The sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, with the loss of over 1,500 lives, was one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. Four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, Titanic – at the time the world's largest ship – struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland. Five of her watertight compartments were holed, causing the ship to flood deck by deck. She carried too few lifeboats for her 2,223 passengers and crew, and many seats were left empty due to a poorly managed evacuation. Titanic's officers loaded the lifeboats "women and children first", leaving most of the men aboard the ship. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision, Titanic sank with over a thousand people still aboard. Almost all those who jumped or fell into the freezing water soon died of hypothermia or drowned. The RMS Carpathia rescued the survivors from the lifeboats a few hours later. Public outrage at the loss of life led to tougher maritime safety regulations. Titanic's wreck was not found until 1985. The disaster has inspired a wealth of popular culture including many films, most notably James Cameron's Titanic in 1997.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1638:

A rebellion by Catholic Japanese peasants in Shimabara over increased taxes was put down by the Tokugawa shogunate, resulting in greater enforcement of the policy of national seclusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimabara_Rebellion

1802:

English poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came upon a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring him to pen his most famous work, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

1927:

Torrential rains caused the Mississippi River to break out of its levee system in 145 places, causing the worst flooding in the history of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927

1952:

The B-52 Stratofortress, a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered, strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force for most of the aircraft's history, made its first flight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress

1989:

The death of former Chinese General Secretary Hu Yaobang triggered a series of events that led to the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Yaobang

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

eschatology (n): 1. (countable) System of doctrines concerning final matters, such as death. 2. (uncountable) The study of the end times — the end of the world, notably in Christian theology the second coming of Christ, the Apocalypse or the Last Judgment http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eschatology

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

8px

44px I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning,

of rain and wind, of the galaxies, of the suns and the stars

and the void through which they travel.

The essence of nature, eternal, divine that all men seek to know to hear,

known as the great illusion time, and the all-prevailing atmosphere.

And now you know my background. --Eden Ahbez http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eden_Ahbez