What They Never Told You About Titanic's Final Hours. Titanic's Untold Story

We revisit the Titanic with the romance stripped away and focus on what actually mattered on the ship and in the minds of 1912. We argue that small choices, outdated safety rules, and blind trust in technology helped turn a survivable emergency into a world-shaking tragedy.
• Titanic’s modern image versus the original horror of the disaster
• Why the Olympic draws the real pre-sinking hype and why Titanic feels like “another Olympic”
• The coal strike, passenger loads, and what “maiden voyage” meant socially
• Propulsion and speed decisions and why efficiency shaped crossing behavior
• The iceberg scrape, watertight compartments, and why the damage guarantees sinking
• The overlooked restart to half speed and how it can force water in faster
• How 1912 confidence in “practically unsinkable” ships shapes lifeboat policy
• Lifeboat loading differences between Lightoller and Murdoch and the cost of empty seats
• Steerage access problems and the class dynamics that amplify loss
• Survivor anecdotes, gallows humor, and what later conventions reveal
• Conspiracy claims about the Federal Reserve and the Olympic-Titanic swap myth and why they fail basic facts
If anyone out there has questions, please post them and maybe we’ll do a question and answer one as well.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to History's Agenda. April 15th, 1912. I know that's not a date other than you know that the taxes are due on that day, that there weren't taxes in 1912, so that wasn't the issue. It is the RMS Titanic. It's the day that it sunk, and the day that everybody scratched their heads with the unsinkable ship. Some of the most wealthy, powerful people in the world were on the ship. Some survived, some didn't. And we have Jack Stanley with us today to talk about that. And here you go. Welcome, Jack. Oh, good to see you.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

As always, the Titanic. I see you. It's been a little while. Yeah, it has. But the Titanic is a fascinating subject. Because, like today, the Titanic doesn't even represent what the Titanic represented in 1912. You know, it was just a disaster that everybody hated and everybody wanted to forget. And now it's become, it's become show business. It's become this romantic feature. It's become all these people want to go on the Titanic, but if they actually were on the Titanic, they wouldn't be happy. Okay. It was a it was a disaster. It was terrible. Isn't that the end of S. It's so true? I mean, people don't realize what it was like. And it's still.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

And it's still killing people because people went down to watch it in their homemade submarine. It's a tot was a if you ever saw the documentary on the submarine, the Titan or whatever it was. It was a Yeah. I mean, it was it was a piece of junk. Oh yeah. Everybody knew there was stuff wrong with it. Oh yeah. I know.

The Olympic Was The Real Celebrity

Small Mistakes And A Coal Fire

SPEAKER_02 2:49

It was a horror. And by golly, it did what everybody expected it to do. It imploded. Blow up. But you know something I wanted to. This is a sad story. Oh yeah. Agreed. Agreed. It was a couple of uh there was a Titanic researcher on board, actually. Um, I wanted to talk about the Titanic, but in a slightly different way. Because everybody has heard about the Titanic at nauseum. The unsinkable ship. God himself could not sink the ship. It hits an iceberg and it sinks. Yada, yada yada. Now, let's talk about what it really was and what really happened. Was the Titanic really this exciting ship when it came out? The answer to that is no. Because the Titanic was part of a trio of ships. The first came out in 1911 called the Olympic. The second was going to be called the Titanic, and the third was the Britannic. They were cookie cutter ships, basically. They were almost practically identical, little things added here and there to structural changes and stuff, but basically the same kind of ship. And the entire world went nuts 1911 over the Olympic. They couldn't get enough of the Olympic. It was the ship magnificent. Scientific American couldn't stop talking about it. The shipbuilder, magazines, articles, pictures. And when it made its maiden voyage, everybody had to sit there and hear all the updates on its maiden voyage. And even before it sailed, they parked the Olympic in uh, I think it was in Liverpool, I'm not quite sure, but it was opened up to the public. And they made a fortune. The money was donated to charity, of course. And when the Olympic arrived in New York, the Hudson River was crowded with people all over the place watching this amazing ship come in. And when it came into New York Harbor, they opened it up again and made a fortune. People going through it and gave that to charity. The people could not get enough of the Olympic. The Olympic was this amazing ship, the practically unsinkable Olympic. And the amazing thing was this went on for almost a whole year. And then nobody wanted to hear about it anymore. They were sick and tired of hearing about the Olympic because they had gone through a year of it. And then came the second ship, was another Olympic. If you go through the magazines and newspapers of the time, there's hardly a mention of the Titanic. And in 1911, when they were talking about the Olympic, every once in a while there'd be a mention of her sisters being built called the Titanic. When you watch these movies, everyone's so excited about the Titanic. That was hardly the case. It was the second Olympic. The famous ship at that time was the Olympic. It was not the Titanic. And when she sailed, there was a coal strike going on. And she had a very, very small number of people who had taken passage on her. And so all the other ships put their passengers onto the Titanic and also gave their coal to the Titanic since coal was in short supply. And even still, she only had 2,200 people on board totally. Passengers and crew. She could probably carry up to about 3,000 passengers and crew, which would make it a tremendous amount of people. Thank goodness that didn't happen. But the thing is, you have to remember with with maiden voyages, and I've been talking about this for years, with the Lusitania, when she made her maiden voyage in 1977, she had over 3,000 people on board. And 16 lifeboats. And as we well know with the Lusitania class, if one side of the ship is damaged, it would list over tremendously. Therefore, had it been the Olympic, I mean the Lusitania 1912 had having that accident, and let's just say it had the 3,000 people on board, it would list over and they wouldn't be able to lower the lifeboats from the one side. And so you'd have eight lifeboats for 3,000 people. So I mean it's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it. But what I'd like to talk about with the Titanic, just to mention a few things, is there was and I think Walter Lord mentioned this, how they just weren't quite up to snuff at times, the crew. There was a certain amount of slackness, one might say. And they didn't truly pay attention to a number of things. And we had little fire on board, which you have probably heard about, and they've made it into a conspiracy that the fire weakened everything, and that's why it sank, which it's not true. It was a smoldering coal fire. They took all the coal and took it out of that bin and moved it to another one on the port side of the ship to put the fire out, and that was solved. But it put a lot more weight on the port side of the ship, which will come in as the ship sinking, we'll we'll talk about that. We're very fortunate to have had on board a passenger who was a school teacher who had never taken an ocean voyage before in his life. His name was Lawrence Beasley. And since he had never taken a voyage in his life, everything was of interest to him. And he paid attention to every little detail. And fortunately he survived and he wrote a book. And he mentioned so many things that came in so very handy in understanding uh the disaster. By the way, just to show, this is a model of the Olympic. Take that off. If I didn't say it was the Olympic, you'd say it's the Titanic. You'd think it was the Titanic. I was gonna say there wasn't that much difference. Yeah, not much difference at all. And that's why people used to joke about it when the Titanic was ready to come out. They said, it's just another Olympic. Big deal. Sort of like the space shuttle, if you think about it. The first space shuttle that went up was, wow, we knew everything. And then the next one, what was it called? I don't know. It was it's just another space shuttle.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Even the Apollo missions. Yeah. Even the Apollo missions after Apollo 11, people were not as interested, right? There was a certain sameness. It happens all the way, and that's why they were canceled.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the thing is that the the Titanic, of course, makes its maiden voyage, and it is loaded up with some very wealthy people. You know, it's interesting. The wealthy years ago, in the age before income tax, they would travel in packs in Europe. They would all congregate and go to Egypt or go to various areas of Italy and whatever, and see all the grand sites. And so it turns out that the Strausses, the Astors, and a number of other groups were all kind of coming back at the same time. And there's a certain amount of excitement with a maiden voyage of a ship. And most probably, if I'm not mistaken, many of them had probably taken the Olympic before. So it was a very familiar ship. And if they hadn't taken it, they were very aware of it, so they knew about the Olympic. So they knew the Titanic was going to be a little bit better, which is always the case. And so they sailed, and they did pretty good. You know, the Titanic and the Olympic were made to be 21-knot ships. And both exceeded that quite a bit. The Olympic would many times sail between like 22-23 knots on their voyages. And even the Titanic, um, being as new as it was, it had to get to Southampton pretty quick. And she did 23.3 knots, which is much faster than they actually expected them to be able to go. So they figured the ship could probably get up to about 24, maybe 25 knots in spurts. But it was generally a 21-25.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So it shortened the time across the Sure, sure. So it shortened the time across the ocean.

Speed And Propulsion On The Crossing

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah. I mean, the idea was to sail at 21 knots because that was the ideal speed and they got the most bang out of their buck with their coal consumption. The Titanic and the Olympic were also very, very unique ships in the way they were driven through the water, their propulsion system. Whereas like the Lusitania and the Mauritania, which were the blue ribbon holders for being the fastest, they basically did about 26 knots. It was very quite fast. They usually did their voyages around 23, 24 knots because there's no reason to have to go so fast. That was just to prove they could. But they were they were basically turbine-driven ships. And turbines are extremely hard to operate and they they use a lot of fuel. And so the Titanic and the Olympic, and later the Britannic, which unfortunately sank as well, used a system of uh what do they call them? Resur uh re God, I can't think of the word. It'll come to me later. But basically, standard engines, steam engines, reciprocating engines. Thank you. There it is. Reciprocating engines. And the exhaust from the reciprocating engines fueled a center turbine. Very, very clever. Therefore, they were much more economical to run than like the Lusitania or the Mauritania. And uh so they did their voyage on the Titanic, and everything was going pretty well. They were averaging about 21 and a half, 22 knots. And then came the fateful evening, April the 14th. Very cold. Ice reports. You know, it's an interesting thing, and it wasn't just the Titanic, it was every ship that sailed practically. When they got ice reports, the general thinking was they didn't stop. They just kept going. And they figured they'd be able to see the ice before they hit it. Very reckless if you think of it, but that's what they did. They tried to keep these these liners like almost like express trains. And so they they followed a pretty steady path. And so with the Titanic, they didn't see the iceberg until about 37 seconds before they hit it. They didn't really have time to do much of anything. The only thing they could do was turn the ship. And Murdoch, who was the first officer, tried to do what they called port around her, which would be turn, take the ship going forward, bring the bow over toward port, and then try to bring the stern around, like a motorboat. And that'll work with a motorboat, but it's not going to work with an 882-foot ocean liner.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

And of course, they And with an iceberg that's protruding deeper under the water than it was. It was wider under the water than it was on the top. Right? Iceberg only one-tenth of it's above the water.

The Iceberg And The Fatal Restart

SPEAKER_02 16:22

So it So the iceberg is like doing this. And this is what's the interesting point. Many people didn't know they hit anything. See, if they had struck the iceberg, people would have gone flying. But what they did, they rubbed against the iceberg and most probably rode over. Most probably rode over her a little bit, damaging the bottom of the ship as well. I mean, there's no way to prove that, and there's no way to disprove it either, actually. But eventually, when they went down to the wreck, they found pieces of the bottom had fallen out of the ship. And uh well nonetheless, they did that, and there's a tremendous amount of damage. The Titanic was designed to have any two watertight compartments on her sides flooded, and she would be fine. In fact, she could have four watertight compartments flooded in the front of the ship, and she would survive. Unfortunately, the damage was five and just barely touching another, making it six, and it was a mathematical certainty that the ship would sink. But it didn't have to sink as fast as it did. And this is the thing that Lawrence Beasley comes in so handy with. As soon as they saw the iceberg, they stopped the engines and they glided to a stop. And uh Ismay, who was the general manager of the White Star, came up and questioned why are we stopped, blah blah blah blah to Captain Smith. And after a conversation with Isme, Captain Smith put the ship back to half speed ahead. This you never see in documentaries about it. You don't see in that in the movie Jack Rose, Jack Rose, la la la. Um, but you don't see that either. Night to remember you don't see it either. But Lawrence Beasley gives a fantastic statement that tells us what had happened. And he said, the thing that alerted him was the motors stopped. The engine stopped. Because you got used to the rhythm of the motor of the ship, the the whole engines, a little vibration. And he said suddenly it stopped. And he said, that's what alerted him. You know, he felt a little something, but it wasn't that much. And he said everything was quiet. And then he started looking around, and then he said about ten minutes later, he ran into some nervous ladies, that's how he described it, and he had them come over and put their hands on a tub so they could feel that the engines were running again. Now, anyone who has an accident with a car, or an accident with a boat, or an accident with a plane, after you have that accident, the last thing you're going to do is drive it again. And you have this whole area of damage. That's correct. You have these damaged compartments, and then you're driving the ship through the water. What does that do? It pushes the water into the ship. They had started pumps running. This overran the pumps. It couldn't handle the amount of water that was coming in. And they did that for, let's say, four or five minutes. Think of how much water was forced into the ship. Now, the ship was gonna sink, but by that action of uh you've really you really kind of shortened that amount of time. And if you had the pumps running, which they did, but the pumps were overrun by the water. It was just too much water coming in all of a sudden. They didn't know what was going on. The people in the front of the ship didn't know what was going on in the back of the ship because they didn't know what was going on in the engine room. But they got the word to go ahead. And the people in the engine room didn't know what the hell was going on up in front because they were just down there. All they got were messages saying forward, stop, blah, blah, blah. And so that happened for about four or five minutes. And so if you can think of how many tons and tons of water were forced in. And you never ever hear that. That's never talked about. And Hitchens, who was at the wheel, mentioned the fact, yes, we were half speed ahead. Captain did it.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

It's funny, my father was on an aircraft carrier during uh during the Korean War, and they were in the North Atlantic, strangely enough, and their ship comb can um collided with a destroyer. And I believe it was the destroyer, and the entire front of their ship was. Sheared off and the other ship went down. And it was fog, you know, the whole thing. North Atlantic's treacherous. Sure, sure. So they, when you talk up, we talk about pumping water, he was a machinist mate, so they were pumping water out. And it was so dire, you know, that they literally put Marines, Marines are part of the Navy. There's Marines on board every aircraft carrier. And they literally put Marines with M16s standing there telling the guys, anybody stops pumping, shoot them. Nobody's to stop, you know, without their relieve. So they were pumping and pumping. They were afraid to lose the aircraft carrier. So, you know, it's a fear. They obviously made it back to Brooklyn, but it was quite a thing. Yeah, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

And with the Titanic, with that damage, it was foolhardy to do that without knowing exactly what was going on. Now, Smith, Captain Smith, had sent for the carpenter to sound the ship. And he sent fourth officer Boxhall to go check everything out. Boxhall didn't go too far and said he didn't see any damage. But then the carpenter came up and said the mailroom's flooded and the water is pouring in. And it was probably right around this time that they stopped the ship again and never had it run again. But those four or five minutes, I think that's such an important thing that's always left out of the equation. I think that's pretty important.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

No. And two, it may have um it may have not only changed the amount of wall, you know, how fast it went down, but also if you remember that there's a belief that it broke in half, right? That piece broke off of the ship when it was sinking. Without that water holding it in. Yeah, and without that water holding it in, it may not have done that, which even made things even worse. Well, that's the power, the lights don't go out as fast. If it's not as sinking as fast, there's a lot of things to that. That's true.

The 1912 Faith In Technology

SPEAKER_02 24:21

And that's why I think, and this is just I think I can't prove it, I can't say anything, is that I think that there was more damage done to the ship by the iceberg than what we realize. I think the back of the ship went over the ice and damaged the keel of the ship, which led to the whole thing eventually falling apart and leaking. Because there was water coming in in various areas, not just in the areas just in front. They found water coming in in other areas that was a little confusing. And so we really don't know totally how much was damaged. There was no way to tell. It was dark. There was no way to get down there and look. They couldn't put like a collision mat or anything over it. It was an unfortunate situation. Now, we have to remember something, and we have to go back a little bit because we have to understand the mindset of 1912. It's very hard for us today to understand the mindset of 1912. The rich were rich, and the poor were poor, and God's way. And also, technology had overcome nature. We have totally defeated nature. The machines behind you were these amazing devices of technology that had totally, totally defeated the silence. Suddenly, sound was no longer elusive, it was captured. And the interesting thing with ships like the Titanic and the Olympic were accidents that had happened. Ships were said to be practically unsinkable. That was not a term just used with the Titanic or the Olympic. It was used with the Lusitania, it was used with the Mauritania, it was used with the Adriatic. It was an overused term, sort of like a fireproof theater. There is no such thing. But the thing is that that term was overused. In fact, in 1977, Captain Smith brought over the brand new White Star Adriatic. And he was introduced, interviewed by the press, and they asked him about the safety measures on the ship. And he said, Well, this is subdivided with the watertight compartments. And I cannot imagine a vessel foundering in this day and age. Basically, it's that's more or less what he said. He says shipbuilding has gone beyond that. And Smith would tell people in conversations that these ships could be cut into pieces, and each piece would individually float. That's kind of clever and cute, but it's not true. But that's how they kind of looked at it. That's they had their own little spy glass on the technology of the time. And in 1909, a white star ship called the Republic was rammed by a ship called the Florida, was mortally damaged, and Jack Binns was the wireless operator. And he sent out messages of distress, and everyone came and saved the passengers on the ship called the Republic. Everything was IC with White Star. And it took forever for the Republic to sink. And this reinforced this whole idea that the ships were practically unsinkable, that they could take severe damage and take a long time to sink. And the Board of Trade, which regulated how many lifeboats ships should have, basically stated that any ship over 10,000 tons had to have 16 lifeboats. Now, this was a very, very antiquated uh description, because none of the new ships coming out were anywhere near 10,000 tons. They had gone long past that. And that's when the Lusitania came out, the Mauritania, these were monster ships. And they had 16 lifeboats. That the ships are a lifeboat to themselves. And that it will take a very long time if it does sink to sink. And rescuers can come and you can ferry people from one boat to another with the lifeboats. That was the whole idea. And then the Olympic.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

It's funny that it was that the Titanic was designed for 64 lifeboats, but there were only 20 because they thought it would clutter the deck, and that they thought the deck was like the safest place or something.

Lifeboat Choices That Cost Lives

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Well, yeah, that was for the Olympic, actually. It it they because the Olympic and was exactly the same as the Titanic. They they had designed it to have a lot more lifeboats, and they said we don't need that many lifeboats. Because of the way they looked at technology 1912. You know, we we have to be careful. Sometimes we'll judge people by our standards, but we have to look at their standards, and their standards were very, very different. And so the Titanic and the Olympic went above the law. They had 20 light boats. That was more than almost any other British ship, which is frightening when you think about it. But the thing is, the Olympic thought the ship wouldn't sink. Yeah. The Olympics are practically unsinkable. That's what it said in the Shipbuilder magazine. That's what it said in Scientific American. That the ship, with the flip of a switch, the ship can be made practically unsinkable. And when this ship came out, the Olympic, after like three or four voyages, she got into an accident and she was rammed by a cruiser, a British cruiser called the R uh the HMS Hawk. Crashed right into the ship and made a big hole. And the Olympic listed over, but her watertight compartments held. And once again, that whole idea of that the ship is a lifeboat unto itself was reinforced again. The shattering moment came on April 14th, 1912, when Captain Smith stood on the bridge and he hit the switch. But it didn't matter. Because shipbuilding hadn't really gone as far as he thought it had. And the ship that was practically unsinkable was going to sink faster than any of these other ships.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's funny, accidents when accidents happen, you know, it seems like they come from a lack of imagination. They never imagine that such a gash would be that large. Yeah. They never imagined that they're ever gonna have to use the the lifeboats because they're gonna be able to lock out the department um compartments. Yeah. So you see these things, and throughout history, I mean, you see, you know, you look at the Apollo 1 disaster, right? It was a spark, it caught fire, and all the men died, and they died because they didn't imagine the spacecraft was set up to be at oxygen 14 pounds of pressure, but in space when we're already at a certain amount of pressure on uh being on the earth, and they never imagined that that was the problem. Yeah. I think it's a good one. And like everyone says, after it, it was even stupid things like me. I got clunked on the head, knocked out a week and a half ago, or whatever it was. There were these huge pieces of wood, and you would never think that the wind would be able to lift them up, but somebody moved them and placed them on a piece of plastic that was laying on the side of a building. The wind could use the plastic as a sail, picked up the pieces of woods, and knocked me out cold. Now, now it now think about all the things that have to come together for that to happen. It's a similar thing. Oh, yeah. They were 100 pounds.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Yeah. So the Titanic's the perfect Greek tragedy. I mean, everything that could go wrong, didn't it? Oh, yeah. I mean, and and and it's it's such a fascinating thing. And there was such a cavalier attitude. It's a fascinating thing. You had different dynamics going on. Captain Smith got the officers together and said, We're going to load the lifeboats, women and children first. Now, you had two people that were in charge of lifeboats. One was Murdoch, and I think he was on, I think, the starboard side. And then you had Lightoler, who was on, let's say, the port side. Lightholder took that meaning literally. And so he would fill up the lifeboats with women and children, and when there were no more women and children, he lowered the boat. That's insane. And so you had boats that hold 65 people.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

And if there's room.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah. 65 people, and he's got 38 in there because it's women and children. And you have a bunch of guys there. He wouldn't let him in. That's I can't fathom that kind of stupidity. And then he came up afterwards, he was trying to cover his ass a little bit. He said, I was afraid that the boats would snap with all the weight. Well, he was in charge of testing the boats before they left. And the Board of Trade was there. They were lowering the boats with weights and stuff in them to see if they could handle the weight. And that's what they were registered to carry 65 people. And you know, you got a ship that's sinking? Take a chance. Now, on the other side, Murdoch.

unknown 36:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

And children weigh less than adults, too, so there was probably even less weight.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

And and and it it gets worse than that. But on the other side, we had Murdoch who put women and children first. And when there were no more women and children, he put men in. And and there's a story in Night to Remember by Walter Lorde, which is a phenomenal book, by the way. Yeah, I remember reading that when I was a kid. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's it's by far the best book ever written. And he talked to the people that were there. And one of the people was there, and they said they were sitting there watching. They said, if they're gonna load the lifeboats, they may as well put some people in them. You know? That's what they were saying to each other. And so Light Toller's boats all left with like 25, 30, 41. He basically committed to their deaths. About 200, he could have easily put other people in there. And there's a story, and it's probably apocryphal. But John Jacob Astor brought his wife, who was pregnant at the time, and he explained to Leitolder that she was in a delicate condition, and could he go with her? Lightholder said no. And so he put his wife in there, waved goodbye, and then stepped back with the other men. And then there was a boy who was going on to one of the lifeboats, and Leytolder stopped him. And the mother said, Well, he's only 13. And John Jacob Astor supposedly, I can't say it did happen, but I wish it did. He put he put a girl's hat on the boy. He said, He's a girl now. Put him into the boat. Leytoler sounds.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Crazy stuff must have gone on.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Yeah. Leytoler is sort of like that government worker that follows every line and does it exactly as every line says. And God forbid you use imagination. I mean that's that's that's I find that abhorrent, actually. And a lot of people basically died.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

In that situation. In that situation, how do you not feel it abhorrent?

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Yeah, I mean, lifeboats you put people in them.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

My um my good friend, um great aunt and uncle are Isidora and Ida Strauss. And, you know, the Strausses were legendary people. They owned Macy's and whatever. And I actually did an audio podcast long time ago about them. And she is, if we so choose, you know, she can come out. She's in the Dominican Republic now on a on a medical mission. She she's a in in medicine. And she she came on, she talks about the, you know, talks about them and and whatever. But we also have the executive director of the Strouds Historical Society, who was at Columbia or someplace like that, who has, you know, who we have access to if we want to want to have them on at a later date and talk about them. Yeah. Um they they put out a and I she sends it to me once in a while. They put out like a quarterly notice about, you know, Strauss Historic, and it's funny because Isidore and I or Strauss used to own the townhouse that Epstein owed in New York. That was their townhouse when they were alive. Obviously, they died in many, many, many, many. They died on the on April 15th, 1912, right? Yes. So so that it's that that huge townhouse that they had still exists. Interesting. You know, they were very wealthy female. Slightly tainted in history now. Slightly tainted in history. I mean, you you see it on. Yeah, in the night in the night to remember, certainly. I don't know. I never saw the Titanic movie. I watched the beginning where they go down and look at the ship, but as soon as the movie starts, I always turn it off. Uh you in certainly in the night to remember, they're they're front and center, how their will not to leave each other, even at the sacrifice of their life. I mean, it's certainly at that time being that wealthy, you almost think it's unusual.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Yeah, they're they're a fascinating story. I mean, uh it goes back to the time of the Civil War. They were running China back and forth from Europe. Green selling it in in the South and you know, running the blockade. Fascinating stuff. And of course, I found his grave. I went and visited in in New York. They found his body, they didn't find hers. But there's a lot of stuff in in New York. I mean, you have Strauss Park, and then in the entrance of Macy's, there's this amazing memorial to the Strausses, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, they were they their store wasn't, as it was, a huge store like it is today, or or was. Um it was almost like a strip of stores that was kind of unified together over time, and theirs was the China. And then sooner or later they bought the whole thing. And um, you know, before they sold it back to Macy, I mean they owned it for a hundred years. The family did anyway. Yeah, yeah. Not them.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

But yeah, it's fascinating. And it's kind of like the love story of the Titanic. You know, um, they offered him a seat in the lifeboats, and he said, I won't go before any of the other men. And then he told his wife to go, and she said, We've been together all our lives. I'm not gonna leave you now. And it's it's it's it's it's really uh an amazing, amazing story.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Um and uh But you think of all these robber barons that were all on this ship, and throughout history they get a bad name, and then you have this romanticized at best story about the Strausses, who seem as wealthy as they were, seem to be above the fray of the rest of these, what are you gonna call, bourgeoisie group of people.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yeah, I I I, you know, and I'm and I'm sure I'm sure they were very much like the wealthy of the time, too. But we have we have kind of made them much more warm and fuzzy, perhaps for more modern tastes, I would imagine. You know, John Jacob Astor. We gotta remember, this is a guy who liked to get his hands dirty, he liked to work on cars, he had uh he had a couple of patents, he made a street cleaner, he wrote a science fiction novel. He was a fun guy. He was involved with all the stra the uh Astors, which were about as exciting as a root canal, and eventually left his wife and then married a very, very young lady uh who was younger than his son. And it was a big scandal, so that's why they were in Europe. Interesting thing about Astor, I found his grave, and his grave is known, but it's not marked.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Trinity Church. Is it down there with everything else?

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Trinity, it's the uptown Trinity Cemetery. That's where the Astors are. Except for I think Mrs. Astor's downtown, if I'm not mistaken. But John Jacob Astor has a little monument with a uh anchor on it, but no name. I thought that was rather interesting. And maybe they didn't put names on things because they were afraid of grave robbers or something like that. I don't know. But his body was found, of course. And recently his watch was just sold. Sold for a fortune. Really?

SPEAKER_00 44:57

That was that pocket watch? I saw pictures of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Steerage Confusion And Survivor Memories

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Uh Vincent Astor, I believe, had it restored. And Vincent Astor, of course, uh, he died in 59, but his widow, she lived in well into the 2000s. Yeah. John Jacob Astor's daughter-in-law lived well up until like, I think it was like 2014 or something like that. She passed away. But with all of this going on, um, with the Titanic dealing with all the politics of shipboard life with the crew, and Leitola doing his thing, uh, Murdoch doing his thing, the captain trying to encourage people to do things. You also had Thomas Andrews, who was from Harlan and Wolf and had been involved in the later design of the Titanic. He was trying to get everyone to put on their life preservers and the like. But the problem was you had steerage. And the steerage people had no idea how to get up on deck. And there were ways to get up, yes. Right. I mean, they make it so it seemed that everything was blocked, but uh there were areas where they could probably find their way. But they didn't know where they were going. And nor was there anyone to help them, really, if you think about it. I mean, they sent stewards down to grab a bunch and bring them up, but it was only in limited amounts. And there were more third-class steerage children lost than first class men. Which is kind of sad.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Yeah, I I read something that it was, yeah, more than more than anything. More more people were obviously lost from the lower deck than were anywhere else, but more of the children.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

The children, the children were anywhere else treated terribly. And second class was treated pretty bad too. And you know, even years later, I I got to meet two survivors. I went with a friend of mine named Ted Spangenberg, and we went to they had these the Titanic Historical Society conventions, and there was a whole mess of these survivors at the time, maybe about 10 or 12 of them. And I got to meet two of them. One was Eva Hart, had an amazing story, which is probably too long to tell right now. But the other was Edwina Mackenzie. And she was a pip. She gave me the funniest line from the Titanic disaster. Her name was Edwina Mackenzie, but that was her married name. She said, My maiden name was Trout. How could I drown? I thought that was the best line I've ever heard from the title. Unbelievable. Yeah, that was that was her line. She was very old. She was she she was well up much older. Eva Hart was a little girl, but she had an amazing story about how her mother sensed something was gonna happen. And uh she and her mother were saved and she lost her father.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah, it says uh um Yeah, I was looking at something that says um her mother had a premonition of a disaster and did not sleep at night. Right. Which allowed them to be, they were on a deck, it allowed them to be first orders there. And they got into lifeboat 14 and the father stayed behind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Which is the case almost every family rescued by the boat the Carpathia.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

They were in life. Yeah, Carpathia. She was saved by MBE in 1974. How about that?

SPEAKER_02 49:01

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Say that again? She was awarded an MBE. She was awarded an MBE in 1974 because she lived many years at Chadwell Health, remaining active until her death. Yeah. She wrote she wrote a book, uh, Shadow of the Titanic, a survivor story. A girl aboard. Yeah.

Titanic As A Turning Point

SPEAKER_02 49:28

She was quite fascinated. It was interesting to meet her. Interesting. And meet Edwina. And I talked to other people who had talked to survivors. And that social class, the first class and second class, there were people in first class that were still not wanting to talk to people in second class. As crazy as that sounds, there was a lot of snooty activity. They just did not want to have anything to do with the the lesser people as they looked at it that way. Once again, how they looked at things in 1912. Right. There's a fascinating thing. I always remember hearing about the Titanic, that how the world changed. There there was a memorial to the Titanic and the people lost, and it was listed by importance. And then in World War One, there was a memorial to people lost, and it was alphabetical. There was this massive change that was taking place, this Victorian Edwardian age. Once again, the rich were rich and the poor were poorer, and God made it that way, and that's you know the way things are. That that that whole that whole world seemed to crumble with the sinking of the Titanic. It was such a shock. You know, you think about it. We all know about the sinking, but there's so many little things that took place that have such an effect, and and and it is the the crumbling of society, that that well-protected society that existed just went to pieces. And then income tax came in. World War One came in, and World War I changed us like nothing. I mean, suddenly we had never seen anything like World War One. The Titanic was unique unto itself for what happened. It shocked the world. World War One finished us off in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah. And brought us into the 20s.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

That became roaring, as they say.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

I used to tell my classes in the middle years ago when I used to teach I used to tell my students, I said, be aware of this. World War One never quite ended. Because it just kind of goes on. If you think about it, World War One led to the Treaty of Versailles, and the Treaty of Versailles led to World War II. And also, all of the countries they refused to allow at the Treaty of Versailles signing were areas where wars would take place. And to this very day, we're dealing with stuff in the Middle East that was all put together during the Treaty of Versailles. It's amazing when you think about it. World War One still with us.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

So can I talk a little bit about the conspiracy? It wouldn't be uh America's agenda if we didn't talk about conspiracy theory. Oh okay. So this has to do, and I know he knows, so I'm gonna explain it to you guys um the best I can anyway. I have some notes. So it has to do with opponents of the Federal Reserve Bank, right? JP Morgan um and this man named uh Nelson Eldridge, others are planning to start the Federal Reserve Bank. Um, and it was uh actually planned at Jekyll Island in 1910, and neither Aldridge, though many rich people are above the Titanic, neither Aldridge nor JP Morgan were aboard the Titanic. In fact, Morgan was on had a ticket for the Titanic and canceled it at the last minute. So these conspiracy, this is all comes from this guy, Bill Hughes, makes this conspiracy, and that the victims of the Titanic, who we spoke about when we did John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Isidore Strauss, all we all know those names, incredibly wealthy financiers and other things at the time, were alleged opposed to the Federal Reserve. And strangely enough, they all died in the Titanic. Yeah. So um It's a cute story.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

That is yeah, there isn't any there really isn't a lot of the I thought you were gonna do the other conspiracy which is even crazier. Which after the hawk I'll let you tell that one. After the hawk rams the Olympic, according to this conspiracy, which is nonsense. But the Olympic is brought back to Harlan and Wolf, and they say her keel is bent. Therefore, she's useless. And so over the course of two weeks, they change the names of the ships. And they make the Olympic the Titanic, and they make the Titanic the Olympic, and then the Olympic goes out and sinks, and it even leans to the left, which is something that Lawrence Beasley happened to mention in his book. And they use that story with the with the Olympic saying, since it was damaged, it leaned to the left. Well, the problem with that whole story is this it's false for so many reasons. First off, every item on each ship is marked with a building number. The Olympic is number 400, the Titanic was 401. The boilers, the uptakes, the furniture, the rooms, the wall panels, everything is marked with a number. But to do what they said they did would take about eight months. Right. So I mean it's it's cute. And the story, had they not found the Titanic, the story would hold a little water. Had they not found the Titanic. But even still, it's just too ridiculous. And how would you keep that a secret?

SPEAKER_00 56:59

I don't uh it's hard to there's there's no facts to support any of it.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

No, there is nothing. And it's fascinating. If you look at YouTube, you will see countless specials on the Titanic didn't think it was the Olympic, blah, blah, blah, which is absolute nonsense. But the Titanic, once again, it I don't want to go into details, but the thinking everybody knows about that. But the odd things, the bizarre things, the sense of the ship was a lifeboat in itself had a great effect on people. And the fact that the Olympics survived its accident with the hawk, and the fact that the Republic took so long to sink after being rammed gave everybody this sense of confidence. And then the Titanic shattered that confidence like a mirror. And the world has never quite been the same since. We've never tried we've never trusted anything. We don't believe that technology has been has totally defeated nature. I mean, that would be an insane thing to say. But in 1912, we had defeated nature. I figured that's a good place to stop.

Final Thoughts And Listener Questions

SPEAKER_00 58:23

You have some questions? Some amazing stories. No, I'm good. You were very good with it. It's one of those things. If anyone out there has questions, please post them and maybe we'll do a question and answer one as well. And whether we'll have my friend Robin on, talk about our family and those things. I know after our last podcast, she spent a little time more researching it. You know, and she lives down the street from me, so she doesn't even live that far, but okay, that's the way it is. So thank you everyone for listening. Thank you, Jack, as always, and uh thank everyone for for listening to History's Agenda. We look forward to our next story. Okay. Thank you.