The Titanic: Who Survived And What Happened To Them

"Then it is I drown again, with all those dim lost faces I never understood… Include me in your lamentations.”
The aftermath of the Titanic’s sinking saw different reactions erupt across the Atlantic, and the responses of both mourners and onlookers were visceral. Guilt-ridden survivors were both ostracised and lauded. Heroes became legends - the unsinkable Molly Brown and the band that played on till the frozen end - while villains were condemned forever more. Reputations were splintered and characters blackened as the investigation went on. None more so than J. Bruce Ismay, the head of White Star, whose survival was viewed as a weakness of character. But the key question needed answering: was anyone really to blame, and if yes, who?
Join Dominic and Tom, as they discuss the terrible aftershocks of the sinking of the Titanic, as they unpick truth from legend, and analyse James Cameron’s 1995 film, which famously immortalised this extraordinary story.
Watch all the Titanic Episodes here: • The Titanic
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Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor

[@MarekSkoczylas-vq8nx]

What a wonderful series of two historic intellectuals putting life into meaningful perspective - you guys have put history on another level

[@mlguy8376]

My absolute favourite podcast! I was always a mathematician and the humanities took a back seat, but as I approach the 40th year I start enjoying history more and more, especially presented with such humour.

[@viennasix9]

Surprised at the low number of likes this has got. Love this podcast, always provokes deep conversations with my other half.

[@ttt2080]

Bruce Ismay lived in Costelloe Lodge, near Casla in Connemara, County Galway. My Great-Grandad built a couple of fishing boats for him in the 1920s.

[@mathewevans89]

Never realized I could watch this podcast, I'm addicted to it on prime , has become my go to podcast

[@decimustv4257]

Can you explain to me why? I just finished school and I have VOWED never to learn anything ever again!!!!! Why would anyone voluntarily learn stuff when you can watch movies, have fun, eat crisps and chocolates all day every day for ever

[@wiseguy8828]

What’s prime?

[@decimustv4257]

@@wiseguy8828 I believe Amazon Prime perhaps?

[@tnw31]

So the titanic went down a few weeks after Scott perished in the Antarctic ,ice and cold had a lot to answer for in 1012. You two play off each other so well it makes these podcasts doubly entertaining.

[@bedofromkokstad9034]

Interesting sidebar: The concept of "women and children first" started with the sinking of the Birkenhead off the coast at Gansbaai near Cape Town/Cape of Good Hope in 1852.

[@jonahtwhale1779]

It was women first on the Titanic. There are many accounts of Men standing aside to allow women and children to board before them. There are ZERO accounts of women standing aside to allow more unrelated chikdren to be saved instead of her.

[@Jedwbpm]

I can’t believe that there is no mention on your part of the loss of the Heir to the Earldom of Grantham

[@ted356]

Yes, that was an unforgivable omission . 😊

[@elizabethavalon5299]

I really love Tom reading out the ridiculous dialogue from the Titanic movie.

[@jacquelinedegeus3178]

This was really wonderful, thank you!

[@AndrewDederer]

You left out the other contemporary "heroic failure" the Scott Expedition had died less than a month before, it would be 6 more months till the bodies were found and a bit longer for the news to get out.

[@kailsar]

I once arrived in Belfast with a couple of Norwegians to work on an oil rig at Harland and Wolff. We got a taxi to the shipyard, and the taxi driver was talking about the Titanic. He was talking about sectarianism at Harland and Wolff, and how Catholics like his forefathers found it very difficult to find employment there. One of the Norwegians said 'how awful!', and the taxi driver retorted 'oh we didn't mind, we were busy building the iceberg!'

[@jonahtwhale1779]

Why didn't the Catholics work in the businesses that the Catholics started? Like the Protestants had to! I mean the businesses that did not exist uni!l the Protestants started them. Whereas the Catholics were not so entrepreneurial! See the difference? Same with femunists today. They want to share what men have built but will not build themselves! Can you name an industry created by women? There is far more than discrimination to both stories.

[@d.c.8828]

A TITANIC podcast indeed! Marvelous series, gentleman! Hoo-rah!

[@gilmour73]

I live in Halifax Nova Scotia. The bodies of the dead were brought here, and many are buried here. Some of the filming of Titanic happened here, and one of the best legends of the city is the time someone spiked the clam chowder at the wrap party with PCP, landing many people in hospital.

[@hilaryc8648]

What happened to the iceberg?

[@SeanRCope]

Went on its way to finally melt away somewhere south. Was photographed the next day.

[@d.c.8828]

Got hooked on heroin. Went through a phase of different musical projects but it never really went anywhere. Eventually hit rock bottom and faded away into the annals of history.

[@tulyar57]

Did what icebergs do; kept itself below the surface (keeping a low profile) so who knows.

[@Salien1999]

Reckon the Americans bombed it?

[@jl91iii]

There was no iceberg, it was a cgi berg with thermite explosives. Big shipping are responsible.

[@jeffreyhill4705]

It seems that that rate the ship sank would prohibit the launching of many more lifeboats. The crew and passengers would need to drill to improve their loading time.

[@nathandykes7639]

Loved this series! Have you considered doing an episode on the Laconia incident? A fascinatingly sad story

[@tulyar57]

My favourite quote from Cameron's 'Titanic' is when Roy Scheider says, on seeing the iceberg, "You're gonna need a bigger boat!".....or have I got the right movie?

[@GeldardtheGrey]

Wrong movie, pal. This one is where Quint calls Thomas Andrews a half-assed astronaut!

[@jonahtwhale1779]

No you are thinking of Bruce Almighty. When they saw the SJWs demanding representation for all of their victim groups on the ark - two each of all the genders - especially the non-binary ones!

[@ezzler]

A really excellent series. So much detail and so much compassion. It’s an amazing listen.

[@jacquipettitt3389]

Absolutely brilliant podcast, and a great telling of this remarkable story.

[@neilgadsby3924]

Really great series. Thank you.

[@p0sn]

Never clicked on a video so quickly!

[@bruceanderson4120]

A small point that I may have missed as I only watched the last two chats is that of the Blue Riband. While not officially a trophy it was essentially bragging rights for the ocean liner with the fastest crossing time in a given year. Where this comes to play is the fierce competition for passengers which in turn drove bigger, faster, more luxurious etc...I believe that there is a scene in Cameron's Titanic where concerns about the engines not being properly broken in, traveling through an area known for icebergs were reason enough for not going at flank speed. It was downplayed by Ismay (Bad Bruce!) saying in effect that wouldn't it be grand for Titanic to win the speed record on her maiden voyage. Of course the movie reference is only a nod towards historical fact. In all likelihood the industry competition was quietly ignored by was provable negligence none the less. Totally enjoy your videos gentleman, not to mention your getting on with each other. Thanks much!

[@rameyzamora1018]

Say what you will about "Titanic," I saw it in a theater & now I know close to how it would feel to be in a disaster like that ... Same thing happened when the heat went off at a winter screening of "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" many years ago. Movies that can do this are remarkable & I think valuable.

[@MultiProudMother]

I saw Titanic in the theater during a weekday matinee. Except for my husband and I, the whole audience was elderly. As the small crowd left the theater for the parking lot there was the heaviest silence.

[@glossie6338]

Superb series

[@drgeorgek]

Brilliant stuff!

[@debse.7286]

I think what caused the disaster was the belief by the captains and sailors that sea travel was by nature dangerous. They could not conceive it was possible to make it safe. A sailor's natural attitude was to accept and ignore dangers. Probably, any talk of avoiding usual dangers would be seen as cowardice. So there were the tools available to avoid dangers - extra lifeboats, reducing speed in icefields, new communications. But the old guards' attitude was to ignore dangers they considered normal, so they could not innovate.

[@barbararice6650]

My Albert Dennison gold hunter pocket watch was built the same year as the Titanic (1911), and its little brave heart is still ticking giving me the correct time 😕 A sorry episode the sinking of that great ocean liner, worth remembering ✌️😐

[@mirrage42]

When I was a child in the ‘60s my Dad was hired to do the interior restoration construction of Molly Brown’s Denver home. He took us to see it. That’s when I first heard about the Titanic. The house is on the National Historic Register.

[@marblackCanada]

I live in the Maritimes, N.B. Canada our neighbour province is Nova Scotia 209 bodies are brought to Halifax ,59 bodies are claimed by families, the remaining 150 are buried in 3 cemeteries in the city. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic web site has more information on these people.

[@howwwwwyyyyy]

I liked the "supernatural" version of the titanic where an angel stops it happening because he hates the title song from the film causing the butterfly effect

[@fastpublish]

The British report is said to be the template for Peter Cook's epic sketch satirizing the Thorpe murder trial

[@heatherrobertson6110]

Wonderful. Thank you.

[@fd6661]

The floors were all Lino but a firm claimed to have made the carpet in the 1st class dining saloon and so they got an order to make them for the film. Chancers 😂

[@Ozgipsy]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the movie. It was an impressive scale and a great story with great actors.

[@jonahtwhale1779]

A gynocentric horror movie! He should have let her jump!

[@MaShcode]

A little surprised you didn’t site Hardy’s poem Convergence of the Twain or the curse the disaster heaped on the Boston Red Sox. They would never win another championship for 100 years.

[@tarquinbullocks1703]

Dominic's wedding band moves from his ring finger to his thumb (43:45) and back. Now I can't stop watching for it. 😟

[@longandshort6639]

How long after the Titanic sank before the Carpathia arrived?

[@MSuyay]

Great podcast. The only thing I have to say is that you guys use the word hubris way too much.

[@darlebalfoort8705]

When Titanic came out, I saw the film with an Irish- American man who was fascinated by the story of the Irish immigrants on the ship, and the construction of the ship, not the romance.

[@georgerichwine1864]

Did you see the warning from KZbin?

[@phenom568]

I'm not sure where you guys are getting the "3 inches longer" from. Everything I've seen says the three sister ships had the same dimensions but the Titanic weighed more.

[@fargosnow994]

Captain Smith was s coward. He abandoned his crew and the passengers, preferring to dodge any blame for the sinking, when his crew and the passengers could have used his leadership, during this disaster. Yes, he would have been vilified, but that is something a good leader can handle to do their duty.

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

I would of carked it. Male and working class. Well done series fellas

[@jonahtwhale1779]

No, you would have been sacrificed. So your 'betters' - the women & wealthy - could be saved instead. Our society has not changed in these attitudes.

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

@@jonahtwhale1779 What cark means mate

[@jonahtwhale1779]

Cark means deceased, dearly departed, died, in a word ... dead. Otherwise, he has shuffled off this mortal coil, is no longer with us, an ex-passenger, has punched his ticket, kicked the bucket, gone to a better place or has passed away.

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

@@jonahtwhale1779 Yeah matey

[@louiseoliver3453]

I've enjoyed this series but feel disappointed that a) no mention was made of why Dominic is a White Star man (because his name ends with '-ic') and b) that they didn't mention the Nazi Titanic film as one of the stranger itirations of the Titanic legend.

[@agnesrobakiewicz5639]

So, we're not going to mention the fact that "women and children first" was far from the norm in ship disasters? In fact, it's quite unprecedented- hence the confusion about how to follow the order?

[@MrJeremyWeeks]

Love you guys! Funny and insightful. But I will repeat, “No Taxation, without Representation”. I can’t join TRIH Club unless I get my moneys worth and you come to Toronto sometime!🙏

[@jonahtwhale1779]

What happened to the female survivors who prioritised their own survival over that of 50% of the children on board? Men who survived were publically shamed because a few women and many children had not be able to find places in the life boats. For example 3 men were divorced by their wives with his survival cited as part of the reason. Were the women survivors held to the same standard or did their female privikege protect them?

[@SeanRCope]

To my mind all Ismay had to do was get wet. Lightoller did it, he was a smart guy. He could have worked it out to quickly jump in the water near a life boat. He was around them all night. So he didn’t want to get wet and that to me is cowardly considering…

[@rantonz]

How you restrained yourself from ending an episode with “Be British boys!” I will never know.

[@zackdeniro4003]

I love this.. Great work fellas thanks for entertaining the ghastly crowd.. 😂

[@d.c.8828]

Here for Dominic's nihilistic interpretation... ...but it doesn't matter. ;-)

[@bilinguru]

Never has a man been so wrong about an histroical figure. Dominic, I love you, but Captain Smith, despite being a Central Casting Captain, did just about everything wrong. The Titanic was a Golden Parachute assignment to cap off a great career. Yet, he was past his prime and his inadequacy ended up killing hundreds of people who might otherwise have survived. Indeed, another Captain may have saved the ship herself.

[@JPKnapp-ro6xm]

Smith never actually gave the order to abandon ship. Once his junior officers told him the ship would sink, he left the bridge and wandered around essentially doing nothing.

[@Jeff-dv9jl]

Is it true that Churchill was seen to cry on a sufficient number of occasions to cause him to be known for the tendency? Even if true, 1912 was far too early for Churchill to have given cover to the admirably empathic among us - we the unashamed crybabies.

[@unbabunga229]

One thing about Churchill’s comment, ‘race’ meant something different back then, it just meant ‘the people of land/country’ regardless of colour etc. Also, is he not right? Men willing to die to let women and children survive? I wouldn’t want to live in a society that thought differently

[@humblescribe8522]

No, he meant race. It's just that they divided Caucasians into sub types; Anglo Saxon, Mediterranean, Teutonic, Nordic etc. And also saw Irish as "a breed apart". The early 20th century was the height of "scientific racism." 15:55

[@unbabunga229]

@@humblescribe8522 ah you’re an unintellectual. You’d know Churchill was against the (largely left wing) scientific racism and eugenics, if you had ever read anything about the subject

[@jonahtwhale1779]

You reiterated his point - the word race had a different meaning then to that understood today. If you substitute the word 'culture' into Churchill's comments you would get a closer match to his intended meaning. Different societies have different cultures- some are better than others eg most are far more racist than US culture today or FGM is common in some but not others.

[@humblescribe8522]

@@jonahtwhale1779 No, he argued that in 1912, 'race' just meant nationality, and had no connotation of skin tone. That is 180 degrees away from the truth. The fact that they also found minor discrepancies between 'white' 'races' worthy of note does not reiterate his point at all. Sadly, Churchill would not have regarded black Britons as being part of the 'British race', and even more sadly, that attitude has yet to completely leave us in the 21st century.

[@jonahtwhale1779]

The titanic movie is a gynocentric, horror movie. Men sacrificed at every turn for women's feelings! For example the gem stone... she was flown out to the exploration ship and informed explicitly what they were looking for. Does she hand the gem, which she stole, over to them or dump it in the ocean?

[@billbissenas2973]

There was plenty of room on that door… just sayin’

[@georgerichwine1864]

Wow

[@robertalpy]

Unless you are a Gugenheim or an Astor, what sort of life would a woman or child have with their breadwinner being picked at by lobsters at the bottom of the sea.

[@fargosnow994]

So cute to listen to men who are not mariners talk about ships 😅

[@remycallie]

What is the basis for all the congratulations surrounding "women and children first"? A higher percentage of first class men survived than did third class women.

[@waynedoucette1492]

Who built the British war ships at that time? Did Belfast do some?

[@ted356]

The Titanic tragedy is an example of a Black Swan event..

[@d.c.8828]

Is it tho ? 🤔

[@ValenDumail-nr9ws]

Le plus choquant que j'arrive pas à rentrer dans ma dans ma tête parce que je suis intelligente j'avais pas compris dans mon et des j'avais pas assez de parce que déjà quand tu vois l'argent quand tu vois le bateau qui fait et moi je trouve ça bizarre j'ai commencé j'ai dit c'est des cerveaux évoluer bizarre il sentait quelque chose je sais pas ils avaient un doute il était il y avait un pressentiment parce que vraiment déjà là vraiment j'ai dit que c'était un miracle qui est déjà enfin ça servait à rien ils ont ils ont ils sont morts papier prix des survivants pas beaucoup

[@jamyangnorbu7895]

It melted, eventually. Good riddance.

[@stuartcalow737]

Walt Disney,? Karl Marx?!

[@SeanRCope]

It was owned by an American. IMM, no?

[@stuartcalow737]

(2 nd greatest anti semite)

[@wevy3567]

Woke bishop

[@HarmlessTed]

When do you get back to the good stuff? Cathage and Rome etc...?

[@colinwhaley244]

Laugh at stoicism, shame on you.

[@Psmith-ek5hq]

You should be stoical about it. Shame on you.

[@catholicbeth2371]

Laughter is how we Brits preserve our stoic upper lips...

[@schmeed0000]

cant wait for the series on history's 2nd most famous antisemite

[@d.c.8828]

Henry Ford? 🤔

[@spankflaps1365]

Obviously the loss of life is most important, but also the loss of a big ship which would have been a troop/hospital ship in WWI, like Olympic and Britannic. Sadly Olympic was scrapped in the 30s because Cunard wanted to cull White Star’s popular ships. Again Olympic would have been a troop ship in WWII, and this could have led to it being preserved like the Cunard Queens.

[@davidwright7193]

No. Olympic was worn out by 1936. She was 25 years old with outdated fuel guzzling engines and a clapped out passenger fit out. Cunard had two big new ships coming into service in the Queens to run their express service to New York and a group of more modern 30,000 ton ships on the Liverpool-Boston, Liverpool-Halifax runs. They also scraped the Mauritiania, Beringeria, Majestic etc. All the big ships of the pre WWI building spree were scrapped then. The only one that survives is Aquitania and she is scheduled for the breakers when the Queen Elizabeth is in service before WWII intervenes. White Star had already designed and were laying down Majestic, a diesel in the size class of the Queens, to replace Olympic before the takeover by Cunard. The steel for that ship is used for a pair of smaller ships by Cunard that are the last White Star branded ships, Britannic and Georgic. Some of those smaller second line ships on the secondary emigrant runs.