The Sinking of the Titanic

Carlisle built the Titanic (Baldwin, 484), a great passenger liner, for eight million dollars. Its crew claimed, "God Himself could not sink this ship;" they believed it was unsinkable. On her maiden voyage, the Titanic carried 2,207 people—many of whom were important names at the time, and 706 of whom were immigrants—and $420,000 worth of cargo (Baldwin, 485). Before it sank, the Titanic received six separate ice warnings, all of which the crew let by paying …

…Crew members had never done emergency drills, and most didn't know which lifeboat they were assigned to (Baldwin, 488). When it became obvious that the ship was going to sink, the boats were loaded more heavily. Once the ship did sink, the half-empty lifeboats did not pick up many survivors, "[f]earing they would endanger the living if they pulled back into the midst of the dying" (Baldwin, 493). Only eighteen people were rescued from the water.