Legends and myths regarding RMS Titanic
At the time the "Titanic" sank, the 1 May 1912 issue of "The Popular Magazine", an American pulp magazine, was on the news stands. It contained the short story "The White Ghost of Disaster," which described the collision of an ocean liner with an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean, the sinking of the vessel, and the fate of the passengers. The story, by Mayn Clew Garnett (the pseudonym of sea-story author T. Jenkins Hains), created a minor sensation. In 1898, fourteen years prior to the "Titanic" disaster,
Morgan Robertson wrote a book called "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan". This story features an enormous British passenger liner called the "Titan", which, deemed to be unsinkable, carries insufficient lifeboats. On a voyage in the month of April, the "Titan" hits an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic with the loss of almost everyone on board. There are some similarities between the fictional sinking of the "Titan" and the real-life sinking of the RMS "Titanic".
Carr Van Anda
He was instrumental in getting a scoop for "The Times" on the story of the "Titanic"'s sinking in 1912. His most notable stories include the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and the 1911 State Capitol fire in Albany, New York which he covered with a phone call and some journalistic invention. While other newspapers were printing the White Star Line's ambiguous story about the "Titanic" having trouble after hitting an iceberg, Van Anda (who had received a bulletin reporting a CQD (now SOS) call from the Titanic) figured that a lack of communication from the ship meant that the worst had happened and printed a headline stating that the "Titanic" had sunk. As his career progressed, it was said of him that "he is the most illustrious unknown man in America." According to a "New Yorker" profile piece, V.A. (as he was called) practiced "a fierce anonymity while bestowing fleeting fame on some and withholding it from others."