April 15, 1912
The Titanic
The North Atlantic, twenty minutes to midnight
She struck ice at twenty to midnight on the fourth night out and had lifeboats for about half the people aboard.
The band played on the boat deck until close to the end. All eight musicians died.
Every one of the thirty-five engineers stayed below to keep the electricity running so the boats could be launched and the wireless could keep calling; not one of them lived. The five postal clerks were last seen dragging mail sacks up to a higher deck.
The wireless operators stayed at their key until the power failed. The Carpathia came fifty-eight miles for them and arrived at dawn to find lifeboats and a sea of bodies in lifejackets.
About fifteen hundred were killed and around seven hundred and ten lived. Third-class passengers died at more than twice the rate of first.
It changed the law of the sea: lifeboats for everybody aboard, a wireless watch kept day and night, and an ice patrol that still sails.
The toll is given differently by different inquiries; about fifteen hundred is the common figure.