“Iceberg right ahead!” Just after 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912, the R.M.S. Titanic is steaming across the North Atlantic Ocean when a lookout sees a dark shape in the ship’s path. The 882-foot-long passenger ship, the largest and most luxurious on the seas, is carrying 2,240 people on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, in the United Kingdom, to New York City. But the lookout’s warning is too late—the iceberg scrapes the ship. Within three hours, the Titanic sinks and more than 1,500 lives are lost.
Scientists discovered the Titanic’s wreck on the ocean floor over 70 years later, in 1985, and they’ve studied it carefully ever since to try to understand the ship’s final hours. Since the Titanic broke apart as it sank, experts haven’t been able…
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National Geographic Kids (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025