TITANIC - A historical information essay.

Essay by mpevzner86High School, 10th gradeA+, December 2003

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The story of the Titanic and the iceberg has grown into a legend of the sea. It took her discovery in 1985 to begin to find the truth behind the myth. One of the things that make the Titanic so fascinating is that she represented the best of technology when she set sail on her ill-fated voyage in 1912, and it took the best of technology in the form of sonar, satellite tracking, and deep-dive technology to locate her grave 73 years later. In the early 1900's, waterborne transportation was the norm; today, satellites are taken for granted by our society. But we tend to forget the immense effort that these two technologies require to operate to their maximum potential. Until recently, the technology did not exist to locate, photograph, and explore this ship that rested two and a half miles down on the ocean floor.

Shortly before the Titanic was built, White Star Lines was looking to construct new vessels to compete with the new vessels of the time.

They needed to build ships better, faster, and bigger than those of Cunard Liner's Mauretania and Luistania. On March 31, 1909, the construction of the Titanic began. Nearly fifteen thousand workers were hired to build it. The completed ship cost about 7.5 million dollars (in 1912) and weighed 46,328 Gross Registered Tons, each equal to 100 cubic feet. Nearly the length of three football fields she was, at the time, the largest moving object ever created by man. The Titanic had nine decks, three anchors, 29 boilers, 3 propellers, four funnels, and was as high as an eleven-story building. The Titanic was divided by 15 transverse bulkheads, which were said to be watertight because the bulkheads extended well above the waterline. The ship could still remain buoyant if at...