Extra Titanic

April 14, 1912, a day of infamy! Just before midnight, the cold waters of the North Atlantic were parted by the magnificent new luxury liner SS Titanic. Suddenly, a scraping sound, a jarring sensation, and the mighty liner began to sink. Within hours it had plummeted into the depths of the ocean with a loss of 1,595 of her 2,340 passengers. In this graphic and thrilling collection of vintage newspaper pages--the true story of the Titanic's demise and the tales of her survivors are told with the immediacy that only the newspapers of the time were able to capture. Not only was this the maiden voyage of a great ship, it was the social event of the decade. The cream of society of two continents was aboard. They perished along with sailors, women, children, and impoverished steerage passengers. Full speed ahead had wrought death and devastation. With this one horrible event, man's faith in his ability to harness technology to beat the elements of nature came crumbling down. No longer would captains plow through the night at full-speed in iceberg-filled waters. No longer would we believe we could conquer the unconquerable. Here you will find the heart-rending personal stories of the survivors, as well as accounts of the launch of the Titanic, the problems of early wireless telegraphy, the terror of icebergs, and the vanity and arrogance of the owners and captain that led to the greatest seafaring disaster of all time.

Eric C. Caren and Stephen A. Goldman (both consultants to the recently-opened Newseum in Arlington, Virginia), provided the original newspapers for this book from their collections, which are considered to be the most extensive in private hands. They recently formed OldNews, Inc., a company with archives of hundreds of thousands of old newspapers, peiodicals and pamphlets dating back to the 1500s. They sell originals to collectors, and lease images of originals to publishers, production companies and multimedia producers. For more information, interested parties can explore their website at historicalnews.com