Perhaps the best-known maritime tragedy of all time, the RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in the third deadliest non-military maritime disaster in history.

On April 14, 1912, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm. The collision opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly filled. Just before 2:20 am, the Titanic broke up and sank bow-first with over a thousand people still on board. Those in the water died within minutes from hypothermia caused by immersion in the freezing ocean. The 710 survivors were taken aboard from the lifeboats by the RMS Carpathia a few hours later.