The RMS Titanic was a marvel of Edwardian engineering that met a tragic end on its maiden voyage. Built in Belfast by the shipbuilders Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line, the Titanic was the largest moving object ever made by man up to that time. It measured 882 feet and 9 inches in length, stood 175 feet tall from the keel to the top of its funnels, and weighed around 46,000 gross tons. The ship was designed to be a floating palace, and its first-class accommodations included a swimming pool, a gymnasium, squash courts, and a Turkish bath, luxuries unheard of at sea.

On April 10, 1912, the Titanic left Southampton, England, for New York City, carrying approximately 2,200 passengers and crew. Four days into the voyage, on the night of April 14, lookouts spotted an iceberg directly in the ship's path. Despite attempts to turn, the ship struck the iceberg on its starboard side, damaging its watertight compartments far below the waterline.

The damage was fatal. The ship, once thought to be nearly unsinkable, began to take on water rapidly. As the crew scrambled to evacuate, the inadequate supply of lifeboats became a grave problem. The Titanic carried just 20 boats with a capacity of only 1,178 people, leaving hundreds stranded as the ship went down. At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, the great liner sank beneath the waves.

The nearby ship Carpathia arrived on the scene hours later, rescuing about 705 survivors from the freezing North Atlantic. The disaster, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,500 lives, sent shockwaves around the world. It led to sweeping reforms in maritime safety, including lifeboat requirements for all passengers and the creation of the International Ice Patrol.

The wreckage of the Titanic remained lost on the ocean floor for decades. It was finally discovered on September 1, 1985, by a joint French-American expedition led by Robert Ballard, lying at a depth of around 12,500 feet, nearly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The ship rests in two main pieces on the seabed, a silent memorial to a legend of the deep.