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".
Sinking of the RMS Titanic
Neither inquiry found negligence by the International Mercantile Marine Co. (the parent company) or the White Star Line (which owned "Titanic") to be a factor. The US inquiry concluded that those involved had followed standard practice, and the disaster could thus only be categorised as an "act of God", and the British inquiry concluded that Smith had followed long-standing practice which had not previously been shown to be unsafe (the inquiry noted that British ships alone had carried 3.5 million passengers over the previous decade with the loss of just 73 lives) and concluded that he had done "only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position". The British inquiry also warned that "What was a mistake in the case of the "Titanic" would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future."