15th April 1912 - Titanic

On this day, the luxury liner R.M.S. Titanic sinks just two hours after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. When it first left port at Southampton, England the Titanic barely escaped a collision with the steamer New York. The regal ship, which carried 2,200 passengers and crew, was considered the most luxurious ever built and unsinkable. However, just before midnight on 14th April 1912, the Titanic collided with an iceberg about 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland. Slightly over two hours later, in the early hours of 15th April, the ship sank. The ship was woefully unprepared for such an emergency, with more than 1,500 people dieing aboard the ship as it went down, or freezing to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the 700 survivors were women and children.