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The enduring allure of the Titanic

Huw Griffith, Agence France-Presse 

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="A visitor looks at a model of the Titanic cruise ship on display during the " Titanic:="" The="" artifact="" in="" Oct.="" Martial="" EPA="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/overseas/06/20/titanic.jpg"/><figcaption>A visitor looks at a model of the Titanic cruise ship on display during the &quot;Titanic: The artifact exhibition&quot;, in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 9, 2014. <em>Martial Trezzini, EPA/File</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>LOS ANGELES — Since it sank on its maiden voyage more than a century ago, the Titanic has had an unshakeable grip on the public imagination.</p><p>A monument to the technological progress of its time -- and the hubris of men who thought they had built an unsinkable ship -- one of the world&#x27;s deadliest ocean disasters has inspired books, blockbuster movies, stage productions and countless adventurers who want to see what happened when the luxury liner hit an iceberg.</p><p>Among them, the wealthy passengers and crew of a submersible that vanished Sunday in the North Atlantic Ocean on their way to visit the seabed wreck, on a $250,000 ticket.</p><p>An all-hands search and rescue operation to find their tiny sub before the oxygen runs out was playing out Wednesday as the world watched and waited.</p><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2689247" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div><div><strong>PALACE OF LUXURY </strong></div><p>RMS Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage in April 1912 from Southampton, England bound for New York.</p><p>At the time, it was the largest ship ever built, a vast floating palace of luxury, where first-class passengers had the run of a gymnasium, squash court, swimming pool and top-notch dining options, or could retire to their lavish cabins where a staff of hundreds waited on their every whim.</p><p>Below decks, poor migrants were crammed into steerage quarters, desperate to get to the promise of the New World.</p><p>Late on April 14, the Titanic -- carrying 2,224 passengers and crew -- hit an iceberg, denting and buckling the hull and allowing water to rush in.</p><p>As compartments flooded, the 269-meter (883-foot) vessel began sinking, bow first.</p><p>There were not enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and the harried crew did not know how to deploy them; some were dispatched just half full.</p><p>Overwhelmingly, those who made it onto the lifeboats were women and children, with men instructed to hang back.</p><p>Hours after she began tipping up, the huge ship snapped in two, and plunged into the depths.</p><p>Passengers who had not made it into the limited number of lifeboats perished within minutes in the freezing water.</p><p>Around 1,500 people died in the disaster. Just 700 were picked up by RMS Carpathia, a transatlantic steamship that had answered the Titanic&#x27;s distress calls.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/04/22/21/documentary-tells-unknown-story-of-titanics-chinese-survivors">Documentary tells &#x27;unknown&#x27; story of Titanic&#x27;s Chinese survivors</a></li></ul><div><strong>WRECK </strong></div><p>The exact location of the wreck remained a mystery for 70 years until a Franco-American expedition discovered where it lay, 3,700 meters below the waves.</p><p>Footage from the ocean bed shows the two halves of the ship surrounded by a huge debris field -- furniture, shoes, plates and other detritus ejected from the vessel as it sank.</p><p>In the years since it was rediscovered, the wreck has been visited by researchers, explorers, tourists and filmmakers.</p><p>One of its most famous visitors was director James Cameron, whose 1997 smash &quot;Titanic&quot; starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as passengers who fall in love.</p><p>The movie is known as much for Celine Dion&#x27;s hit &quot;My Heart Will Go On&quot; as for a scene in which DiCaprio&#x27;s character, Jack, rescues Winslet&#x27;s Rose by pushing her aboard a floating door, sacrificing himself in the process.</p><p>Such is the film&#x27;s enduring popularity, even a quarter century later debates and theories continue to swirl around whether there was actually room enough for Jack on the makeshift raft.</p><p>It is just one example of how the story of the Titanic &quot;never seems to end for people,&quot; Cameron told a press conference held for the 25th anniversary re-release earlier this year.</p><p>&quot;The Titanic has this kind of enduring, almost mythic, novelistic quality. And it has to do with, I think, love and sacrifice and mortality,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;The men who stepped back from the lifeboats so that the women and the children could survive.&quot;</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/01/11/23/titanic-heads-back-to-theaters-for-25th-anniversary">&#x27;Titanic&#x27; heads back to theaters for 25th anniversary</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/02/09/23/jack-could-have-survived-says-titanic-director-cameron">Jack could have survived, says Cameron as &#x27;Titanic&#x27; re-released 25 years on</a></li></ul><div><strong>TOURISM </strong></div><p>While for many the Titanic is a historical curiosity -- as distant from today as the Parthenon or Pompeii -- for descendants of those who perished there is something distasteful about ultra-wealthy tourists spending heavily to visit the wreck.</p><p>&quot;I think it&#x27;s disgusting, quite honestly,&quot; 69-year-old John Locascio, whose two uncles died in the tragedy, told The Daily Beast.</p><p>&quot;They died a horribly tragic death. Just leave the bodies resting,&quot; Locascio added. &quot;They don&#x27;t want people down to see them. Just leave well enough alone.&quot;</p><p>Auctions of Titanic memorabilia and artifacts remain popular, with an embroidered pink coat Winslet wore in filming the 1997 movie and a letter written by a Uruguayan passenger who died in the disaster both going under the hammer next week in separate sales.</p><p>The violin used by bandleader Wallace Hartley to play hymns on deck as the great ship went down -- a reminder of the Titanic&#x27;s final moments -- sold in 2013 for $1.7 million.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div> </div>

Since it sank on its maiden voyage more than a century ago, the Titanic has had an unshakeable grip on the public imagination.

The enduring allure of the Titanic

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The enduring allure of the Titanic

Huw Griffith,

Agence France-Presse

Published June 22, 2023 06:46 AM PHT

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