for me, the coolest fact was that the Titanic's spotter saw the iceberg when it was still a mile away. For some reason, I thought the spotter only saw it with hundreds or tens of yards to spare.
The way film, TV and literature has always presented it, was it hit the berg in an inky black night with scant but a faint glow from the swinging lantern aboard the spotter's helm.
You know, this is a perfect metaphor for what often happens in organizations in critical projects/operations when people misunderstand each other, leading to disastrous mistakes and situations. The arrogant, sadistic captain of the Californian that made people too afraid to act, the multiple missed distress calls, the incorrect perception of what they saw of each other, it's got everything.
One thing that might have saved the Titanic would have been to steer directly into the iceberg, bow-on. That way, only one compartment (the front one) would have been damaged), allowing it to stay afloat.
That sounds like something that only works in theory. Hitting it perfectly frontal is nearly impossible, and then it'll continue to rub on one of the sides after the first impact.
Also remember that much of the crew thought the Titanic was unsinkable (at least that's what popular books and movies suggest...), so an attempt to hit it frontally in order to provide more damage seems quite far off.
AFAIK the Titanic should be completely fine in the situation that happened to it. However the steel used for its construction had been too brittle because of cold, thus the ship sustained worse damage than one would expect from such a collision.
A theory exists that the owner of the Titanic - JP Morgan - was the force behind it's sinking and that all the wealthy and powerful men that his group wanted to get rid of were invited to be on that ship. You can read about it here - http://www.titanicuniverse.com/the-titanic-conspiracy
I was supposed to paste the same link, good thing I saw this.
However, I must say that this scientific explanation doesn't quite explain it all. This 'morgana' (I think it is what the phenomenon is called) has been made apparent in the 1650's, although obviously not carrying the same name. The Titanic sank in 1912. I very much doubt that this phenomenon was not yet introduced to the sea men during those times.
The site itself is not a conspiracy site. The article is written in a completely neutral point of view.
It's your opinion that any conspiracy theories involving the aforementioned subjects are quackery. If you think conspiracies never happen, you're wrong and if you believe that all of our institutions exist for the good of mankind you're even more wrong.
So, what was your point anyway? I was just pointing out that there's a theory that exists. Are you accusing me of some sort of subterfuge here?
It's not just his opinion that the article you linked to is quackery. It is fact.
For instance, consider the stuff about the color of the flares, and red meaning distress and white meaning identification. That's all made up. In 1912 the internationally recognized distress signals at night were:
1. A gun or other explosive fired at intervals of about a minute,
2. flames on the vessel,
3. Flares of any color, used one at a time at short intervals,
4. A continuous sounding with any fog-signal apparatus.
