carpathia, the ship that received the Titanic's distress signal and came to its
14:28 aid. It couldn't be used as evidence. The night was dark and scary. A few hundred
14:33 people were sitting in lifeboats, not knowing what would happen next or what their lives
14:38 would look like from that moment on. All they knew was the giant ship they had been sailing
14:44 on just a couple of hours earlier disappeared in front of their eyes. They were alone, waiting
14:50 for help. Is anyone even coming? They had no idea if the rest of the ships that were
14:55 traveling relatively close to them had heard their call for help. There was nothing else
15:00 to do but wait. The Titanic, an Iceberg and One Night, April
15:06 14, 1912. It's one of the most famous stories from modern history that everyone talks about
15:12 even now, more than 100 years later. The 16 lifeboats on board could only accommodate
15:19 a little more than 50%, 1178 people, of the total number of passengers that were on board,
15:27 and many of them were still half empty. In one of them, there was a little two-month-old
15:32 girl, Milvina Dean, the youngest passenger on board the giant ship. Her parents had decided
15:39 to leave England because they wanted to build a better life in the United States. Her father
15:44 had some family in Kansas, and he hoped they could start their own business there. The
15:49 Dean family didn't actually choose to be on board this giant legendary liner, but because
15:54 of a coal strike, they got transferred there, so they boarded it at Southampton as third-class
16:00 passengers. Milvina's father felt when their ship hit the iceberg on that cold and seemingly
16:06 peaceful night. He immediately went up to investigate. When he saw that people were
16:11 panicking and that the crew members were giving warnings on the actual danger of the situation,
16:16 he rushed to their cabin to find his wife. He told her to dress the children and quickly
16:21 go up on deck. The crew members gave the order to get the lifeboats ready and start transferring
16:27 women and children there first. It was a chance for at least some family members to get to
16:32 safety. Milvina, her mother, and her brother got in lifeboat 10. They were among the first
16:38 off the liner out of the 706 crew members and passengers who managed to escape the sinking
16:43 ship. Later, the liner called Carpathia heard their call for help, came for the passengers,
16:50 and took them to New York. Her father, unfortunately, stayed behind them and didn't manage to save
16:57 himself.
16:58 Milvina grew up in Ashurst, England, which wasn't far from where she set sail on the
17:02 ship. She spent her life working as a secretary and an assistant in small businesses in Southampton.
17:10 She never married. Milvina always used to say she never spoke about the whole Titanic
17:15 thing because she remembered nothing about it.