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We all know the story. The Titanic, a British passenger liner, struck an iceberg off Newfoundland on the night of April 14-15, 1912, and sank. It was a tragedy of enormous proportions. What a splendid ship! Everything a ship designer could imagine was built into it. It was beautiful, magnificent, TITANIC! It slid out to sea from Liverpool, England, on a serene April morning. Gleaming against the sky, it was majestic. The pride of Britannia rode out to sea. New York was its next harbor. The notables of society were its passengers and they basked in the splendor of its...

  The 1958 film, A Night to Remember is scheduled for a showing this Saturday night, April 14, 2012 at 10:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Because the book was so well written and the facts so compelling, it reads like a suspense novel. [Walter] Lord scrupulously researched all information available at the time, reviewing testimony from boards of inquiry, plus newspaper and eyewitness accounts of survivors from both passengers and crew. There are a few scenes where slight artistic license is taken, but no wholesale fabrication of characters or fictionalized sub-plots. In reality, the film is more docudrama, yet never...

As the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches, I thought I’d republish an article I wrote back on April 18, 2009. I’ve updated the introduction and clarified some points, but the rest remains intact and is still relevant today. Enjoy. Barry ———————————— April 14 & 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. If you are like me, I enjoy thinking about events like this in ‘real time’. For instance, Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at 10:15 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time) on April 14, 1865. I currently live in...

April 15, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the ship touted as unsinkable, during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, en route to New York. Much research has been done on the passengers, crew, and the ship itself over the years. But little has been reported about one group of passengers -- the dogs of the Titanic. Many think of their pets as part of the family, and it's evident that that sentiment was as true 100 years ago as it is today. Widener University, named for a prominent Philadelphia family that had three members...

'It is the tragic story that everybody knows the end to - the doomed Titanic sinks. Its final hours have become the stuff of myth - but how much have the various film versions of the story helped to create and reinforce these legends?'

Although a collision with a vast tower of ice ultimately brought the passenger liner to its sticky end, it was a freak lunar event three months earlier that put the obstacle in its path, a new study claims. An incredibly rare combination of astronomical factors including the closest approach of the moon to Earth in 1,400 years caused an unusually high tide in January 1912, researchers found. This once-in-a-lifetime swell would have swept a vast field of icebergs from their normal resting place off the coast of Canada and caused them to drift further south. It would have taken them...

We are commemorating one of the most famous ships in the world in the lead up to the 100th anniversary of the demise of the Titanic said Orla Saul. To bring this special and unique story to life we are delighted to have Susie Miller over from Ireland. Miller runs Titanic Tours in Belfast and is here today to tell us the most intriguing, poignant and personal story about Titanic. The 100th anniversary coincides with the opening of the Titanic visitor centre on 31st March in Belfast. Some people don’t know that the Titanic was built in Belfast said Ms....

An auctioneer has hired experts to try to verify claims by the owner of the century old instrument that it belonged to Wallace Hartley, the leader of the vessel’s eight-man musical ensemble. If proved, it could become the most valuable Titanic artefact ever to be considered for auction. But the claim is being treated with caution as a result. Hartley and his fellow musicians earned legendary status for their decision to play on as the ship sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. They are said to have played the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee” after the...

Okay, riddle fans, here’s a toughie: What’s the difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic? The passengers on the Titanic didn’t vote to hit the iceberg. Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is almost incredible is that it has voted to sink. On Election Day 2010, Californians voted Democrats into every statewide position (one is still undecided). This is the party that single-handedly has brought one of the world’s greatest economies to near-ruin. There may well be historical parallels to what Californians did — but I cannot think of any. A listener called my radio...

PARIS (AFP) – An iceberg the size of Luxembourg knocked loose from the Antarctic continent earlier this month could disrupt the ocean currents driving weather patterns around the globe, researchers said Thursday. While the impact would not be felt for decades or longer, a slowdown in the production of colder, dense water could result in less temperate winters in the north Atlantic, they said. The 2550 square-kilometre (985 square-mile) block broke off on February 12 or 13 from the Mertz Glacier Tongue, a 160-kilometer spit of floating ice protruding into the Southern Ocean from East Antarctica due south of Melbourne,...

Iceberg AheadClimate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet. By Fred Guterl | NEWSWEEK Published Feb 19, 2010 One of the most impressive visuals in Al Gore's now famous slide show on global warming is a graph known as the "hockey stick." It shows temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rising slowly for most of the last thousand years and turning steeply upward in the last half of the 20th century. As evidence of the alarming rate of global warming, it tells a simple and compelling story. That's one reason...

A dog has been rescued after it became stranded on an ice floe and was carried more than 100km down a river and into the Baltic Sea. Polish firefighters first witnessed the trapped dog on the Vistula River but were unable to rescue it before it floated away. Later, a Polish meterological institute was carrying out studies on the boat Baltica when the dog drifted past. "My officers saw the dog on the port side of the boat," said senior officer Jan Joachim. "A shape was moving and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a...

SYDNEY (AFP) – A monster iceberg nearly twice the size of Hong Kong island has been spotted drifting towards Australia in what scientists Wednesday called a once-in-a-century event. Australian glaciologist Neal Young pinpointed the slab, which is some 19 kilometres (12 miles) long and about 1,700 kilometres south of the country, using satellite imagery. He said he was not aware of such a large iceberg being found in the area since the days when 19th century clipper ships sailed the trade route between Britain and Australia. "I don't recall any mention of one for a long, long time," Young, of...

A campaign on conservative talk radio, fueled by President Obama's calls to control exorbitant medical bills, has sparked fear among senior citizens that the health-care bill moving through Congress will lead to end-of-life "rationing" and even "euthanasia." The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life...But on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as "guiding you in how to die," "an ORDER from the Government to end your life," promoting "death care" and,...

A Norwegian cruise ship carrying some 300 people lost engine power during an electrical outage and struck an Antarctic glacier, smashing a lifeboat but causing no injuries... The MS Fram hit the ice late Friday near Browns Bluff in the Antarctic... The engine started again and the liner continued to King George Island for an inspection. "We hit a glacier. We have damage to a starboard lifeboat and a little bit forward," ... the ship apparently suffered no serious damage. Hansen said the power outage lasted 40 to 50 minutes and sent the vessel adrift against the glacier, where it...

A cold, abrupt end to a honeymoon By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer Encinitas couple that fled Witch Creek fire returns home after cruise ship sinks off Antarctica ENCINITAS -- Three times since marrying June 11 in a beachside ceremony at La Jolla Cove, Trevor Takayama and Torrey Trust have dodged disaster. In August, the Encinitas couple fled an approaching hurricane while camping in a Costa Rican rain forest, on a summerlong honeymoon tour of Central and South America. In October, the Witch Creek fire forced the newlyweds to evacuate the hilltop three-bedroom home she grew up in, near Manchester...

Plot to blow up JFK is 'tip of the iceberg' By Toby Harnden, in Washington Last Updated: 2:16am BST 04/06/2007 The alleged conspiracy to blow up John F Kennedy airport, in New York, and a recent plot to kill soldiers at a nearby United States Army base represent only the "tip of the iceberg" of terrorist plots against America, according to US officials. "There's a lot of activity out there," a counter-terrorism official said yesterday. Abdul Kadir: suspected of plotting to attack fuel line "Obviously, you don't want to tip off every suspect that they are being monitored. On the...

CUSTOMERS of the internet auction site eBay are being defrauded by unscrupulous dealers who secretly bid up the price of items on sale to boost profits. An investigation by The Sunday Times has indicated that the practice of artificially driving up prices — known as shill bidding — is widespread across the site. Last week one of the UK’s biggest eBay sellers admitted in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that he was prepared to use business associates to bid on his goods for him. Our inquiries found evidence that a number of businesses — ranging from overseas property...

Warning Issued After 100 Icebergs Spotted Near New Zealand Friday, November 03, 2006 WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A maritime warning has been issued after about 100 icebergs were spotted south of New Zealand, some floating in a major ocean shipping lane, officials said. A New Zealand air force P3 Orion maritime surveillance airplane on routine fisheries patrol in the southern ocean spotted the floating lumps of ice near Auckland Islands, 161 miles south of South Island. The largest iceberg was about 1.2 by 0.9 miles and more than 425 feet high, said Orion captain Andy Nielsen. While it was not...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bad storm in Alaska last October generated an ocean swell that broke apart a giant iceberg near Antarctica six days later, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. The waves traveled 8,300 miles to destroy the iceberg, said Douglas MacAyeal of the University of Chicago and Emile Okal at Northwestern University. Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, they said their study shows how weather in one region can affect events far away. "One of the things we're debating in the world right now is whether global warming might increase the storminess in the oceans," MacAyeal said in...

2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said Monday that she's horrified over allegations that U.S. Marines executed innocent Iraqis in the town of Haditha last November after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb - and she's vowing to expose any cover-up by Marine brass. "This is the kind of horrific allegation that has to be investigated, and we're going to start in the Senate doing just that," she told the New York Daily News, after marching in Chappaqua's Memorial Day parade. The comments by Clinton, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, seemed to contradict remarks by committee...

Not quite geology, per se, but since glaciers make geology frequently (and slowly), I thought this striking sequence of shots was worthy of presentation. To go to the article about the collision, click the picture; there are links to high-resolution (250m) images of each of the images shown below.

After the Titanic hit the iceberg it took a while before the captain, officers, crew and passengers realized that they were doomed. The first to realize that the vessel was going down were the passengers below deck. The same is true for Europe today. While the indigenous lower classes have – in a panic, but rationally – begun to vote in ever growing numbers for so-called populist, “islamophobe” politicians, the European establishment politicians and mainstream media are discussing how to revive the European Constitution which the voters in France and the Netherlands rejected last year. Instead of trying to prevent...

EXPLORERS have found a previously unknown site scattered with artefacts from the Titanic that could shed new light on the final moments of the world's most famous ocean liner. "We found a new debris field about 900 metres south of the stern, which supports my long-standing belief that the Titanic began to break apart and sink further south than where she currently sits," expedition leader G. Michael Harris said today. Mr Harris, whose grandfather led the first wave of expeditions in the early 1980s, made the 4km dive with his 13-year-old son through freezing waters in a three-man submersible. The...

2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday she was "outraged" that President Bush hasn't spent more money to beef up security on New York City's mass transit system in the wake of Thursday's train bombings in London. "I'm absolutely outraged by the failure of the administration to release the [rail security] funding that Congress approved last year," the top Democrat complained. "We are woefully behind where London and other subway systems are because London does have the video surveillance," she fumed. "I just don't understand what the holdup is." Even before the smoke cleared in London, Clinton was on the...

A huge wandering iceberg is tearing up the Antarctic like a slow-moving bull in a frozen China shop. The roaving destructor, named B-15A, slammed into the Drygalski ice tongue a month ago and broke off at least two city-sized chunks. Now it is poised to strike another feature sticking out from the continent. At 71 miles (115 kilometers) long, B-15A is the largest free-floating object in the world. It is expected to lumber into the Aviator Glacier any day now, scientists with the European Space Agency said Tuesday. The researchers released a satellite image taken May 16. Aviator was discovered...

Claim: A Newfoundland rig manager snapped an underwater photograph of an enormous iceberg. Status: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] "This is an amazing shot. This came from a Rig Manager for Global Marine Drilling in St. Johns, Newfoundland. They actually have to divert the path of these things away from the rig by towing them with ships! Anyway, in this particular case the water was calm & the sun was almost directly overhead so that the diver was able to get into the water and click this pic. They estimated the weight at 300,000,000 tons." Origins: Charming story,...

Iceberg Collision Forces Redraw of Antarctic Maps Mon Apr 18, 2005 Robert Roy Britt/ LiveScience Senior Writer/ LiveScience.com An iceberg that collided with Antarctica has broken a piece of the continent off, forcing maps of the bottom of the world to be redrawn, European scientists said today. The iceberg, named B-15A, is whopping 71 miles (115 kilometers) long. Scientists predicted an imminent collision back in January. Instead, the iceberg ran aground and stalled out. Then it broke free last month. Now it has finally collided with the continent's Drygalski ice tongue and smacked a city sized chunk of it into...

Antarctic Oil Painting Shrouded in Mystery Mon Mar 28, 2005 By MATT APUZZO/ Associated Press Writer NEW HAVEN, Conn. - As art restorers in London inspected a 230-year-old painting by master landscape artist William Hodges, they noticed the canvas was thicker in some areas than others. Using an X-ray machine, they peered behind the lush greens of New Zealand and discovered the oldest known painting of Antarctica. The X-ray revealed two icebergs, painted during Captain James Cook's historic expedition below the Antarctic circle. Until the National Maritime Museum in London made the discovery last year, historians believed that only sketches...

'It is an event so large that the best seat in the house is in space: a massive iceberg is on a collision course with a floating glacier near the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. NASA satellites have witnessed the 100-mile-long B-15A iceberg moving steadily towards the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Though the iceberg's pace has slowed in recent days, NASA scientists expect a collision to occur no later than January 15, 2005.'

Get Ready for the Largest Demolition Derby on the Planet Scientists say Slow-Motion Collision Near Antarctic Research Station Imminent It is an event so large that the best seat in the house is in space: a massive iceberg is on a collision course with a floating glacier near the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. NASA satellites have witnessed the 100-mile-long B-15A iceberg moving steadily towards the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Though the iceberg's pace has slowed in recent days, NASA scientists expect a collision to occur no later than January 15, 2005. Image top: The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument...

March 19 — A massive Antarctic ice shelf has collapsed into the sea, shattering into thousands of icebergs and alarming researchers by the speed with which the process unfolded. Described by one researcher as “staggering,” the rapid collapse offered fuel for the debate over whether global warming is to blame. U.S. AND BRITISH government agencies confirmed the collapse of what’s known as the Larsen B ice shelf. Some 1,255 square miles of the ice shelf disintegrated between Jan. 31 and March 7, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Tuesday. “The shattered ice formed a plume of thousands...

Iceberg Breaks Free From Antarctica WASHINGTON (AP) - An iceberg larger than Delaware has broken off Antarctica. The National Ice Center reported Monday that the berg, named B-22, broke free from an ice tongue in the Amundsen Sea, an area of Antarctica south of the Pacific Ocean. The new iceberg is located at 74.56 south latitude and 107.55 west longitude. It is 40 miles wide and 53 miles long, covering 2,130 square miles, slightly more than the 1,982 square mile area of Delaware. The iceberg was discovered through photographs taken by Defense Meteorological Satellites. Icebergs are named for the section...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --  An iceberg larger than Delaware has broken off Antarctica.</p> <p>The National Ice Center reported Monday that the berg, named B-22, broke free from an ice tongue in the Amundsen Sea, an area of Antarctica south of the Pacific Ocean.</p>