The tragedy of the Titanic, the ship, not the movie, continues to grasp us even today, some 107 years after the largest and most luxurious cruise liner ever built at that time hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, carrying more than 1,500 people to their deaths. Only 705 people, primarily women and children who made it to the lifeboats, survived. Another liner, the Carpathia, heard the Titanic’s SOS calls and arrived at the scene in only three and a half hours to rescue them.
Now Popular Everything has colorized pictures of life on the Titanic before it sank. Somehow seeing the century-old pictures in color makes everything come alive. They also make life on board, particularly for the 350 first-class passengers, more real, as you can visualize how luxurious their time on board really was. Many first-class cabins had a door connecting to a smaller cabin, often used by children but just as often for the butler.
Life on board wasn’t dull. The Titanic even had a gym (unusual at the time). The picture of a passenger working out on the rowing machine is simply bone-chilling in its prophecy; little did he know.
The first lifeboat was launched at 11:45 p.m. and the boats were still being launched until 2:14 a.m., when the Titanic sank. These pictures bring home the horrors of that time, when many of the survivors lost husbands and fathers still on board. Read more:
