Announcing The Titanic Week at Historical Tapestry

Welcome to our tribute to the sinking of the White Star Line vessel Titanic. This week will run from today, April 9, to April 22, 2012. (Yes, the event is now longer than a week...) It will include book reviews, historical facts, and the Today in Titanic History that was began a few days ago will continue when important events occur. 

Interesting Facts About the Titanic:

• The Titanic was the second of three Olympic class vessels launched by the White Star Line. The first ship was the Olympic and the second was the Britannic.
• The Titanic had 840 staterooms (416 first class, 162 standard class, and 262 third class) and 9 decks (lettered A to G).
• While the Titanic had 4 funnels, only 3 of them are actually functional. The 4th was added for looks alone, but it also served as a vent.
• The White Star Line did not believe in breaking a bottle on a ship before it was launched, so the Titanic did not observe this ceremony. This has been discussed as one of the 'reasons' the ship was doomed.
• Many of the passengers on the Titanic were supposed to travel on different ships, but were moved around because of a coal shortage that lead to other ships being docked. The Titanic only had enough coal for the 1-way voyage and were expected to get the return voyages coal in New York.
• The lookouts did not have binoculars because when Wilde became the Chief Officer, the original 2nd Officer ended up leaving the ship entirely and reportedly took the key to where the binoculars were stored with him. If they had binoculars, they may have seen the iceberg sooner.
• The Titanic carried 20 lifeboats. If they were filled to capacity, they would carry 1,178 people. There were approximately 2,229 people aboard. (This number varies widely depending on where you look, though). They actually had more lifeboats than were required because the guidelines had not been changed to accommodate the Olympic class vessels, but still not enough for everyone aboard.
• Three dogs were among the Titanic survivors. (Although I have also heard only 2.)
• There were 706 Titanic survivors. 1,517 (approximately) people died in the sinking. Many more could have been saved, but they were not filling the lifeboats to capacity in many cases.
• The Titanic received many warnings of ice fields ahead. There are many hypotheses about why they were where they were. It is reported they were going too fast for the conditions, but some sources say that the ships did this on purpose to get out of the dangerous area as quickly as possible.
• It took 74 years before the wreck of the Titanic was discovered.

OTHER TITANIC BLOGGING EVENTS:

Nicola at Back to Books is hosting a year-long Titanic Reading Challenge. You can join any time. The information can be found here.

Then, at Miss Remmers Reviews, she is hosting a Titanic challenge for the month of April. You can find all the information about that here.

If I missed anything let me know and I will mention it over the next two weeks.

Thanks to William Morrow/ Harper Collins were also holding a giveaway for on copy of a non-fiction book about the Titanic, Voyagers of the Titanic by Richard Davenport Hines to a U.S. or Canadian reader.  Teddy will be reviewing it on April 10th.

Rules of the giveaway:

- to participate, just leave a comment sharing your favourite read about the Titanic or why you are interested in the Titanic and include your email address

- one entry per household