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The RMS Titanic - Iceberg, Right Ahead!
 PASSENGERS ON THE TITANIC WITNESSED a beautiful day on the open ocean on April 14th, 1912. A gentle breeze cooled off the passengers as they emerged from the decks after the church services held in several places throughout the ship. Captain Smith ordered the last boiler lit, and the Titanic steamed ahead through the Atlantic. The warm afternoon soon gave way to a chilly evening, and iceberg warnings were sent from all over to the Titanic. Six messages in all were received by Marconi wireless radio on the Titanic, although only one of these warnings ever reached the bridge.
At around 11:30 p.m., lookout Frederick Fleet stared into the mind-numbing darkness. It had been a miserable night in the crow's nest, scanning for something that would be nearly impossible to notice because of the calm sea. Normally, there would be small waves breaking against the sides of the icebergs, but the sea was so calm tonight that there were no waves. Also, the lookout's binoculars had disappeared after the ship departed from Southhampton, so the visibility of the feared icebergs was limited even further.  Suddenly, he spotted a haze on the horizon. He and his fellow lookout discussed the small hazy patch off in the distance, and then several minutes later saw the telltale pale white color. That could mean only one thing… icebergs. He rang the warning bell three times and then called the bridge. First officer Murdoch, in command at the time, had only 37 seconds to react before the iceberg scraped alongside the hull. Murdoch commanded the engines to be set to full reverse and hard to port, as to turn the ship away from the iceberg. However, because of the immense size of the Titanic in comparison to its rudder, the turn did not move the Titanic out of danger, and a few seconds later the starboard side of the bow scraped against the ice.  Although no one realized the extent of the damage, the rivets on the affected part of the hull, brittle because of the extreme cold of the North Atlantic, gave way to the iceberg and sent thousands of gallons of sea water into the forward boiler rooms, and sealed the fate of this gigantic steamship.
Almost all the passengers had gone to bed, save for the men in the first class smoking room and a few hardy souls who had chosen to stay on deck during the biting cold. Some were jolted awake, and those that were looked out onto the deck to see a gargantuan iceberg sliding off into the distance. When people asked crew members what was going on, most crew members didn't know anything more than the passengers, but attempted to soothe them anyway. First Officer Murdoch commanded the ship to full stop, closed all watertight compartments, and requested the presence of Captain Smith, who had retired for the evening after a dinner ceremony in First Class. Smith sent for carpenters to sound the ship and assess the damage, as well as Thomas Andrews, the one man who would know how the ship would react to the damage. Andrews said that the ship could remain afloat if four of the six compartments had flooded, but the iceberg had ripped small holes throughout the first five watertight compartments, meaning that the ship would indefinitely sink. Captain Smith ordered Harold Bride; a junior wireless operator on duty at the time, to begin sending one of the first SOS calls in history. In one of the greatest ironies of the 20th century, the largest moving object ever created by man would be doomed by only 12 square feet on damage.
 Water poured in through the holes in the hull. At one point, the water was rushing in so fast and under so much pressure that air was forced through the forecastle vents and escaped at high velocity. By midnight, water had begun to fill the boiler rooms and up the spiral staircase into the mailroom. In one of the stories of unsung heroes from the Titanic, the mailroom operators hurried up and down the stairs with bags of mail as to protect it from the water, until their death as the water cleared the ceiling of the mail room, trapping them underwater. Water continued to fill the watertight compartments, until the weight was so great that the bow and forecastle were pulled under. Because of the nature of these watertight compartments, water could simply fill to the height of the barriers separating the compartments, and spill over into the remaining compartments. Water poured in through the forecastle vents and the underwater holes, filling the compartments one by one, and pulling the giant underwater.
By the time water cleared the bow, Captain Smith had ordered the lifeboats to be filled, women and children first. Perfectly aware of the fact that, although the Titanic was carrying over 2,000 passengers, the lifeboats only had room for 1,179 people. By 12:45, Boat 7 had been lowered into the ocean, filled with only about half of the 62-passenger capacity. While the first and second class women and children were allowed into the boat, great controversy surrounds the third class passengers. Many survivors later told that the third class passengers were locked behind gates and forced in the lower decks, and the total survival statistics support this. However, it is now the belief of historians that the gates were not even lockable at all; a small latch was all that kept the gates closed. Perhaps some passengers were held behind the gates, but most evidence indicates that they were indeed not kept in lower decks as higher-classed passengers filled the lifeboats.
The water had now flooded all the way up to the bridge, and the Captain was never seen again. Although one survivor stated that they had seen the Captain deliver a baby into a lifeboat after the ship had sunk, no evidence exists to support this. It is popular belief that the Captain was in the bridge as in dove underwater. As water poured over the bridge, it flowed into the Officers' Cabin and the wireless room, forcing Harold Bride to leave his post sending SOS calls. Water continued to flood the ship, reaching the forward funnel and collapsing it as the combination of cold water and hot steam created an explosion at the base of the funnel. The funnel crashed down into the water, killing Titanic's richest passenger, John Jacob Astor, and creating a large wave that rippled the water and pulled many passengers underwater. Making its way past the first funnel, the ocean crashed down through the metal and glass dome that covered the Grand Staircase, with a deluge that ripped down the staircase, defacing the intricate wood paneling that lined the walls and staircase.
The list of the decks grew greater and greater, and finally the last lifeboat was launched. In a horrendous crashing noise that was heard from all people on deck and in the lifeboats, silverware tables, chairs, grand pianos, and all other materials that were not held down flew towards the bow.  The 1500- some people who remained on board moved aft and waited for their destiny to unfold. The water proceeded towards the stern past the second funnel, pulling the bow even further under, and the stern further in the air. Although the ship was made of two lining hulls of solid steel, the metal was never designed to withstand the force of holding the stern of this enormous ship well above water. And thus, right between the third and fourth funnel, the ship split right down from A deck to the keel, sending debris and twisted metal everywhere. The electrical room, filled with operators struggling to keep power throughout the ship, was now split in half, blinking the lights once before the sinking ship was plunged into total darkness. The bow section remained perpendicular underwater, and the stern immediately flattened out, so that it sat upright in the water.
Passengers on board hoped and prayed that maybe, just maybe, some safety device would kick in and the ship would be able to float away. However, the nearly detached bow section pulled the stern down as it descended to the ocean floor, returning the stern to its upright position. Passengers braced for the worst as the stern bobbed around like a cork in water. Slowly, after about ten minutes, the ship finally plunged down into the sea and began its descent to the bottom of the ocean.
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