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>
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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>
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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>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
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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>
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