1912 – the sinking of the Titanic
We chose1912 as a significant date because it was the year the “unsinkable” Titanic sank.
On the night of 15th April, 1912, 1,503 people died in total and almost everyone was wearing a lifejacket. The morning after the Titanic sank they pulled from out of the sea, just over 300 bodies. The thing is that so many more people could have survived, for example, only 28 people got on the first lifeboat and it could have held 64. This meant that 38 more people died just through not getting on that one lifeboat.
The Cunard liner RMS Carpathian arrived on the scene of the sinking, where she brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors. This was way under half of the passengers that survived.
The sinking of the Titanic is a significant event because of the massive loss of life and it showed how unsafe it was for people travelling on board ships. It was also meant to be an “unsinkable” ship. That turned out to be wrong as it hit an iceberg at full speed at ended up sinking two hours later.