All About Titanic Facts: What Happened to the Iceberg?

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Join us on a captivating journey into the heart of one of history's most iconic events: the Titanic disaster. Delve into the chilling details surrounding the infamous iceberg and uncover the truth behind its role in the tragedy. From shocking revelations to lesser-known facts, prepare to be gripped by the untold story of the iceberg's fateful encounter with the Titanic. Get ready to explore the depths of history like never before!  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00 It was the very beginning of the year 1912. A giant chunk of ice broke off a glacier in

00:07 southwest Greenland. The ice was made up of the snow that had fallen about 100,000 years

00:13 before the event. That was the time when mammoths were still roaming the planet.

00:19 The iceberg started its journey. It was a huge thing. More than 1,700 feet long, it

00:25 weighed around 75 million tons. It was also a very peaceful chunk of ice. It steered clear

00:31 of ships and busy transport routes, not that there were many in the place where the iceberg

00:36 was born. And then, it somehow floated much further to the south than other bergs did.

00:43 Our iceberg was lucky. Others melt long before they get to these latitudes. Out of 15,000

00:49 to 30,000 icebergs that drift away from Greenland's glaciers, only 1% ever makes it all the way

00:56 to the Atlantic. That's why it's so amazing that in April, our iceberg the Traveler was

01:03 already more than 5,000 miles away from the Arctic Circle.

01:07 Even after melting into the water for months, this block of ice still weighed an impressive

01:12 1.5 million tons. It's almost twice as much as the Golden Gate Bridge. The iceberg's

01:19 top part was towering over the surface of the ocean for more than 100 feet. And still,

01:25 if you noticed it floating next to your ocean liner, it would've looked harmless, but

01:29 only at first glance. Like only a tiny part of a jumbo piece of ice. The largest part

01:36 of any iceberg is always hidden under the surface. A mere one-tenth is normally visible

01:42 above the water, and the berg we're talking about wasn't an exception.

01:47 Several days before our iceberg made it to the Atlantic Ocean, a magnificent ship left

01:52 port. It was a luxurious steamship carrying more than 3,000 passengers and crew members.

02:00 At that time, it was the largest ship ever built. The liner was called the Titanic. It

02:06 was considered unsinkable. At the very beginning of its journey, it nearly collided with the

02:12 steamship New York. Luckily, the Titanic managed to pass by the other vessel with a couple

02:17 of feet to spare. The people crowding the liner's decks let out a collective sigh of

02:23 relief. Little did they know what was awaiting them in the nearest future.

02:29 Meanwhile, the iceberg was approaching the area the Titanic was going to cross on its

02:34 way to New York. It happened on April 14, when the ship was in the North Atlantic Ocean,

02:41 370 miles away from Newfoundland. At about 11.40 pm, people who were still awake on board

02:48 the Titanic toppled down, pushed over by some mysterious and powerful force. Those who had

02:54 already gone to bed got catapulted to the floor. Both the passengers and crew members

03:00 were screaming, panicky, and confused. Just minutes before the commotion started,

03:06 an iceberg had appeared right in front of the ship. It was our wandering iceberg. Why

03:12 hadn't the crew noticed it earlier? There might've been several reasons. I'll tell

03:16 you about them a bit later. Anyway, once the liner collided with a huge

03:21 chunk of ice, it was doomed. Unable to divert its course, the ship ruptured at least 5 of

03:28 its hull compartments. They started to fill with water with alarming speed. The Titanic's

03:33 compartments weren't capped at the top. That's why the water spilled over and started

03:38 to flood each succeeding one. The front of the ship began to sink, causing

03:43 the back part to lift vertically into the air. And then, with a deafening roar, the

03:48 liner broke in half. The rest is history. But few people know what happened to the iceberg

03:55 after the ship had hit it. It gets us back to the question of why no one had spotted

04:01 the floating ice mountain until it was too late. Let's track the events of that fateful

04:06 day. At around 6 PM, Captain Smith finally decides

04:11 to change the Titanic's course. He's been receiving iceberg warnings throughout the

04:15 entire day. The ship starts to head further to the south. But the speed remains the same.

04:23 At 9.40 PM, another ship informs Titanic about a vast ice field packed with icebergs. Unfortunately,

04:30 this message never reaches the liner's bridge. At about 11 PM, yet another steamship radios

04:37 Titanic. They say the ice has surrounded them, making their ship stop. This message also

04:43 gets ignored. Meanwhile, most of the passengers on the

04:47 luxury liner have already retired to their rooms. At 11.35, the sailors in Titanic's

04:54 crow's nest notice the iceberg. They ring the bell three times, which means something's

05:00 ahead. Then, they call the bridge. The engines get reversed, and the doors to the supposedly

05:06 watertight compartments close. Just 5 minutes later, the huge liner's starboard

05:12 side collides with the iceberg. The mailroom begins to fill with water. Soon other reports

05:18 come. They don't sound encouraging. At least 5 other compartments are flooded. It becomes

05:23 clear Titanic has just a few hours before it sinks.

05:28 The night was exceptionally calm, with no moonlight, no wind, and no waves. And since

05:34 the waves weren't breaking against the iceberg, it was difficult to perceive the giant.

05:40 But there's also a theory that what sank Titanic was a black bird.

05:46 If you had to draw an iceberg, I bet it would be a white, towering chunk of ice covered

05:50 with snow. But those who have visited Antarctica know that icebergs come in millions of hues.

05:57 They can be multicolored, patterned, or stripe-like candies.

06:02 Icebergs can also be black. There are two ways such an unusually colored shard of ice

06:07 can form. First, the ice might be extremely pure, with no air bubbles or cracks whatsoever.

06:14 In this case, there's nothing to scatter the light. The iceberg will absorb it all

06:19 and look black. Or an erupting volcano can cover a glacier with volcanic ash. Then the

06:25 ice that breaks off this glacier will be dark-colored too.

06:30 Experts don't know the true reason why Titanic's iceberg looks so dark, or whether it was really

06:36 the case. But one of the sailors who was in the crow's nest testified the ice was black.

06:42 The other said it was either gray or dark gray.

06:46 There's nothing exciting or mysterious about the so-called black birds. They're icebergs

06:51 that roll over after their top part is melted, which changes the weight distribution. If

06:57 their lower part is smooth enough to absorb light, they look dark. Plus, they usually

07:02 aren't exposed to the air long enough for the white frost to build up.

07:07 But let's say this theory is wrong, and the iceberg wasn't actually black. And still,

07:13 the only reason why you see things is because light gets reflected from them. The less light

07:19 there is, the less likely you are to notice something.

07:23 The ocean surface will always reflect the Moon and starlight. But an irregularly shaped,

07:29 almost vertical iceberg will have fewer chances of doing so. That's why it'll look almost

07:34 black against the glimmering water surface. At night, icebergs can be rather difficult

07:40 to detect without a radar.

07:42 In any case, our iceberg wasn't noticed in time. Titanic crashed into it and sank. End

07:49 of story? Apparently not.

07:52 On April 15, the German ocean liner SS Prinz Albert was sailing through the North Atlantic.

07:59 She was traveling a few miles away from the place where Titanic had sunk several hours

08:04 before. The German ship's chief steward, who hadn't learned about the disaster yet,

08:09 saw an iceberg. What drew his attention was a fairly large streak of red paint going along

08:16 the iceberg's base. Surprised, the man took a photo of his discovery. He thought the paint

08:22 meant a ship hit the iceberg during the past 12 hours.

08:26 The next person who saw the infamous chunk of ice and took its photo was the captain

08:31 of the vessel used to lay deep-sea telecommunications cables. The ship was sent to help in the area

08:37 where Titanic had sunk. The captain later claimed the iceberg he had seen had been the

08:43 only one in that area. Plus, the red paint. It wasn't difficult to connect the dots.

08:49 In 2015, one of these photos was sold at auction for more than $32,000. And still, experts

08:57 are unsure whether the image really shows the infamous block of ice. It might be another

09:03 innocent iceberg that was floating nearby at that time.

09:10 It was 11.39 at night when the Titanic's lookout shouted, "Iceberg right ahead!"

09:16 Swift action on the bridge to reduce speed and change the ship's course didn't help.

09:21 And you already know how the story ends. Since then, we've regarded what happened to Titanic

09:27 as a once-in-a-lifetime event. Is it, though?

09:31 The Titanic sank in 1912. Forget about fancy GPSs or weather satellites. At the time, ships

09:38 were responsible for warning each other about the location of icebergs, like a "hey man,

09:43 trust me on this" situation. Then the Titanic disaster happened. To call it a disaster is

09:49 an understatement, so specialists felt the need to form an organization to avoid this

09:55 kind of accident happening again. That's why, a year later, they created the International

10:01 Ice Patrol, or IIP for short. Up to this day, this group has been responsible

10:09 for giving ships advanced warnings about ice threats. IIP improved their methods over the

10:14 years, from ship reports and aircraft patrols to satellite images. Recently, they've also

10:20 been using oceanographic buoys – floating devices providing real-time information about

10:25 ocean conditions up to 164 feet below the surface to predict the potential drift of

10:31 icebergs. Luckily, IIP is doing an excellent job in reducing ship iceberg collisions. But

10:38 don't get too comfortable, because even the most advanced detection equipment can't

10:43 entirely avoid an unfortunate situation. Between 1980 and 2005, there were 57 incidents involving

10:51 vessels and icebergs. And the chilling truth is that today's ships are more likely to

10:57 run into an iceberg than the Titanic was. Studies have shown that 1,038 icebergs crossed

11:06 the area where the Titanic sank back in 1912. You might think that's a lot, but scientists

11:12 say it's not really a big deal. I mean, yeah, it's on the higher side, but there

11:17 have been 14 years with even more iceberg activity since then. Nowadays, the number

11:22 of icebergs is going up due to the accelerated melting of Greenland's glaciers. And since

11:28 more ships are heading into polar waters, the chances of ships bumping into icebergs

11:33 are higher. But the real danger for captains is invisible enemies called growlers and burgey

11:39 bits. Growlers are these small icebergs that can

11:45 be the size of a regular door. And burgey bits are also considered small, measuring

11:50 around the size of a school bus. These icebergs might seem harmless, but they're actually

11:56 tricky since they can be completely invisible to radars or satellites. Let's see what

12:01 happens when a modern cruise ship as big as the Titanic hits one of these small icebergs.

12:07 Meet the Norwegian Sun, a luxurious cruise ship like Titanic as it has the capacity to

12:12 accommodate 2,400 passengers and more than 900 crew members. On July 2022, this cruise

12:20 ship was on its way to Hubbard Glacier in Alaska when it found itself in the middle

12:25 of a dense fog. Suddenly, passengers felt an impact and were terrified as the ship experienced

12:31 a severe jolt. The fog immediately cleared and they realized what had happened. The Norwegian

12:37 Sun had collided with an iceberg of the growler type. But the outcome was entirely different

12:43 from Titanic. Thankfully, there were no injuries, and both the passengers and staff reached

12:48 the Alaskan docks safely. Expert divers checked the condition of the boat, and they discovered

12:54 that the ship had suffered some damage after the collision. So, the rest of the trip was

12:59 cancelled.

13:03 Don't stress about packing for your next trip across the Atlantic because accidents

13:07 like the one with the Norwegian Sun are really rare. I mean, it's common for ships to encounter

13:12 ice, but what's unusual is for it to be a problem. Most modern cruise ships wouldn't

13:17 get physically damaged by an iceberg, and there's a reason for that. You see, the

13:22 steel used in the Titanic also played a significant role in the disaster. The unsinkable ship,

13:29 after all, was not so impact-resistant. Back then, the Titanic's hull was constructed

13:35 using around 2,000 steel plates, which are believed to have been produced in an open-hearth

13:40 furnace. As a result, the steel contained a high concentration of phosphorus, oxygen,

13:46 and sulfur. High levels of these elements make steel brittle at low temperatures, causing

13:51 it to fail upon impact. While the steel used on the Titanic was of the highest quality

13:57 available at the time, it wouldn't meet the safety standards of modern ships, and

14:02 it was approximately 10 times less safe than what today's vessels use.

14:10 But the most significant difference between the design of the Titanic and a modern ship

14:14 lies in how the hull is put together. You see, the Titanic was built using over 3 million

14:20 rivets for its hull and upper deck structure. So, when it struck the iceberg, the rivets

14:26 started a chain reaction, causing the entire section of the hull to collapse simultaneously,

14:31 causing an uncontrollable flood of water. In contrast, modern ships use a method called

14:37 submerged arc welding, which fuses the edges of metal pieces together, creating a strong

14:43 and continuous bond. This is safer because if any part of the ship gets damaged, the

14:48 tear doesn't spread, making things worse. The damage remains contained within that section.

14:55 Ok, so small icebergs are becoming more common, and vessels have been adapted to deal with

15:00 them. But there's still one more scenario to consider. What if a huge cruise ship hit

15:05 an iceberg the size of a 5-story building?

15:10 Imagine we've just created the world's largest cruise ship on the planet. Let's

15:15 call it the Bright Seaside. Our floating resort is massive, 4 times the size of the Statue

15:22 of Liberty. It's longer than the Titanic by 318 feet and carries about 3 times more

15:28 passengers and crew. And just like the Titanic, our fictional ship can cruise at a top speed

15:34 of around 23 knots. Now picture this scenario. The Bright Seaside is cruising at full speed

15:41 in freezing waters. It's the middle of the night, and the captain doesn't realize

15:46 that all the iceberg-detecting equipment on board isn't functioning. It stopped working

15:51 three days ago. It's very foggy out there, and the lookout also fails to spot a 45-foot-tall

15:58 iceberg. If that whole situation played out, and the ship smacked into the iceberg head-on,

16:04 well, it could potentially lead to a sinking. But you can see how unlikely that is, right?

16:10 That's why experts are quite confident in saying that ice isn't likely to sink modern

16:15 cruise ships.

16:16 It's also worth mentioning that safety measures have improved a lot since Titanic. A modern

16:21 large vessel can take days to sink, which provides enough time to keep everyone safe.

16:27 Crews are definitely better prepared to handle evacuation procedures, and passengers should

16:32 also go through safety training before cruising. I know, I know, it is annoying to do that

16:38 when all you want to do is drink a lemonade or some other beverage by the pool. But, you

16:43 know, all these safety tips are what saved the MS Explorer from becoming a modern Titanic.

16:52 You see, back in 2007, all 154 people on board this Antarctic cruise ship managed to get

16:58 into lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg. Now imagine their panic as they waited for

17:04 help for 4 hours. The crew did an excellent job in keeping everybody safe, no doubt. But

17:10 a report that came out 2 years later said that the MS Explorer accident had happened

17:16 because of the inexperience of the captain who had pushed the ship too fast into a wall

17:21 of ice in the freezing waters of Antarctica. That means that no matter how much tech a

17:27 ship's got or how fancy its materials are, if you've got a careless captain and a crew

17:32 that doesn't know how to handle an iceberg hit, yep, a disaster similar to Titanic could

17:37 happen again. But hey, you shouldn't stress over it. Trust the professionals and keep

17:43 in mind the odds. In the last 30 years, the MS Explorer was the only cruise ship that

17:48 sank thanks to an iceberg, and everyone survived. So kick back and enjoy your sea vacation!

18:00 We know Titanic from so many stories, even a movie, but now we have its first full-sized

18:05 digital scan. And nope, it's not like those models from before, where we mostly imagined

18:10 what the ship was supposed to be like. This time we got a real digital scan. A team of

18:16 experts really mapped the deep sea floor around the Titanic together with the ship itself.

18:21 We basically got a 3D view of the entire wreck, which is like going deep down beneath the

18:25 ocean's surface and seeing Titanic as if all the water has been drained away.

18:31 So the story of the wreck started in 1985, 73 years after the Titanic went down. The explorer

18:38 named Robert Ballard stumbled upon it somewhere between two submarines that also went down

18:42 in that area. He was actually on a different task back then, so he didn't even have time

18:47 to explore the ship properly. But as he was searching for the submarines, he realized

18:51 how ocean currents affect sinking debris. He noticed the heaviest object sank quickly

18:57 and left a trail of debris behind, the trail that followed the currents. Using this knowledge,

19:02 Ballard made a hypothesis the Titanic had broken in two and left a debris trail as it

19:07 sank. Before he found the wreck, everyone thought the ship just went down in one piece

19:11 after hitting an iceberg. So everyone knew where the ship was so the adventure could

19:16 start. Or not. It was hard to explore it. The ship is enormous, and the dark depths

19:21 of the ocean make it really difficult to capture its whole body in one go. So we mostly relied

19:27 on glimpses of the decaying ship and had to settle with teasing scattered parts of the

19:31 whole picture and filling it up with speculations and stories. But in the summer of 2022, we

19:38 finally got something different. A team of experts from Magellan loaded, a company specializing

19:43 in mapping the deep sea teamed up with Atlantic Productions, who were making a documentary

19:48 about the project. They embarked on a mission to capture the complete view of the Titanic.

19:54 They used submersibles. Those are vehicles that go underwater, remotely controlled by

19:58 a team of skilled explorers. These submersibles dove deep into the ocean. It wasn't an easy

20:04 job. They spent over 200 hours collecting information about the entire length and breadth

20:09 of the wreck. It was like a real life treasure hunt. But instead of finding gold and jewels,

20:16 they took something even more precious, over 700,000 images of the Titanic from every angle

20:20 possible. Yep, they took photos of every tiny part of the ship, even the not so interesting

20:27 bits most of us would usually skip. Even mapping the muddy parts was an important part, because

20:32 it helped fill in the gaps between the more exciting things they discovered. And this

20:36 was a way for all of us to finally get a detailed 3D reconstruction. Even though it's been more

20:41 than 100 years, you can still recognize the bow of the Titanic, covered in rust that hangs

20:47 down like stalactites. On top of the bow is the boat deck, where a big hole gives us a

20:53 glimpse into the empty space where the grand staircase once stood, like a window into the

20:58 ship's glamorous past. Its stern is now a wild mess of twisted metal. As the Titanic

21:03 went down, this part collapsed and spiraled into the seabed. The bow and the stern ended

21:08 up separated by about 2,600 feet. There's a vast field of debris surrounding this giant,

21:15 stuck on the seafloor. This debris is like a scattered treasure trove, full of intricate

21:20 metalwork from the ship, statues, and even unopened champagne bottles. There are also

21:26 personal belongings that went down together with the ship, like dozens of shoes resting

21:29 across the seafloor. It was a tough task to do, go down and take all those pictures. It

21:34 may not sound that hard at first, considering it was the vehicle that really immersed itself

21:38 into such deep parts of the ocean. Not the people. But studying the ocean is hard. We

21:44 haven't explored, mapped, or even seen over 80% of it. The conditions are harsh, and the

21:49 pressure becomes more intense the deeper you go. And their vehicle had to dive down to

21:54 nearly 13,120 feet below the surface. That's like 12 Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each

22:00 other. Plus, you have strong currents in that area, so it was probably like trying to navigate

22:05 through a watery maze. And submersibles weren't supposed to touch anything. Even the slightest

22:10 wrong step can damage the wreck that was already so fragile. It seems like the Titanic is frozen

22:16 in time, so it will always be there waiting for us. But in reality, it's slowly disappearing.

22:22 It's pretty obvious that the ocean water ruined it considering how long it has been down there.

22:26 But it's not just that. The wreck itself has become a home for a specific type of Bacteria

22:31 Hallimonis titanicae that even got named after the famous ship. These bacteria have a special

22:36 ability. They can survive inside rusty formations known as rusticles. They kind of look like

22:42 icicles, those spikes of ice that form when water falls from something and freezes. These

22:47 bacteria have a taste for iron, which is abundant in the ship's hull. For them, it's like a

22:52 real buffet down there. And as time goes by, these bacteria will keep eating away at the

22:58 iron in the ship, bit by bit, until one day, the feast comes to an end and the whole ship

23:03 is gone. It's like a slow but steady recycling process. So this 3D model we got because of

23:10 the hardworking team and technology comes at the best time because we never know how

23:14 much time we have left with exploring the famous wreck. This time we might even understand

23:19 the collision with the iceberg better. You know how movies always show the Titanic hitting

23:24 the iceberg on its right side? Well, we can't even be certain about that. The scans could

23:30 help us figure out if the ship actually grounded on the iceberg, like getting stuck on it.

23:35 We can study the stern and analyze how the Titanic struck the seafloor. That will also

23:40 help us understand what really happened during the sinking. Maybe we'll get a chance to discover

23:45 if there was really a strong fire that sealed the fate of the Titanic. One theory says that

23:51 the coal fire had been raging for a whole three weeks before the ship even took its

23:55 first and last trip. And this could have made its hull weaker, which means most of the work

24:01 was done. The iceberg just delivered the final blow, if there even was an iceberg, as some

24:07 people wonder. There's an alternative theory they suggested where the Titanic may have

24:12 actually hit a hidden mass of "pack ice" instead of a typical iceberg. Pack ice is made up

24:17 of large sheets of ice that float near the ocean's surface and can be difficult to spot.

24:22 They believe this pack ice might have drifted into the Atlantic from the Arctic Ocean. According

24:27 to one professional mariner, Captain L.M. Collins, that stands up with that idea. If

24:33 the Titanic had struck a regular iceberg, the ship would have sunk much more quickly

24:37 than it did. And since the Titanic managed to stay on the surface for a relatively long

24:42 period of time, less than three hours, maybe this was a different type of collision. The

24:48 mariner also said there are "differences" in what people said they saw when the Titanic

24:52 sank. He thinks these differences might be because of optical illusions. In this case,

24:58 when people were looking at the ocean that night, the way the light was reflecting and

25:02 the conditions at sea might have made things appear closer or distorted. So when they saw

25:07 something in the water, it might not have been exactly what they thought it was, whether

25:13 it was an iceberg or something else. Binoculars might have helped the crew members to spot

25:18 the potential danger, but unfortunately, they didn't have any. It appears they were locked

25:24 inside a cabinet, and no one knew where the key was.

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