While the RMS Titanic may have sunk 112 years ago today, the ship’s infamous fate is still leaving explorers searching for the answers to several questions.
On April 15, 1912, the ship sank into the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., coming to its final resting place at the bottom of the icy ocean, where it sat undisturbed until explorers located it in 1985.
Since then, explorers, filmmakers, historians, and aristocrats have traversed the ocean floor to study the wreckage of one of the most iconic ships in the world’s history.
The ship and its wreckage have resulted in movies, documentaries, books, photographs, museums, and more, but still, some experts say there is much to be discovered.
Among the secrets that still puzzle historians is not only the lack of lifeboats for everyone on board but why almost 400 hundred seats went unfilled on them.
In total, the lifeboats could have held 1,178 persons, but of the estimated 2,200 people on board, only 705 passengers survived the ship’s sinking.
“No matter what caused the Titanic to sink, such a massive loss of life could probably have been avoided if the ship had carried sufficient lifeboats for its passengers and crew,” History.com reports.
Some still question how the iceberg that the ship struck managed to sink it, as ice wasn’t considered fully fatal at the time. In fact, the German ship, the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm, was known to have hit an iceberg during its voyage but was still able to complete its journey without sinking.
After the Titanic made contact with an iceberg, it continued ahead at full speed, following the procedure of the time, as ice was seen as little peril to vessels as big as the Titanic, The Sunday Post reported.
However, as the story goes, the iceberg caused too much damage, with a series of holes being made below the waterline, dooming the ship. Why?
While it may have been the largest ship afloat at the time of its construction, the Titanic is quite smaller than today’s average cruise ship.
Coming in at 883 feet, the Titanic pales in comparison to the 1,000-foot-plus cruise liners that sail the world’s waters today.
Over the years, some answers have been found in what explorers have been able to recover from the wreckage. Museums across the globe dedicated to the ship boast statues from the grand staircase, luggage from passengers, and even pieces of the ship’s hull that broke off as it sank.
The largest piece of wreckage ever recovered was a 15-ton section of the hull that measures 26 feet by 12 feet and is on display at the Luxor Hotel’s Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition in Las Vegas.
All in all, the ship, which was seen as an advancement in naval power at the time, only made it 2,555 nautical miles before it came to its bitter end.