RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, which made the sinking one of the deadliest for a single ship up to that time. It remains the deadliest peacetime sinking of a superliner or cruise ship. The disaster drew public attention, provided foundational material for the disaster film genre, and has inspired many artistic works.
RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward Smith, who went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia, and elsewhere throughout Europe, who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada.
The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabins. A high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use. The Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, contributing to its reputation as "unsinkable".
Titanic was equipped with 16 lifeboat davits, each capable of lowering three lifeboats, for a total of 48 boats; she carried only 20 lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved hard to launch while she was sinking. Together, the 20 lifeboats could hold 1,178 peopleabout half the number of passengers on board, and one third of the number of passengers the ship could have carried at full capacity (consistent with the maritime safety regulations of the era). When the ship sank, many of the lifeboats that had been lowered were only about half full.
Premier Exhibitions Inc Nasdaq: PRXI is an Atlanta, Georgia-based company that organizes travelling exhibitions. As of January 2019, the company owned 5,500 Titanic relics with approximately 1,300 on display in various countries.Its two most prominent exhibits are artifacts from the RMS Titanic (for which it is the sole legal guardian of the artifacts) and BODIES... The Exhibition in which it displays cadavers arranged in lifelike poses via plastination from the Dalian Medical University (through its Dalian Medical University Plastination Company subsidiary) in China. It has multiple exhibits of both Bodies and Titanic running at the same time in different venues. In 2008, it entered into a 10-year lease for more than 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) at the Luxor Las Vegas for exhibits of Titanic and Bodies there. By 2013, more than 25 million people had visited the company's Titanic exhibits in Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.In May 2015 the company opened Premier on 5th, a flagship exhibition space on Fifth Avenue in New York City that housed "Saturday Night Live: The Exhibition" and "The Discovery of King Tut." On June 14, 2016, Premier Exhibitions filed for Chapter 11.In late August 2018, at least three groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500 Titanic relics that were an asset of the bankrupt company in the case titled RMS Titanic Inc., 16-02230, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida (Jacksonville). Two of the offers for the collection were just under US $20 million, including one by museums in England and Northern Ireland, with assistance by James Cameron. Oceanographer Robert Ballard told the news media that he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast and in Greenwich. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by Paul M. Glenn, a United States district court judge in Jacksonville, Florida.