Titanic went down 111 years ago
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The Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean 111 years ago on Friday, and stories of survivors keep the event fresh in the minds of those living today.
Encyclopedia Britannica reported that a U.S. committee investigated the sinking and found a total of 1,517 lives were lost, while a British counterpart determined that 1,503 passengers died.
Of those that lived, a few of their stories remain for people to remember today.
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Charles Joughin
Charles Joughin was known as the chief baker on the ship and survived the tragic incident with a very unique survival technique.
“To combat the bitter cold after the vessel started sinking in the middle of the North Atlantic, the passengers began drinking alcohol to generate and provide inner body warmth,” Marine Insight reported. “Joughin used this idea to utmost perfection and binged on alcohol.”
The National Archives reported that despite drinking large amounts of alcohol to survive, Joughin still remained helpful to those onboard.
As chief baker, Joughin sent over 50 loaves of bread with the lifeboats as provisions and helped women and children board lifeboats.
He went down with the ship and survived as he “paddled around until dawn,” and was eventually “fished out by a lifeboat,” according to the National Post.
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The ‘unsinkable’ Molly Brown
History Hit reported that Margaret Brown “earned her nickname because she survived the sinking of the Titanic and later became a staunch philanthropist and activist.”
Brown reportedly booked the first available trip she could to the U.S., on the RMS Titanic, in order to help her grandson who was ill, and was instrumental as the ship was going down.
The National Archives reported that Brown helped load people into lifeboats until she was forced to board lifeboat six. Once in the lifeboat she took an oar and encouraged the other women in the boat to row and try to save as many lives from the water as they could.
After surviving the Titanic disaster, Brown raised money to help poor passengers and other survivors, according to Biography.
Brown then reportedly went on to become an activist for workers’ and women’s rights.
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Eva Hart, the youngest person to survive
At 7 years old, Eva Hart was the youngest person to survive the sinking of the Titanic.
Encyclopedia Titanica reported that throughout the voyage, leading up to the tragic event, Hart’s mother was fearful that something would happen to the “unsinkable ship.”
“I was 7, I had never seen a ship before ... it looked very big ... everybody was very excited, we went down to the cabin and that’s when my mother said to my father that she had made up her mind quite firmly that she would not go to bed in that ship, she would sit up at night ... she decided that she wouldn’t go to bed at night, and she didn’t,” Hart detailed. “My father was so excited about it and my mother was so upset. ... The first time in my life I saw her crying ... she was so desperately unhappy about the prospect of going, she had this premonition, a most unusual thing for her.”
The British Library reported that after the boat hit the iceberg, Hart’s father got her and her mother onto a lifeboat and told her to “be a good girl and hold her mother’s hand,” which was a scene recreated in James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic.”
Those words would be the last thing her father said to her as he died from the tragic incident that night.
The New York Times reported that Hart and her mother returned to England and she was plagued with nightmares until “returning to sea and locking herself in a cabin for four days until the nightmares went away.”
Hart reportedly went on to speak out against those who were “grave robbing” artifacts from the Titanic and “excoriating White Star officials for failing to provide enough lifeboats.”
