Titanic Timeline

Use this timeline to explore the key events leading up to and following the Titanic’s crash into an iceberg. At 23:40 (ship’s time) the largest ocean liner of its day, the Titanic, strikes an iceberg and sinks. The musicians of the Titanic play their last songs on deck 13. The bow disappears beneath the water and the stern follows soon afterwards.

1. Passengers Board The Ship

In the early morning, passengers assemble on titanic timeline decks and begin to board. First-class ticket holders are ferried from the third-class train at Cherbourg to Titanic, while second-and-third-class passengers are taken aboard by tenders. Titanic’s passenger list exceeds 2,000. Her ship’s carpenter, Thomas Andrews, begins a thorough inspection of the vessel.

Before noon, Titanic is towed by tugs into the fitting-out basin. Outfitting begins, and a crew muster and lifeboat drill is held. Captain Maurice Clarke supervises the drill, which takes place throughout the ship. Sixteen wooden lifeboats are lowered, inspected, and hoisted back up into position under Welin davits designed to handle only two or three boats at a time. Outdated British Board of Trade regulations meant that Titanic actually carried more lifeboats than required.

At about 12:05 a.m., the Titanic’s lookouts spot an iceberg. A warning is sent to the bridge, but Sixth Officer Moody ignores it and turns the ship “hard starboard”. The iceberg hits the Titanic’s bow and scrapes its sides.

The damage is extensive and the ship’s watertight compartments are breached. Six are flooded and cannot be closed. The captain’s room is flooded as well. First-class passengers escape to their staterooms, but hundreds of steerage passengers are left stranded on the ship.

Bits of ice fall onto the ship’s deck and passengers play soccer with them, unaware of the seriousness of the situation. After the impact, the lights on Titanic’s bow go out. Then the front of the ship disappears beneath the surface, followed soon after by the back.

Other ships hear the distress signal and prepare to come to her aid. But the speed of rescue is insufficient to save all those on board. Only a few hundred are saved, and many others die as they struggle to reach the lifeboats or cling to flotsam. The disaster inspires global fascination and spawns several myths about the Titanic. James Cameron’s 1997 motion picture reigniteses interest in the ship and the events that unfolded on her fateful voyage. It remains the highest-grossing film of all time.

2. Lifeboats Are Launched

In the minutes following the collision with the iceberg, the Titanic crew begins to prepare for a lifeboat drill and an emergency muster. The iceberg has not yet affected the ship’s course or speed, but passengers notice that the water seems rougher than usual. Captain Smith remains in his room. Mesaba sends a second warning of field ice to the Titanic and all other east-bound ships, but this is not passed up to the bridge. Quartermaster Hichens oversees the launching of the lifeboats.

The first boats to be lowered are women and children from the first class cabins, followed by the third-class passengers. Men are sent in later. The boat’s capacity was sufficient for 14,000 people, but only about half the women and children make it off the ship in time.

Titanic’s 20 wooden lifeboats were installed on davits, eight on each side of the ship and four collapsibles with wooden bottoms and canvas sides. The latter, which were stored upside down with the sides folded in, would need to be erected and moved to the davits for lowering. The davits were designed to handle only two or three boats at a time, and the Titanic was at full capacity.

About a hour after the last boat is launched, the water reaches the Titanic’s name on her bow and she develops a heavy list to starboard. The list progressively gets steeper over the next hour and the water level rises only about ten feet below the Promenade Deck.

Amid the confusion of a tumultuous night, some passengers attempt to return to their cabins. Others are trapped in the smoking room of a first-class cabin, which is the only exit. Father Thomas Byles hears confession and gives absolution to more than 100 second- and third-class passengers gathered in the aft part of the Boat Deck. The forward funnel collapses, crushing a number of the passengers and forcing many to jump overboard. The band stops playing.

3. The Ship Sinks

The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City in the North Atlantic Ocean. More than 1,500 people were killed, making it the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. The sinking of the Titanic was a shock to the world and prompted calls for better shipping regulations.

The iceberg hits the ship at around 23:40 ship’s time on Sunday, 14 April 1912. The collision causes the stern section of the ship to shift sharply to port. A large gap opens in the hull, which allows water to pour in and push the ship over a bow and into the sea.

Within an hour the ship had sunk, taking with it more than a thousand passengers and crew. The last lifeboat was lowered at about 12:05 a.m., and the first group of survivors left the ship. Women and children were given priority places in the boats. Men were put into the boats later, but only when they were completely full.

After a few minutes, the lights in the lifeboats start to flicker and then go out. At the same time, the iceberg’s head reaches the bottom of the ocean and the back of the ship follows two minutes later.

Many of the survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia, which reached the site of the Titanic’s sinking at around 2:20 a.m. The Carpathia rescued 710 of the 1,516 survivors, but many who jumped or fell into the sea died soon afterwards from cold shock or drowning.

The Titanic was the largest passenger ship in the world at that time and was marketed as luxurious and unbreakable. She was built at Harland & Wolff in Belfast and cost more than $80 million. The tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic shocked the world and sparked outrage at the lack of sufficient lifeboats, lax shipping regulations and unequal treatment of third-class passengers.

Over a hundred years later, the Titanic remains one of the most famous ships in history. It has inspired numerous books, movies and plays. The ship’s remains are still being explored and preserved, and the story of its tragic end continues to fascinate historians and fans alike.

4. The Ship Is found

The Titanic’s sinking became a subject of international interest, inspiring poems, books, documentaries and movies. In 1985, a team of oceanographers found the ship’s remains, and it has since become one of the most photographed wrecks in history. Recently, high-resolution photos of the Titanic have been released, reigniting interest in the ill-fated voyage.

The collision with the iceberg causes water to rush into the engine room and a large portion of the ship begins to break away from the rest of the Titanic. The front half reaches the bottom of the Atlantic in less than two minutes, and the back half follows it shortly thereafter.

As the Titanic sinks, several nearby ships attempt to contact it by wireless. The SS Birma’s operator reports no reply and fears the situation is serious. Captain Smith orders a carpenter and Thomas Andrews to sound the ship. The pair discover that the Orlop deck is flooded forward of the fourth watertight bulkhead.

Lifeboats are readied for launch. Smith orders that women and children should board first, with crewmen to row and guide the boats. He also instructs Phillips and Harold Bride to send out a distress signal. Although SOS had become the official call sign for maritime distress several years earlier, many ships still used CQD.

At 2:10 AM, the water is up to the bow and the stern’s deck is noticeably tilting upward. The port-side boat No. 7 is lowered with 44 passengers. To avoid a crowd, Lightoller waves (and possibly fires) his pistol in the air to disperse the passengers into groups of six. John Jacob Astor is refused entry to this boat by Lightoller, but he sees his wife off safely.

As the Titanic sinks, her stern plunges toward the sea floor and she breaks in two. Her bow, which was hit first by the iceberg, rises above the water for a few moments. Then, the entire hull sinks into the ocean. The iceberg that struck the ship would drift for months before being adrift in southwest Greenland. It will eventually wash ashore in Newfoundland.