It began here in Ireland at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
3000 men would labor here for more than two years.
They were building a monster, the largest ship the world had ever seen.
In the spring of 1909 a mountain of steel began to rise against the sky. The ship would weigh 66,000 tons. Her hull would span four city blocks. Each of her colossal steam engines was the size of a three storey house.
The huge scale of these things was a source of delight.
It was a scene out of Gulliver's Travels, when 20 draft horses were needed to haul the ship's anchor through the streets of Belfast.
Some few observers found this giant threatening and wrote of her nightmare scale. But their forebodings fell short of the event, for the fate of this ship still fascinates the world. And her name is a synonym for tragedy.
In 1910 the huge ship taking shape in Belfast was a supreme wonder in a world accustomed to miracles.
Every day it seemed something bigger or better was invented. Never had so many people been so prosperous. Never had they taken such delight in showing off. So this was called the Gilded Age.
This was a time when horses still got most people around. But things were rapidly changing thanks to the machines of a new age. Everything from rubber bands to radios, from light bulbs to automobiles. Progress and prosperity. Money and machines. Almost anything seemed possible. And often it was.
May 31st, 1911. The Royal Mail ship Titanic slipped gracefully into Belfast harbor. It was the largest moving object ever made by man.
The Titanic was designed for the rich passenger trade on the North Atlantic. It was not only the biggest ocean liner. It was by far the most luxurious.
Aboard Titanic it was hard to remember that this was indeed a ship.
Advertising the delights it offered, the White Star line called Titanic, a floating palace.
So confident were Titanic's builders that her trial voyage lasted just eight hours. Almost as an afterthought, she was said to be unsinkable.
On April 10th, 1912, Titanic's maiden voyage began. With their maids, valets and chauffeurs, their mountains of baggage, the rich traveled in a style almost unknown today. In an age that worshipped wealth, the 325 first-class passengers were an awesome assembly.
Titanic was like a time capsule laden with the splendors of the Gilded Age.
In 1912, these films were shown in theaters to a public eager for any glimpse of Titanic. In fact, this is actually Titanic's, smaller sister ship, the Olympic. But the excitement and spectacle were true to the event, and many people couldn't tell the difference.
Titanic sailed from Southampton at noon. She was expected to reach New York in just seven days, with 2228 people aboard her.
There are a few authentic pictures taken aboard Titanic on her first and last voyage. A vacationing priest, Father Francis Brown, caught these poignant snapshots of his fellow passengers, most of them on a voyage to eternity.
The next day, Titanic made her last stop, pausing off the coast at Queenstown, Ireland. Here, tenders brought out the last passengers, mostly Irish immigrants headed for new homes in America and here the lucky father Brown disembarked, taking these pictures on his way.
Father Brown caught Captain Smith peering down from Titanic's bridge. Poised on the brink of destiny. Then Titanic sailed into the twilight zone of legend. She would not be photographed again for 73 years, vanished in all but human memory.
The events of Titanic's last hours have not faded with the passage of time. The tragedy, irony and sheer terror of this night still seize the imagination.
A British film made in 1929 was one of the first of many Titanic movies.
“Full ahead” ”Full ahead, sir” Despite radio warnings, Titanic struck an iceberg.
She carried only enough lifeboats for about 1200 people and not even that many were saved.
In 1986, a new chapter in the Titanic story began.
The men and machines involved did not even exist when Titanic went down.
From the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution came the research submarine Alvin, and Doctor Robert Ballard, a geologist and undersea explorer.
For decades, Ballard had dreamed of being the man to explore the Titanic wreck. Now, if all goes well, he may succeed within a few days.
On July 9th, Ballard's expedition, backed by the US Navy and drawing on proven underwater technology, puts to sea from Woods Hole The research vessel Atlantis II heads for Titanic's resting place about 1000 miles due east.
A rare alchemy of talent, desire and circumstance has led Ballard to this adventure. Many have called it foolish and at any rate, impossible. It's been a hard sell.
DR BALLARD: "No one person, no one organization, no one shared my dream. There was pieces of it. The technology part. The ship part. The submarine part. It's very much like Cinderella going to the ball. So I had to go around and I had to get the shoes from somebody, and the dress from somebody, and then the coach and the coachman and then when I knew where everything was... by midnight, I’d turned back into a big pumpkin, so there was the sense of urgency to get it done before I ran out of time.
The year before a joint French-American expedition with Ballard as co-leader sought to locate Titanic. A 150 square mile area with search by sonar devices and remote TV cameras towed along the bottom over two miles down. But Titanic did not lie where she was thought to be. TV pictures revealed only a monotonous plane of sediment, sometimes enlivened by a sluggish fish or empty beer bottle.
Several days of futile search dragged on.
September 1st, 1985. The search has been going on for 56 days.
“Wreckage.” “Bingo." "Somebody had to go get Bob" "Oh, I love it, I love it." "Hey, this is more stuff coming." "That is big."
"Goddammit. I’ll be godadmmed. The sucker exists."
DR BALLARD: "There was an immediate outpouring of excitement. Bunch of kids yelling and screaming. Jump up! Down! Very unprofessional. And then the whole force of actually being at the very spot where this tragedy had taken place and seen the ship, and it was very... everyone just crashed emotionally. Everyone just went down a big trough. And we had a simple, quiet service on the fantail. And it was that time I realized that I was deeply affected by it.
When we came back, I wouldn't talk about the Titanic for four months. I just wouldn't talk about it with anybody. I just went and hid.
But Ballard's Woods Hole laboratory soon recaptured the thrill of discovery. Reviewing pictures taken by remote cameras. Ballard was eager to get a closer look.
“Yeah, that's actually the promenade deck.”
Ballard was confident that the submarine Alvin could reach the wreck and the U.S. Navy agreed to sponsor an expedition.
"On the starboard railing. They say the name of the ship is on one of the capstans." "Oh, it is on the top." "Yeah. Should be." "It should be visible." "Okay, we'll have to go and take a look."
A tiny TV camera serves as the single eye of Jason Jr, a robot submarine developed for the Navy in Ballard's lab.
"Okay, first, the pitch." “Yeah, and Iris.”
Jason is ideal for exploring wrecks, getting TV pictures in places too confined and dangerous for manned submarines.
“Pitch down. ” “Yeah. Up."
”Preparing for the Titanic expedition.
Jason and his operator, Martin Bowen go into intensive training. Jason is powered by four electric motors. He can venture as far as 200ft away from Alvin, the manned submarine. Jason is much like a dog on a long leash moving on commands from his master.
Here in the lab, it's easy to navigate but deep on the Titanic wreck in pitch darkness, it will be another matter. Often Martin's only viewpoint will be Jason's electronic eye.
Now, some 11 months after Ballard discovered Titanic's resting place, he is returning aboard Atlantis II. It's clear by now that no one knew Titanic's precise location when she sank. This original confusion explains why the wreck was so difficult to locate.
DR BALLARD: "There are no landmarks. The coast of Nova Scotia is some 350 miles away.The sea tolerates no gravestones or monuments. Only the knowledge of what lies two and a half miles below gives this place identity. And when you're out at sea, it's just a big monstrous thing and has no dimensions and tend to wander around in the ocean and not feel that you're anywhere at any one time. And then when you find the Titanic it rivets, you to that one spot, you know exactly where you are and you know exactly what took place right where you are. And that's that's eerie. I mean, you you you want to see life, you know, lifeboats or people in the water that you can take out of the water because they drowned right around you. And yeah, you hear them here, you you feel it. Very much so.
The gray dawn of April 15th, 1912 revealed a scattered fleet of lifeboats. Hundreds of bodies floated in the surrounding waters. The boats contained just 705 survivors.
Aboard the liner Carpathia amazed passengers took these snapshots as the survivors were rescued.
Her complement of passengers doubled Carpathia raced for New York.
Everything was quiet, calm and orderly, it was too soon to explain and too late to cry.
Tragically, rumors and confusion kept hope alive that others might have been saved by other ships. Slowly, as fragmented and conflicting radio reports came in yhe world began to realize what had happened overnight.
In London, silent crowds gathered at the offices of the White Star Line. Here, many of Titanic's passengers had bought their tickets, and here a precious few were reported alive. In Liverpool, home port of Titanic the streets were full of dazed and grief stricken families begging for news and reeling in shock when it came.
In New York, while rumors circulated one paper reported Titanic still afloat and everyone safe.
Anxious and incredulous, crowds gathered in front of newspapers and the offices of White Star. Suspense and uncertainty grew for four days.
Finally, on the evening of April 18th Carpathia arrived at last. Then as night fell, there followed a chilling pantomime which brought home the full impact of what had happened. In the glare of photographers' flashlights. Survivors line Carpathia’s rail. But as thousands waited, Carpathia first unloaded Titanic's lifeboats. Seeing finally was believing, 13 small boats. All that remained of the greatest ocean liner in the world.
By the next day, survivors had dispersed. Frustrated newsreel cameramen were left to film mere boys, young stewards who clowned and laughed even as the rest of the world mourned.
There remained the task of bringing in bodies only some 300 were found out of 1523 people lost.
In fear and superstition many ships avoided these waters for years afterward.
Brought ashore in Halifax, some victims were claimed and shipped home. For others, the maiden voyage of Titanic ended here in Canada, just a few miles from the north Atlantic shore. Today, these graves still are tended at the expense of the shipping line, which took over from the owners of Titanic.
The disaster is memorialized like a great battle which changed the course of history.
But what was the meaning of it all? It caused only an instant’s hesitation in the march of technology.
But somehow Titanic made people think and they are thinking still.
And every five years, the valiant, dwindling band of Titanic survivors is invited to attend a convention of the Titanic Historical Society. About 24 known survivors alive today but the number of people interested in Titanic is growing and this fascination reached a fever pitch when the wreck of Titanic was found.
On July 13th, 1986.
The first attempt to reach Titanic by submarine is planned for this morning. Bob Ballard and two companions will ride to the bottom in the research submarine Alvin. In his enthusiasm, Bob Ballard has perhaps made things seem too easy. This morning he has many promises to keep.
The crew compartment of Alvin is a sealed seven foot titanium sphere jammed with equipment and three uncomfortable humans.
Alvin is a tried and trusted design it has mapped undersea mountains, located a lost H-bomb, and now is poised over the most celebrated shipwreck of modern times.
Once launched, Alvin is independent of its mothership the crew can communicate with the surface, but in the deep, they are so far from help, they might as well be on the moon.
To conserve electrical power Alvin will fall to the ocean bottom only as fast as gravity allows the slow plunge will take 2.5 hours. A time of tedium and growing suspense.
"Alvin, this is AII over."
"Go ahead."
"Roger. Ralph."
"We have the tracking running well, and the bow section should be, range of about 800m. Bearing 230 degrees over."
"Ballard reports that Alvin's batteries are leaking and its sonar system has failed."
"He must rely on imprecise directions from above, and he cannot stay down much longer."
"So this is AII, according to tracking, you just drove over the forward section. Suggest you come to course 280 and travel for 2 to 300m over."
"I can’t believe they can’t see it."
"They can only see 20 or 30ft."
"Atlantis II, Atlantis II we are at the Titanic."
"Roger Alvin, we understand you've found the Titanic."
"We’re deciding what to do next. Running low on power."
No sooner is Titanic found than the dive must be abandoned. It takes another 2.5 hours for Ballard to regain the surface.
DR BALLARD: We have had bad problems with the submarine, so we had to abort the dive and, immediately head up So I saw it for ten seconds. That was it. So we'll have to go back do it tomorrow.
What happens next?
Well, they're going to be up all night. They got a sick puppy. They got to fix it and, it's going to take them all night."
Alvin is quickly repaired, but the mood next morning is uncertain. Everyone has been reminded that technical problems, bad weather or a combination of both could terminate the expedition. This time, everything goes according to plan.
Titanic. No longer lost. No longer legend. There are people aboard the great ship once again.
After 74 dark and silent years like astronauts newly arrived on a distant planet, Alvin's crew is learning something new every second.
A disappointment. Titanic's decks, thought to be intact, have been consumed by wood-boring organisms. What appeared to be planks turns out to be ridges of caulking.
A revelation. Standing all alone is the bronze pedestal where Titanic's wheel was mounted. It gleams as if brand new.
DR BALLARD: "What we thought was organic growth appeared to be, rust The ship. looks like it’s bleeding, steel It's rusting down at the side, all over. It’s draped in rust and it's formed a river. Little veins that flow down the side and out on to the sediment."
"All right. Let’s terminate conversation. We're losing our light energy. And we’ll see you on the surface."
On the return to the surface, a near disaster. The robot submarine Jason is dislodged from its garage on the front of Alvin and almost lost only quick work by divers saves the million dollar robot.
"Well, that's one way to come home Jason."
"I know."
"Swimming."
"Yeah. We’ve waited too long for this."
Repairs will go on all night.
As Ballard reports what he's seen and prepares for tomorrow's dive.
"And we came in on the debris field right through here."
Titanic is a frightening place to explore. Everywhere there are wires, rails and tubing which could trap Alvin.
"Coming in along the mud line towards the ship should be fairly safe."
But the robot Jason can get close to such hazards and venture inside the wreck without risking human lives. Alvin's crew is skeptical about robots in general, and Jason in particular. But Ballard ignores today's problems and plans to send Jason deep into Titanic's interior on the next dive.
"The funnels, they're all gone. We've never even seen one in the debris field. The idea is to bring Alvin down in a vertical sense and land at certain places. Naturally, we'd like to enter the bridge and we'd like to go down the staircase. And there's a nice landing pad right here. And that staircase goes down many, many flights. So it'd be a question of how deep you want it to go in, but certainly at least 2 to 3 decks in."
On succeeding dives special cameras aboard Alvin pierce the darkness and reveal spectacular aerial views of the wreck.
Traveling aft, passing over the cargo holds and cranes. The bridge area where the wheel pedestal stands alone. The hole where the first funnel once stood. Big enough to admit a locomotive.
Now, on the third dive, Alvin makes a landing at the edge of Titanic's grand staircase.
"Make sure that that lip won't jam JJ so he can't get out, right? Don't get too close."
Jason is launched with Martin Bowen at the controls.
"Forward tethering out."
"That's right."
"Tethering out."
"I'll be taking shots periodically."
"Further out."
"Yeah, that lip was right in front of me."
"Yeah. Okay, okay."
"You can just head out over the edge."
Like a frightened puppy Jason seems to want to dive back into his garage and go home. Gaining control and confidence Bowen sends Jason down into the grand staircase. 74 years have taken their toll.
This is what Jason's camera sees. This is what once was. Seemingly, there's nothing recognizable here, but then, pillars define a room.
One of these light fixtures still hangs from the ceiling, suspended both in space and time. The elaborate ornamental clock is gone, leaving only its outline on the wall.
Jason bumps into something, causing an avalanche of rust. Alarmed, Ballard and Martin Bowen decide to withdraw. "I’m knocking that rust off."
Now, two miles down Jason salutes his creator for man and machine. It's a moment of eerie victory.
In further tests Jason skims over the wreck like an inquisitive hummingbird. He can move more safely and quickly than Alvin and get in close to capture small details. "This door for use of crew only.", "Napier Brothers Limited, Glasgow"
Some parts of the ship seem almost new. Paint still clings to these window frames. Handles and hinges still turn. And the awesome steel anchors still hang from Titanic's bow.
Soon, Ballard's work for the Navy may produce robots so sophisticated everything can be seen and controlled from the surface. On some jobs, manned submarines like Alvin may not be needed. The success of Jason on Titanic is a major step toward that goal.
In one spectacular dive, Robert Ballard and Martin Bowen have accomplished all their major objectives.
We had a chandelier! We went dancing in the ballroom.
Now, for nine days, Atlantis II gathers information on Titanic. Deployed each night, an unmanned instrument package captures some 57,000 photos of the wreck site.
Ballard and his colleague begin to create a detailed map of Titanic's remains. It reveals new information and sometimes contradicts accepted accounts of the disaster.
Most strikingly, the wreck lies in two major sections 1800 feet apart. This supports some eyewitnesses who said the ship broke in two as it went down.
Between the two sections of the wreck lies a vast field of debris, and scattered throughout the wreckage are many commonplace objects. A bottle of champagne, still corked and a cup sitting on a 57 ton boiler where it gently came to rest 74 years ago.
Ballard brought nothing up from Titanic, and it vowed not to interfere with the wreck, but that was before Alvin came upon the assistant purser's safe. The handle turns, but the door won't open,at any rate, experts say it was emptied by the crew before Titanic went down.
As the wreck is explored the Titanic story is relived and in some cases, revised to suit new evidence.
It is 11:40 p.m.
April 14th, 1912. From the crow's nest and iceberg is spotted dead ahead by lookout Frederick fleet. Fleet immediately rings an alarm bell and calls the bridge where the first officer, William Murdoch, orders the wheel hard-a-starboard and the engines full astern. Titanic grazes the ice, possibly causing only a few crumpled hull plates, but enough to tell Captain Edward Smith that his ship is doomed.
Captain Smith personally walks back from the bridge to the radio room, where soon after midnight, the first distress call is sent. Radio is in its infancy, and the newly adopted signal, S.O.S., is a novelty to operator Jack Phillips.
Orders are given that women and children must board lifeboats.
Near the boats some first class passengers gather here in the gymnasium. One is multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, on an extended honeymoon with his young second wife, Madeleine. Astor's wife boards a lifeboat here on Titanic's port side, but an officer refuses Astor, and so he meekly chooses to stand aside and die.
Few yet realize that because of inadequate laws, there are only enough boats for half the people aboard.
Distress rockets are fired from the starboard wing of the bridge.
Further to the north there is a ship, the British steamer Californian. Titanic's rockets are reported to her captain, Stanley Lord, but he does nothing. Goes back to sleep and will spend the rest of his life trying to explain.
Many lifeboats are still being lowered, half empty.
Few understand that Titanic is actually sinking.
The lifeboat debits are still extended here at Boat Station two, where Second Officer Lightoller is in charge. Lightoller sends half a dozen crewmen to open doors and help fill the boats from decks lower down. The men were never seen again, but one set of doors still hangs open.
Here, a twisted davit once held boat number eight, and here stood an aging, distinguished couple. Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Strauss offered a place in the boats. Mr. Strauss refused it. Then Mrs. Strauss refused to leave him, and so they perished together.
In a single first class cabin, there was a wealthy woman traveling alone. She was a tough and earthy character, requiring no assistance. She boarded the lifeboat, boldly, took over command, and was known from then on as the Unsinkable Molly Brown.
And now, at last, 1500 people began to realize that soon they were going to die.
But on the boat deck near the entrance to the grand staircase, the band played on. No one could agree later what tunes were played and all the musicians drowned. But Titanic's band and its leader, Wallace Hartley, became immortal heroes of this disaster on the sea.
Few honored Captain Smith, who had ignored many warnings as he sailed boldly into history. He went down with his ship. His last words disputed. Some said he told the crew, be British, others, It's every man for himself.
When the Titanic expedition ended, Bob Ballard left behind a plaque honoring those who died here. Titanic is their monument. More than two miles beneath the sea.
It's a memorial to this period of time. To that mistake of arrogance. It's a whole bunch of things and they're all bundled up, and now down at the bottom of the ocean.
It's a very peaceful place, a very quiet place... and it's... it's sitting upright on the bottom, very nobly, and at rest.