RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States.

[4] Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada.

From top to bottom, the decks were: Titanic propulsion was supplied by three main engines—two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine—each driving a propeller.

[45] Standing above the decks were four funnels, each painted in the White Star buff with black tops; only three were functional—the aftmost one was a dummy, installed for aesthetic purposes, and used for providing ventilation to the kitchen, as well as for the First and Second Class smoking rooms.

[48] Titanic's radiotelegraph equipment (then known as wireless telegraphy) was leased to the White Star Line by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, which also supplied two of its employees, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, as operators.

The service maintained a 24-hour schedule, primarily sending and receiving passenger telegrams ("marconigrams"), but also handling navigation messages including weather reports and ice warnings.

[67] Despite later myths, the cargo on Titanic's maiden voyage was fairly mundane; there was no gold, exotic minerals or diamonds, and one of the more famous items lost in the shipwreck, a jewelled copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was valued at only £405 (£50,600 today).

[68] According to the claims for compensation filed with Commissioner Gilchrist, following the conclusion of the Senate Inquiry, the single most highly valued item of luggage or cargo was a large neoclassical oil painting entitled La Circassienne au Bain by French artist Merry-Joseph Blondel.

Col. Arthur Peuchen; writer and historian Archibald Gracie; cricketer and businessman John B. Thayer† with his wife, Marian, and son Jack; George Dunton Widener† with his wife, Eleanor, and son Harry†; Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes; Mr.† and Mrs. Charles M. Hays; Mr. and Mrs. Henry S. Harper; Mr.† and Mrs. Walter D. Douglas; Mr.† and Mrs. George D. Wick; Mr.† and Mrs. Henry B. Harris; Mr.† and Mrs. Arthur L. Ryerson; Mr.† and Mrs.† Hudson J. C. Allison; Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson Bishop; noted architect Edward Austin Kent†; brewery heir Harry Molson†; tennis players Karl Behr and Dick Williams; author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee; future lawyer and suffragette Elsie Bowerman and her mother Edith; journalist and social reformer William Thomas Stead†; journalist and fashion buyer Edith Rosenbaum; socialite Edith Corse Evans†; wealthy divorcée Charlotte Drake Cardeza; French sculptor Paul Chevré; author Jacques Futrelle† with his wife May; silent film actress Dorothy Gibson with her mother Pauline; President of the Swiss Bankverein, Col. Alfons Simonius-Blumer; James A. Hughes's daughter Eloise; banker Robert Williams Daniel; the chairman of the Holland America Line, Johan Reuchlin [de]; Arthur Wellington Ross's son John H. Ross; Washington Roebling's nephew Washington A. Roebling II; Andrew Saks's daughter Leila Saks Meyer with her husband Edgar Joseph Meyer† (son of Marc Eugene Meyer); William A. Clark's nephew Walter M. Clark with his wife, Virginia; a great-great-grandson of soap manufacturer Andrew Pears, Thomas C. Pears, with wife; John S. Pillsbury's grandson John P. Snyder and wife Nelle; and Dorothy Parker's uncle Martin Rothschild with his wife, Elizabeth.

[127] Third Class passengers were inspected for ailments and physical impairments that might lead to their being refused entry to the United States – a prospect the White Star Line wished to avoid, as it would have to carry anyone who failed the examination back across the Atlantic.

[136] A decidedly unofficial departure was that of a crew member, stoker John Coffey, a Queenstown native who sneaked off the ship by hiding under mail bags being transported to shore.

From there the voyage of 1,620 nautical miles (1,860 mi; 3,000 km) along a Great Circle route across the North Atlantic, reached a spot in the ocean known as "the corner", southeast of Newfoundland, where westbound steamers carried out a change of course.

Titanic sailed only a few hours past the corner on a rhumb line leg of 1,023 nautical miles (1,177 mi; 1,895 km) to Nantucket Shoals Light when making fatal contact with an iceberg.

[168] Between 2:10 and 2:15 am, a little over two and a half hours after Titanic struck the iceberg, the rate of sinking suddenly increased as the boat deck dipped underwater, and the sea poured in through open hatches and grates: in between that time, the electrical power on board also went out.

In New York City, for example, a joint committee of the American Red Cross and Charity Organization Society formed to disburse financial aid to survivors and dependents of those who died.

[209] The British press condemned Smith as an opportunist, insensitively forcing an inquiry as a means of gaining political prestige and seizing "his moment to stand on the world stage".

He was told to stop transmitting by Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips, who was busy clearing a backlog of messages with Cape Race, whose signals were faint.

[238] Two special survivors were the stewardess Violet Jessop and the stoker Arthur John Priest,[239] who survived the sinkings of both Titanic and HMHS Britannic and were aboard RMS Olympic when the ship was rammed in 1911.

Once the massive loss of life became known, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to retrieve bodies.

[248] Captain Larnder of the Mackay-Bennett and undertakers aboard decided to preserve only the bodies of first-class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates.

When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe and six crewmen returned to the wreck site sometime after the sinking in a lifeboat to pick up survivors, they rescued a dozen men and one woman from Collapsible A, but left the dead bodies of three of its occupants.

[255] The fundamental problem was the sheer difficulty of finding and reaching a wreck that lies over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) below the surface, where the water pressure is over 5,300 pounds per square inch (37 megapascals), about 370 standard atmospheres.

[262] Since its initial discovery, the wreck of Titanic has been revisited on numerous occasions by explorers, scientists, filmmakers, tourists and salvagers, who have recovered thousands of items from the debris field for conservation and public display.

[263] In 2006, it was estimated that within 50 years the hull and structure of Titanic would eventually collapse entirely, leaving only the more durable interior fittings of the ship intermingled with a pile of rust on the sea floor.

The photos, taken by Robert Ballard during an expedition led by NOAA in 2004, show a boot and a coat close to Titanic's stern which experts called "compelling evidence" that it is the spot where somebody came to rest, and that human remains could be buried in the sediment beneath them.

[278] On 15 July 2024, RMS Titanic Inc. held their first expedition to the wreck in 14 years, with the objective of examining its status in high-resolution photography for future scientific studies, likewise with identifying and searching for on-site artefacts.

[279] The expedition also gave tribute to Nargeolet's contributions within the debris field,[280] having made numerous efforts in the preceding years in expanding knowledge over the area; A memorial plaque was placed on the seafloor in his honour.

This Act, along with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, stated that radio communications on passenger ships would be operated 24 hours a day, along with a secondary power supply, so as not to miss distress calls.

Shortly after sinking, memorial postcards sold in huge numbers[291] together with memorabilia ranging from tin candy boxes to plates, whiskey jiggers,[292] and even mourning teddy bears.

[309] In a frequently commented-on literary coincidence, Morgan Robertson authored a novel called Futility in 1898 about a fictional British passenger liner with the plot bearing a number of similarities to the Titanic disaster.