Olympic-class ocean liner
When "Titanic" sank in 1912 and "Britannic" sank in 1916, their sinkings did not receive the same attention, due to the death toll (1,517 on "Titanic" and 30 on "Britannic"). Because the exact position of the sinking of the "Britannic" is known and the location is shallow, the wreck was discovered relatively easily in 1975. "Titanic", however, drew everyone's attention in 1912. After several attempts, the wreck was finally located by Jean-Louis Michel of Ifremer and Robert Ballard following a top secret mission for the US Navy to investigate the wreckage of two nuclear submarines, USS Thresher (SSN-593) and the USS Scorpion (SSN-589), that sank in the North Atlantic in the 1960s. The discovery of the wreck occurred on 1 September 1985, at 25 kilometres from the position given of the sinking. The wreck lies about 4,000 metres deep, broken in two. The bow is relatively well preserved, but the stern partially imploded, and to a large extent disintegrated during the descent and impact on the seabed.
RMS Titanic in popular culture
Although not strictly about "Titanic", a number of other drama films were produced around this time that may have been inspired by the disaster. In October 1912 the Danish film company Nordisk released "Et Drama på Havet" ("A Drama at Sea") in which a ship at sea catches fire and sinks, while passengers fight to board lifeboats. It was released in the United States as "The Great Ocean Disaster" or "Peril of Fire". The same company produced a follow-up film in December 1913, which was also released in the US. Titled "Atlantis", it was based on a novel of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann and culminated with a depiction of a sinking liner. It was the longest and most ambitious Danish film to date, taking up eight reels and costing a then-huge sum of $60,000. It was filmed aboard a real liner, the SS "C.F. Tietgen", chartered especially for the filming with 500 people aboard. The sinking scene was filmed in the North Sea. The "Tietgen" sank for real five years later when she was torpedoed by a German U-boat. A British film company planned to go one better by building and sinking a replica liner, and in 1914 the real-life scuppering of a large vessel took place for the Vitagraph picture "Lost in Mid-Ocean".