FEATURED FACT: 50 facts about the TITANIC for its 100th Anniversary

1. It cost $7,500,000 to build the Titanic.
2. It took three years to fully construct the ship.
3. Among the provisions when the Titanic set sail in Southampton, England were 40,000 eggs, 75,000 pounds of fresh meat and 1,000 bottles of wine.
4. The Titanic's total capacity was 3547 passengers + crew.
5. The Titanic's weight fully loaded was 46,328 tons.
6. The Titanic was 882 feet/268 meters long.
7. There were 29 boilers on board of the ship.
8. The ship consumed 825 tons of coal in one day.
9. The top speed of the Titanic was 23 knots.
10. Sadly, Captain Smith had made plans to retire after seeing the Titanic safely across the Atlantic on her maiden voyage.
11. Even though directions have been given for women and children to board the lifeboats first, a number of men were reported as survivors while a surprisingly large number of women and children perished in the disaster. Most of the women and children lost in the sinking came from second and third class.
12. The largest percentage of survivors came from first class passengers.
13. Of the 1517 people of perished in the sinking of the Titanic, only 306 bodies were recovered.
14. Every stateroom contained electric lighting and heat.
15. The ship was still so brand new when passengers boarded it on April 10, 1912 that the paint was still wet in some spots.
16. The ship contained a heated swimming pool, a first for any sailing vessel.
17. Each first class passenger paid a whopping $4,350 for a parlor suite ticket and $150 for a berth ticket.
18. Among the property reported as lost on the Titanic were over 3000 bags of mail and an automobile.
19. Further facts on the Titanic indicate that the ship received information earlier regarding the presence of ice floes in the vicinity, yet continued to speed full throttle ahead towards tragedy.
20. The ship was loaded with only enough lifeboats to hold half of the Titanic passengers. There were 20 of them with a total capacity of 1178 people.
21. Some of the limited lifeboats were lowered to the waters only half-full.
22. Originally, a lifeboat drill was scheduled to take place on board the Titanic on April 14, 1912 - the day the Titanic hit the iceberg. However, for an unknown reason, Captain Smith canceled the drill. Many believe that had the drill taken place, more lives could have been saved.
23. From the time the lookouts sounded the alert, the officers on the bridge had only 37 seconds to react before the Titanic hit the iceberg. In that time, First Officer Murdoch ordered "hard a-starboard" (which turned the ship to port -- left). He also ordered the engine room to put the engines in reverse. The Titanic did bank left, but it wasn't quite enough.
24. The Titanic seemed to have everything on board, including its own newspaper which is the Atlantic Daily Bulletin.
25. Although most passengers had to share bathrooms (only the two promenade suites in first class had private bathrooms), third class had it rough with only two bathtubs for more than 700 passengers.
26. When the Titanic began sending out distress signals, the Californian, rather than the Carpathia, was the closest ship; yet the Californian did not respond until it was much too late to help.
27. At 12:45 a.m. on April 15, 1912, crew members on the Californian saw mysterious lights in the sky (the distress flares sent up from the Titanic) and woke up their captain to tell him about it. Unfortunately, the captain issued no orders.
28. Of the nine dogs on board the Titanic, the two that were rescued were a Pomeranian and a Pekinese.
29. In what is now an iconic image, the side view of the Titanic clearly shows four cream and black funnels. While three of these released the steam from the boilers, the fourth was just for show. The designers thought the ship would look more impressive with four funnels rather than three.
30. The R.M.S. Titanic was a Royal Mail Ship, a designation which meant the Titanic was officially responsible for delivering mail for the British postal service.
31. On April 17, 1912, the day before survivors of the Titanic disaster reached New York, the Mackay-Bennett was sent off from Halifax, Nova Scotia to search for bodies.
32. On board the Mackay-Bennett were embalming supplies, 40 embalmers, tons of ice, and 100 coffins.
33. Although the Mackay-Bennett found 306 bodies, 116 of these were too badly damaged to take all the way back to shore.
34. In all, 328 bodies were found, but 119 of these were badly damaged and thus were buried at sea.
35. 10,000 - the approximate number of lamp bulbs used on the ship.
36. Two workers were killed during the construction of Titanic.
37. 2,223 - the number of people aboard (passengers and crew).
38. 13 - the number of honeymooning couples on the voyage.
39. 3,547 - the maximum number of people the Titanic could carry.
40. 14,000 - the gallons of drinking water used every 24 hours.
41. 160 - the minutes it took the Titanic to sink after hitting the iceberg (2 hours and 40 minutes).
42. 6 - the number of warnings of icebergs the Titanic received before the collision.
43. -2 - the temperature of the sea water in centigrade.
44. 74 - the number of years it took to find the wreck of the Titanic.
45. The cargo on the ship included 12 cases of ostrich feathers and 76 cases of dragon’s blood
46. When the iceberg scraped the side of the Titanic, some ice chunks landed on the forward deck. Passengers playfully began
tossing them at each other, and a game of ice football broke out.
47. The Titanic was almost three football fields long and one football field wide.
48. The Titanic was discovered 21 / 2 miles underwater and more than 13 miles from where it was last seen.
49. 840 - the total number of staterooms (416 First Class, 162 Standard Class, 262 Third Class).
50. TITANIC 3D is now showing

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QUICK RUNDOWN: The fateful voyage in 1912

April 10: Leaves Southampton, England, to pick up passengers and mail in Cherbourg, France.

April 11: Arrives in Queenstown (now known as Cobh), Ireland, before noon. Some passengers get on; others get off. In the afternoon, sets sail for New York.

April 12: First iceberg warning received. Warnings continue for next three days.

April 14: Strikes iceberg at 11:40 p.m. and begins taking on water.

April 15: Shortly before 12:30 a.m., people begin boarding lifeboats. The Titanic splits in half about 2:20 a.m. and sinks just minutes later. About 3:30 a.m. the RMS Carpathia arrives, takes passengers off lifeboats and heads for New York.

April 18: The Carpathia reaches New York with 705 Titanic survivors (56 children, 324 women, 325 men).