Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Ahoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh your captain. There's Chuck, your other captain, and your third captain, Jerry, all of us equal captains here. Uh is out there hovering around silently like the creepiest captain of all, even creepier than Captain Stubbing. Um. Yeah, and that of course makes this stuff you should know. I always loved it when Captain Stubbing would have the rare love storyline. Yeah now and then, yes, so good. He's usually just overseeing the love of others, you know exactly. He was a father figure, so that's why it was off putting when he had his own love thing. Yeah, but he wants to see Captain Stubbing, you know, go all the way. Uh we should mention. And I wish I knew her name. But for many, many years, one of our young listeners asked us to do Titanic at every turn. And uh, I imagine that that young girl is now a grown woman, probably who doesn't listen anymore, but who knows who knows? Also, Chuck, I think most recently was requested by our Scottish correspondent Noah. Oh, don't you remember when he said hi last time? Sure, I don't remember the Titanic part, but Noah. You know, I'm happy for Noah to take the place of this young girl who left us yesterday's news which I can't prove used us up and just threw us away. Chuck. Yeah, I think we resisted for so long because the movie is so linked to this event. In the movie, despite its faults, did a really pretty accurate job of and I know that was important to James Cameron, of kind of really telling the accurate story of exactly what happened. So we're like my bother. Yeah, there's actually um From the filming of that movie, they may have settled at least one major mystery as to what happened when it sank. The no the what happened to the Grand Staircase, which they found when they finally discovered the Titanic later on uh in the eighties, was just totally missing. It was now like a seven story vertical basically an elevator shaft, a huge hole, and none of the staircase remained. And when they filmed that movie The Titanic, the Grand Staircase detached and started to float away, and James Cameron was like, I'll bet you that's exactly what happened to the real Titanic. And I have a feeling that Jewel the Sea isn't even right. What was it called? Had a name Jim of the there's so many angry people right now of the gam of the on it. I think it was the Heart of the Sea, the Heart of the Ocean, something like that, The Jewel of the Wind. Did you like the movie? Yeah? It was fine. Um, you remember Thomas Jefferson's Bible where he cut out all the magic momo jumbo and just had like the morality of the whole thing. If you could go through and cut out like the love story of that movie, I would probably like it much more. Well, I kind of disagree there, because you gotta pain it around something. Whoa, You gotta frame it around some kind of a story of people. Are you just saying you would have done another person story? Yeah? Why not just throw Captain Stooping in there and have him have the love story? I thought the love story was good. I just think Jim Cameron is I think he can be a little ham fisted with his screenwriting sometimes. Yeah, And there was some stuff like that. I remember even at the time, like Billy Zane, you know, little pithy mom. It's like, you know that Picasso, who's ever heard of him? That will be never be worth a thing like or something like that. I remember the time being like, come on, man, Billy Zane does what he's told on set ze. So yeah, there was another one. I had forgotten about this line, but somebody else was basically saying the same thing that you are about that movie, or James Cameron. James Cameron's writing that when Leo was, you know, running with Kate Winslet through um first class and there's band. The band is playing and he stops for a second and goes music to drown two. Now I know I'm in first class. So yeah, the whole thing is just rife with that kind of stuff. But overall, I mean just the fact that like they went to the extremes that they did too to try to try to get it as accurate as possible and overlaid like a you know, a romantic love story on it like it was. I mean, it was a good It was a good movie in a lot of ways, in so many more ways than it was a add movie that it's just overall a really good movie. Yeah. I think the most brilliant decision in that movie was to have that beginning bit where it's a little ham fisted, but the part where Bill Paxton and the c Nerds go over exactly how it sank. Uh that, Like, I don't think a lot of people understood that, and understanding that as you're watching the movie is pretty critical. So I think that was pretty smart. Yes, indeed, And one other thing about that movie. Will never mention it again for the rest of these two episodes, I'm sure. Um, but it costs about almost exactly half adjusted for inflation, um to make the movie Titanic as it did to make The Titanic. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, And we just did an episode of movie Crush basically there there you go. That was a mini Crush. Although Nate demo this was this was actually his pick our buddy, Nate, He's Titanic. He did. That's awesome, Man, that doesn't surprise me at all, Right, I mean he he would love a movie like that that's set you know, like his like really accurate historical fiction. That would totally be up his his alley um. Okay, so we're talking believe it or not, everybody. I don't know if you figured this out yet, we're talking about the Titanic finally at long last um and like we're saying, you know, we kind of put this off because the movie had had just become so widespread that we basically had to wait out it's after effects. But I feel like we've kind of finally kind of reached that um so, and like I've been interested in the Titanic since I was just a young kid. Yeah, when they found the Titanic in like, I was at just the right age to to really get sucked into that um and the I think the Titanic was probably the first thing that introduced me to like the just the fascinating creepiness of looking at things they aren't supposed to be underwater, but now it's just perfect for that kind of thing. Yeah, and it's still really cool. Like I was looking at pictures today of that stern sitting there underwater, and it's, uh, it's it's still just like there's something about it that you can't not look at it and just stare at it, I know, And I'm like waiting for the day when things become uh, when technology reaches to the point where we can just explore every square into the Titanic on the bottom, I'm really looking forward to that. But so, I knew a lot about the Titanic to begin with, but just researching this, it dawned on me, like, I mean, there's just so much I didn't know that I found in in um the time spent researching this. But it also dawned on me that there is just so much more, Like some people dedicate like this is their hobby, like learning and talking and researching and reading and thinking about the Titanic. Yeah, and you know this is this be a two part episode and we're gonna do it stuff you should know style and probably about ninety minutes. But I'm quite sure there are podcasts out there fully dedicated to the Titanic where it's like you know, and now episode twenty the Cutlery, where people know, like like you're saying, people are obsessed with it and they know all the details. We're gonna, I'm sure get some stuff kind of wrong because we're not experts, but we're going to give it the old stuff you should know treatment you know, Yeah for sure. So yeah, So as as like I knew a lot about the Titanic. There's plenty of people out there who like dedicate themselves to it. Um. But just learning about this, like it's just such a huge monumental thing. A lot of people divide, like the nineteenth century the like the old era um and the modern age upon the sinking of the Titanic, Like that's how colossal a thing it's become. Um. But at the time, I mean, it was actually not that big of a deal. Like it was a maiden voyage of the Titanic, but it's sister ship, the Olympic, had already sailed, and that was actually kind of a big thing. The Titanic wasn't even sold out, um when it underwent its voyage. Actually, in retrospect, that was a very good thing. But there's a lot to learn from the Titanic just just researching it, even if you do feel like you already know basically everything about it. Yeah, I mean I learned a ton of stuff. Yeah, and I saw that movie a bunch so Um. Like I said, the Titanic had a sister ship, the Olympic, and it also had another sister ship, which was originally dubbed the Gigantic, but after the Titanic saying, they went back and renamed the Gigantic the Britannic because I thought, I think maybe they're they'd be like, well, we were we had enough hubrists for to last a lifetime with the Titanic. But these three ships came out of a dinner actually um between a guy named j. Bruce is May, who was the chairman of the White Star Line which owned those three ships, and another guy what was his name, Peery, Lord William Peery, and their their wives Florence who was married to Bruce, and Margaret Montgomery originally Carlisle and that you know that name will come back in just a second, so just put a pin in her. So the um this dinner was basically about how to compete with the Kenard lines. The Cunard people um were eating White Stars lunch to a degree because they had just released the Mauritania and the Lusitania, and I think the Mauritaneous at the speed record. Um, these things could make it across the Atlantic in five days, which was very very fast at the time, and White Star couldn't keep up. So they decided from this dinner what if instead of trying to make faster and faster ships, we just kind of go with our thing and make them bigger and more luxurious, so people want to spend that extra day. It took White Star six days to make it across. People want to spend that extra day because a ship is so ridiculously luxurious that they choose ours instead. And not only was this the birth of the Titanic in the Olympic and the Britannic, it was basically the birth of the cruise industry as we understand it today, just basically making these huge floating luxury hotels that that kind of became born from this dinner as well. Yeah, and so they said, you know, we want to make them about one and a half times the size of anything that Kunard is putting out there. And they started sketching around a little bit, and they sketched up a couple of masts and for smoke stacks, and I think by the time they got to the engineering phase, they said, by the way, we really only need three of these, and they said, no, we must have four. We want it to look symmetrical, and we'll figure out something to do with that fourth one, which they did became a ventilation system, which was pretty smart. And initially Alexander Montgomery Carlisle was the head designer, who was uh, Margaret Lord William Peary's wife's brother, so it was his brother in law that was the initial designer, and then that was eventually handed over to Peery's nephew, Thomas Andrews And he was the guy played by Victor Garber in the movie The Dude from Alias. The Dad from Alias? Is it? Yeah? I mean I never saw Alias, but I know that when you're on TV, that's what you're most famous for. Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah? Except in our case? Right, so um so yeah. So Thomas Andrews um would become the chief designer of the ship, and he had an amazing job of it. But the ship itself, the Titanic, was something like eight hundred and eighty two ft long, which is a little longer than the Transamerican Pyramid in San Francisco. Is the building in San Francisco is tall? Imagine tipping that into the ocean. Yeah, and then you have like and the Titanic was slightly longer than that. It was also ninety two ft wide, and it had a gross weight of forty five thousand tons. It was just by far the biggest ship that had ever been built. And so like the idea of bigness and uh indestructibility kind of was was part of the Titanics whole jam, like from the outset. Yeah, and there was one sort of fateful mistake. And you know, Titanic is one of those things where a lot of people have in hindsight said, well, there was of course the iceberg, but there were also this in this, in this that happened that could have led to, you know, it's ultimate demise. And one of those things was the rivets on the Titanic. There were three million wrought iron rivets that apparently, upon further examination, contained about three times the amount of slag residue as was allowable. And I think the result of that was when they're exposed to cold, they become more brittle. And so some people have posited that those you know, it was a well built ship for the most part, but those rivets could have been weaker than they should have been when push came to shove. Yeah, And I mean, if your rivets are the weak link in the chain, that's trouble right there. But yeah, not all of them were wrought iron, but enough of them were. And I also saw that they were double riveted, and they probably should have been triple riveted from what from what I saw in some engineering blog rivet exactly. Everybody knows that, sure so um So. They also had two engines on board UM that were just enormous. Each one was about three thirty ft tall, and they were capable of producing thirty thousand horsepower, which is about the same energy produced by ten diesel locomotives. Just these two engines UM, and they could push the ship pretty fast, something like um I think twenty two knots was the top speed it hit it. And like I said, the Mauritania had set the speed record at something like twenty three point nine I think, as far as the record goes, and it lasted until so the Titanic wasn't setting speed records or anything like that, but it was still going awfully fast, especially considering the size it was. But it was thanks to those huge engines, and they're the enormous propellers that they outfitted the ship with two oh man, those like if you're at home and you can access photographs safely, I strongly encourage you to look up some of these pictures. Just the pictures of the propellers are amazing. There are two three blade propellers that were about twenty three and a half feet in diameter, and then one four blade propeller that was about seventeen feet in diameter, And just seeing a photograph of these things is unbelievable to behold, Like how big these things are. Yeah, again, just bigness. It was just a common theme, you know. UM. One of the other things that the Titanic had that was pretty innovative was that so underwater in the hole, what would be beneath the sea surface, UM, as far as the boat was concerned. UM, where sixteen bulkhead compartments that had all sorts of things like one held the coal or I think multiple won't tell all the coal that the Titanic consumed something like six hundred tons a day to get that thing to move, um. And then there were just all sorts of other just just like rooms that were beneath sea level. And each of these rooms had an automatic door UM that would shut it off its seal. It They were water tight, so if any of these compartments caught water, started taking on water, it could fill up and as long as that door was shut, um, the Titanic would just be able to keep on keeping on basically. So that was a real, um, a real innovation that combined with its big us and and um just the amount of steel that was put into it combined to kind of create this idea that the Titanic was unsinkable. That's where that comes from, largely from those compartments. Yeah. I think they said two of the four could flood, and they said, really, up to four of these could flood, but no more than four. Yeah, put a put a pin in that one. Uh. And on that coal, there were twenty nine steam boilers. And if you're thinking like how much coal, you said, six pounds or I'm sorry, six hundred tons a day a day. That was a hundred and sixty two furnaces of two hundred men shoveling coal basically NonStop. Yeah. There was actually a fire um aboard the Titanic, Like the Titanic was on fire when it was taking on passengers right, um. And it was because those those coal deposits, one of them had caught fire. And when you have coal that's on fire in that situation. Basically, the only way to put it out is to you is that coal that's on fire. So not only were they, you know, shoveling like under routine conditions, they were shoveling even more coal than normal to keep the fire from spreading. Yeah, and that's another one of those things that people have Now some people experts have gone back and said the fire, uh could have started up to three weeks before they even set sale, and that it could have weakened um some of those holds they found evidence of, like some some burn marks and stuff like that where they said it could have weakened some of that metal. And uh, you know, it sounds very strange to have a fire going for three weeks and say here we go, everybody right exactly, but that was the deal. Plus it also just gets across how enormous Titanic was that it could have a fire and just be like whatever, it's all good, We're we're the Titanic. But yeah, they discovered a picture that shows some sort of like kind of stripe across the whole of the ship that is about where the iceberg hid it. And they said that's from that that coal fire, we think, which is surprising still after all this time. I think that's another reason why the Titanic story is so engrossing is there's there's just so much still that people are learning about it, even a hundred and nine years on. Oh totally. Uh. You also have to remember, when you build something this big, you also have to build the things that help you build this thing, because they didn't exist. So they had to get a boat slip that could accommodate it. So they built the this enormous white Star dock, and then something called the Great Gantry, which was it sort of looks like a big it's sort of like a skeleton of a big airplane hangar. You should look at these pictures too, it's pretty remarkable. But it was a series of tin cranes basically that held this boat in place while it was being built, to could lift the people up to work on it, lift materials up to wherever they needed to go. And it's it's actually something to behold in itself, like seeing the Titanic sus ended like above the ground like that. Yeah, And it took eleven thousand people to build this ship. Eleven thousand people and they built it. They built the actual ship itself, uh, and was launched into the water. I think, although it was basically always in the water because it was basically impossible to dry dock. Um. Well that when it was in the hangar, I was sitting up there. Okay, you're right, sorry, But it was actually launching in the water then on May thirty one, nineteen eleven. But it didn't have any interior, it didn't have its engines yet. It was fully completed March thirty first, nineteen twelve, and it began its maiden voyage and started taking on passengers on April tenth, nineteen twelve. And I proposed, Chuck that before we take on passengers, we take a break. Let's do it all right? So um. One thing I didn't realize about the Titanic was it's It had three little stops before it left the UK for New York. It started out in Southampton, uh, in England, moved on to Cherbourg, France, and then went on to Queenstown, Ireland before leaving for New York. Did you know that? I didn't know that. That's right, it wasn't so. Um. The Titanic costs about four hundred million dollars in two thousand nineteen dollars to make, which to that's that's actually less than Carnival Cruise Lines Splendor, which was launched in two thousand and eight for like four hundred and fifty fifty million. It's actually for For as luxurious as it was, it was a pretty pretty good bargain, to tell you the truth. Yeah, And here's my deal with cruises. I think we've talked about cruise ships before. I'm not a fan. I've been on exactly one cruise and uh, just not a fan. And a lot of it has to do with the decor, like shopping mall carpet and bowling alley carpet and you know, gold railings and things like that, but not like cool looking. Uh. I think if they took a note from the and maybe they are building cruise ships like this now, but if they took a note from the Titanic and other ships of the day today and had that really nice wicker furniture and some you know, if not iron, some stuff painted to look like iron, and not so much of that shiny gold shopping mall garbage. Look, I think I would be more into it, a little more classy, refined thing. And I think it could go a long way towards getting people like me on cruise ships. There's some that are like that, like kind of some throwback ones are there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but I get what you mean that whole You know, all you had to say was shopping mall. You kind of nailed it right there. Like when you look at the Titanic, it looks like something the Kellogg Brothers would have been keen on. Well, it's funny you say that because we mentioned this in the Kellogg Brothers episode, but they had equipment on board the Titanic ins gym, and the gym happened to be located on the boat deck, which was the same place where the captain's bridge was. F y I in case about the various decks, Yeah, I think we should. There are a number of them actually, and they they lettered them by letter appropriately enough. That's right. So there's that boat deck, like you said, where the bridge, the gym, and I think just sort of that nice lovely pine open deck is. You had the promenade deck, which is the first deck deck A and that had those two first class staircases that you were talking about, had a lounge, had a reading and writing room, had the all male first class smoking room, all male places. Sure, they had the he Man Woman Haters Club. Uh, there was a Veranda cafe in Palm Court, which is really lovely if you go look at pictures of this as well. Yeah that that's that's up my alley as well. Yeah, the Palm Court, it's nice, right. Yeah. I knew you'd love it because I was like, look at all that wicker furniture. Chuck's gonna go crazier for this. They would never allow that in a mall. Uh, what's on deck B? Deck? B friend, I thought you'dn't ever ask. Included the first class cabins and suits, the restaurant Cafe Parisian, which was this all male second class smoking room, third class poop deck, which is where the third class people kind of strolled around like gerbils um. And then they also kept some of the larger cargo equipment on the poop deck for the third class people that uses obstacles maybe to climb over and stay fit. Yeah, they tried to hide most of that stuff great care and making sure that it looked just like a luxury kind of hotel and not you know, And that's one of the reasons why they didn't have as many lifeboats, but you know, we'll get to that. So yeah, that was something that I also didn't know about the Titanic is that the designers, um and and builders really went to great lengths to make it as luxurious as possible for everybody from first class to third class, which is also called steerage. Um. You know, just over the years it's been it's been it's been made into such a class conflict, social stratification fable, because it definitely was, but really it just kind of followed the conventions of the day. But because of the conventions of the day, a lot of people died who otherwise might not have, which we'll talk about believe me. Um, it's just really people have kind of glomped onto that, and especially a hundred years later, it just seems so bizarre and awful to us. But at the time, I mean, this is just the way things were. But because of that, you know, that whole idea that it was like, you know, there's third class and there's first class. Um, the the you you just kind of missed the point that that they were like even in third class, this was incredible luxury compared to what they were used to for passages like this, and it was because the designers purposefully made it that way. Yeah, I mean they were mostly immigrants coming to America for the first time. And uh, like you said, it's it was appropriate luxury for third class. Like it wasn't like the rooms weren't these big open rooms with like thirty bunk beds and no door. They were private rooms. They had doors on their rooms. I think they were with their six people per room down there, I saw four. I also saw six, Okay, not too bad though. They had little wash basins in each room, which was a really big deal in a big luxury although I do think they had only two bathtubs for third class to share among the seven hundred plus people, one for men and one for women. And um, I saw that explained away as third class passengers probably thought that you could develop respiratory illness by bathing too much, so they probably wouldn't have had much of an issue with that. It doesn't seem as bad as it it does to us in retrospect. Yeah, I don't think I would have taken a baths. I would have just spend It's like I wouldn't take a poop on a bus trip. I'm with you, man, I hope I'd never ever go to jail for any extended period of time because I would have a big problem with the pooping thing. You mean, when it's just a little silver, silverything in the corner with all the other people in there. Yes, I mean, like, yes, yeah, I think that's a big problem. That would be a problem for me. I think that would be a problem for anybody. I feel bad, like I really feel that's a terrible aspect I think of jail life. But yes, yes, yeah, that's exactly right. All right, So where were we? Uh? Well, ironically we were on the poop deck. Uh, dex C was the shelter deck. Um. I don't think we said Deck B was the bridge deck. But DEXI is the shelter deck. Purser's office there, third class smoking room, second class library, and lounge. You know, everything is very divided by class. Everyone needs their smoking rooms because everybody smoked, right, Yeah for sure. Uh, saloon deck deck D. What are you getting there? Uh? First class reception room and the dining saloon um like they had Like when you showed up for dinner, you would probably sit in the reception room and maybe like have a drink while you're waiting to be seated if you showed up a little early. From what I saw agreed. From what I saw. The dining saloon, the actual dining room UM was large enough to see all of the first class passengers at once. And I think the second class one was just enormous. Second class, like it is almost never talked about. When you just generally talk about the Titanic, it's always first or third. But there's a huge second class um, a huge space for second class. I think it's set a couple of thousand people at once. Third Class I think was enough to serve um the the third class passengers over three sittings. I believe maybe even more than that, maybe four. All right, that's a lot. It is still a lot, but yeah, for first class you probably had just one sitting. Uh. And I think when you mentioned that could be uh. That restaurant was an ala carte restaurant, So it's sort of like modern cruise upstairs, the big dining room, but then there's also the pizza place and the this and the that, and I think the little a la carte restaurant was one of those it's like the mall food court, except probably not as good. Uh. Deck E was the second and third class cabins. It's called the upper deck, and then the middle deck. Deck F this is a little confusing, was the third class saloon, the Turkish Bath, which um they not too long ago got some really good photos of lurking there at the bottom of the Atlantic. It's amazing. But the Turkish Bath was kind of like what you call the spa aboard a ship today. Yeah, maybe some of the well, actually, I guess the Kellogg stuff was in the gym. Yeah, I believe it was all in the gym because it was like the shaky band and um oh, I can't remember what else the I think the thing where where they would loosen up the poop with the sun tan bed. I can't remember exactly, but there were definitely multiple pieces of Kellogg equipment and it wasn't the gym yet. So then you've got the lower deck, the orlop deck. That's where they get a play squash if you wanted to. They had a post office. There was a lot of you know, people love to send post when they're on an ocean voyage. I know, but I was thinking about that. You just show up at the post office and they're like, okay, thanks, we'll mail it when when we get to the same place at the exact same time as you. Yeah, it seems so dumb, but I think it's being postmarked by the Titanic, which is you know what. Okay, you're like, uh, there's someone working the post office is literally turns everyone away when you just hang onto that and mail it when we get there, A right, why yeah, probably better off just dropping it's somewhere in New York. You're fine. Uh, there's the carpentry shop, the plumbing shop, electrical workshops. You gotta have all that stuff. Um. They had these enormous refrigerated rooms that were cooled by these copper pipes, just like miles and miles of copper pipes in each area. Like you could you do a whole episode on just the refrigeration of the Titanic and the cheeses and the flowers and the wines and the foods that they had to keep chilled. And they have extensive They did it after the cutlery episode, probably so um. And so they we talked about how luxurious it was, like it was just as luxurious as anything was in the world at the time. The Titanic um with all, but there was also kind of like a uh airy kind of vibe to the whole thing, Like the choices and colors and wallpapers and plants and all of that in the wicker furniture was all this kind of light and airy and cheery. So it had a really nice feel to it. Um from first to third across the board. Yeah, like Steerage wasn't just a rat infested, gross place to be. That's how it's always portrayed, you know, like basically a floating tenement is how I've always seen it portrayed. And I think that's kind of how um James Cameron did portrayed it too, which is I guess where I got my impression, Like you, I mean, the only thing I remember, I think they maybe showed them in their Leo and his uh in Fabrizio and remember Fabrizio in their little in their little room. And then of course there was the the Irish jig that they danced down there when she decided to you know, slum it with Steerage, and that did look a little like a like a you know, an old pub, and it was a brand new boat, right, That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so, um, I think I said earlier that the Titanic wasn't full when she set sail. Again, this is her maiden voyage, which accounts for why J. Bruces May, the chairman of the White Star Line, whose father was the founder, I believe, and why Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic and Olympic and Britannic, we're both aboard. It was just custom for the the those p bowl who were in those positions to be aboard a ship for its maiden voyage. But there wasn't it wasn't sold out. There was room for something like thirty two hundred and people. Yeah, there was only dred and twenty nine people. So there was like more room for more than a thousand passengers, basically because the the crew was virtually full, Like the room for the crew was virtually full, but it was the passengers that hadn't you know, booked as much as it was expected. Should we take another break? Oh boy? Yeah, alright, let's take another break and we'll talk about a couple more things here. Two round out Part one of the Titanic. Right after this all right. So, uh, this thing, I guess we're where it sets sail, right, Yeah, I believe so basically, yeah, at least from being launched in Belfast, right, Yeah. So it started out in Belhafast, went to Southampton on April three, and then on the tenth it went and picked up a few people in Southampton and then went to France and then to Queenstown, Ireland to get some more people. Like I said, I never knew like you that this is what it was doing, operating basically like an uber chair. Yeah, I guess. So have you ever done that? No? I never have. I'm very very careful. Fall I did once and someone they stopped and I was like, what's going on? And someone got in. I was like, really, what's going on? I made a new friend. Oh that's nice. I thought it was in the cash cab. I don't think he stops to pick up other people. He just asked a lot of questions. Yeah, that's true, all right, So it's picked up all the folks at this point. Uh. In the end, and there are some discrepancy about the final numbers because a lot of people sold their tickets, a lot of people switch tickets, a lot of people can't quite make it on time. In the case of Leonardo DiCaprio, he he wins those tickets in a poker game right before it launches. No way they could have accounted for him. No, And actually, I mean that's not exactly that far off. Um, and I suspect it's based loosely on the story of UM Thomas Hart who was hired on as a fireman. But UM went off and got really really drunk and lost his boarding papers, UM while he was drunk, and they were stolen by somebody else because Thomas Hart showed up and worked as far as anybody's anyone was concerned as far as the logs went. But it just clearly wasn't that Thomas Hart. Rum, he just missed it like that. Uh. There was one one group of wealthy industrialists starting with Henry Clay Frick, onto JP Morgan and then Jay Horace Harding who transferred boarding papers for sweets B fifty two, fifty four and fifty six. Well, ultimately we're taken on by J Bruce is may It just turns out all of them had a reason why they suddenly couldn't go toward the last minute. Um, yeah, I think the unsinkable Bolly Brown's daughter. She was um. You know. Molly Brown was portrayed by Kathy Baits. She was the hero of Lifeboat six that really wanted to go and try and save people. I think her daughter was supposed to come, but she was studying at the Sarbone so she did not. So there's a big list of people. They called it the just Mistic Club, and uh apparently in nineteen twelve, the Milwaukee Journal put that numbers high, six thousand people that were saved because they did not sail on the Titanic obviously couldn't been that much. It's one of those things I think we're like everyone was at you know, the game where Michael Jordan's scored whatever points and you know, it's one of those sort of things where history uh fudges itself a little bit. But in the end they put the number somewhere around thirteen hundred and twenty four passengers and those eighty four officers, which is a very high ratio of of crew members to passengers. Yeah, there really is um there, and it's speaking of crew. In addition to Thomas Hart, there were the Slade brothers who um left Southampton after um passing muster uh one got drunk and then came back and they wouldn't lower the gang plank for them again, so they got left behind go for them. But most of all, there was a guy named Davey Blair who was an up and coming officer for the White Star Line, and he was initially assigned the second officer position, which is huge for an upcoming guy. He um he was at the last minute, I think he sailed from Southampton to share Burg and then at Sharburg basically as somebody who was a more senior officer than him was was given that position and he was moved off to the Olympic and he was really disappointed about this. There's like a surviving postcard um that that expresses how how upset he was and saddened that he kind of lost that big opportunity. But even more important than that is Davy Blair was on there long enough to be entrusted with the key to the crow's nest locker, which held the binoculars for the pocular locker. The binocular locker, Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind of long been a myth that there were not binoculars on board, but there were, But yeah, he walked with that key, and that key and that postcard sold at auction for like a hundred and fifty grand or something, didn't it as far as I know, Yeah, it's amazing. But that's a big deal because later on they would say that had they had binoculars in the crow'sness, they most definitely would have cited that icebergs in time to maneuver away from them. That the lookouts said that later on at an inquiry. Yeah, and of course people debated that as well. Um, it's hindsight is twenty but it certainly wouldn't have hurt. Yeah, you know, no, definitely wouldn't have. So. Um. I mentioned some wealthy industrialists that was mostly first class passengers were all extraordinarily well above average wealthy people, like even for wealthy people, they were above average wealthy. Um. And that was reflected in the ticket prices that some of them paid for passage on the Titanic. Dude, Yeah, big money in today dollars, anywhere from sixty six grand to a dred and twenty grand for passage. Yeah. I don't think that fully gets it across, because you're like, Okay, I can see a billionaire selling something like that out. You know, it's gaudy and gross. But what really drove it home to me was at the time, um, so they were paying up to forty dollars and their dollars and at the time, the average American made eight hundred dollars a year. Wow, and these guys showed out forty hundred for a one way ticket. This was not round trip, this was one way from the UK to Americas and that nuts. Uh. Third class steerage I think even costs close to a thousand dollars and today dollars, which is a lot of money. I mean thirty five bucks back then, but um that that's not cheap, no, but it was definitely a lot more affordable than a hundred nine dollars. That's right. So I guess we should talk a little bit before we wrap up about um kind of the controversy over the size of the ship. As we said at the beginning, they wanted it to the biggest and the best, all three of those sister ships, just to be the biggest thing ever, to really rub it in the Kunard lines face. And that presented some problems though, one of which was the Board of Trade didn't know how many lifeboats or at least hadn't acted on it and said how many lifeboats you should have because in merchant Shipping Act, Uh, they topped out at ten thousand tons and said you need, uh, sixteen lifeboats if you're ten thousand tons. Titanic was thirty five thousand tons. Uh, and they had sixteen lifeboats because that's just where the Merchant Shipping Act ended. And they didn't like the you know, the unsightliness of them, so they weren't going to add any Uh. It does not mean because it was three times a size they needed forty eight lifeboats. I think in retrospect they said twenty six would have done it. But as we'll get to you know, the whole accident, that the speed at which it sank it may not have mattered anyway. But um, that was one of the big problems with its size. That was a very big problem. Yeah, not adding enough lifeboats because they seemed unsightly. It's not a good move. Um. Another one is that the Titanic um only had like six or seven hours of testing before it's sailed, and that was mostly just to check its maneuverability. It was never sailed at full speed. Before it set sail for America. UM, so the testing wasn't very good. And then even even more important, as far as lifeboats go, they never fully um did like a full drill to lower all the lifeboats to board. And one of the reasons why people died was not just because there weren't that many lifeboats that was a huge, huge issue, but also because there just wasn't a lot of needed protocol in launching the lifeboats as far as the crew was concerned. A lot of them had had just had come aboard basically the day before they were they were taking passengers and it didn't even have a poster a position while they were passengers on that first day. Yeah, I mean that's a It was basically an hr nightmare with people showing up. As the passengers are showing up, going where do I go? What do you want me to do? They're like, have you ever waited tables? Have you ever shoveled goal? And they were just kind of sticking people where they needed them, And like you said, I think they only were able to lower two of those sixteen lifeboats. And in the end, what that also means is you don't know how long it's going to take to lower them all. So it was just h they were kind of just flying or sailing blind, right exactly. So those were just really really big problems that would turn out to be um extremely important when the ship started going down, because any one of those things being slightly different or improved or not being a problem means that people's lives definitely would have been saved. You can debate like how many people would have been saved, but yeah, there were there was definitely room for more people to have survived the Titanic than did. Yeah. There was also a weird incident that happened on April tenth that possibly altered history. The Titanic was being pulled out by tug boats. Uh, and it I think, as the story goes, the captain kind of a little too early said go ahead and release us, and we'll just fire this baby up. It's really itching to get those propellers spinning. And he said, and give me a two two while you're at it. And uh, when he started turning those propellers, it was a big, violent suction and it sucked this other steamer, Uh, the s s New York into its wake. Uh. It was attached to the Oceanic and it started pulling this boat over to it. I think it snapped away from the Oceanic. It kind of ripped off the moorings. And if it weren't for quick action by tug boats reattaching pulling the New York away, and then the captain realizing what was going on and hitting the engine hard and turning out of the way like there. It shows pictures that they miss hitting each other by just a few feet. And not only would that if it had actually hit it, that would have caused a delay that could have altered history. But there was a slight delay anyway, just because of this incident that you know, who knows if those you know, events would have lined up with that iceberg in there at the exact moment it needed to be. Yeah, that's an amazing point, Chuck, I hadn't seen that one. So they they leave Queenstown, Ireland on April elevenelve, I believe right, yes, and start heading out to see full speed ahead. Uh, and we will stop here. What do you think? Boy? What a cliffhanger? What's going to happen? I don't know. We'll find out in the next episode of Stuff. You should know Stuff you should know is a production I Heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m hm