There are some things we know to be true, facts that are so grounded in history and backed up by centuries of research that they have become universally acknowledged: the earth spins, dinosaurs existed, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk...Right? Well, a new theory suggests not exactly...
According to a recent Channel 4 documentary, Titanic: The New Evidence, it seems that the most fundamental element of the incident which lead to devastation and loss of lives - and not forgetting the main premise of James Cameron’s heart-wrenching film starring Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet – the fact that the iceberg was wholly responsible for the ship's sinking, is not as accurate or as salient as previously understood. Instead new evidence claims that there was another factor which contributed to Titanic’s tragic demise, aside from the iceberg.
Over 1,500 people were estimated to have lost their lives when the RMS Titanic sank in April 1912 on its voyage from Southampton to New York. It has been generally believed since that it collided with an iceberg whilst sailing across the North Atlantic Ocean, which then caused it to fill with water and eventually sink. However, new evidence suggests that the fate of the 'unsinkable' ship was sealed before it even left Southampton, due to there being an enormous, but unnoticed, fire in the ship’s hull which weakened the infrastructure.
When studying photographs taken of the Titanic before it left the shipyard in Belfast, journalist and author Senan Molony spotted 30-ft black marks near where the ship supposedly collided with an iceberg during its voyage.
'We are looking at the exact area where the iceberg struck, and we appear to have a weakness or damage to the hull in that specific place, before she even left Belfast,' he said.
Experts confirmed that the iceberg alone should not hold all of the blame for the Titanic’s sinking. Molony told The Times, ‘This isn't a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking. It's a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence.’
This new development may have thrown us into disarray more than we expected; what was already an event so fraught with tragedy is now a lot more complex. And we can't help but imagine just how long James Cameron's film would have been if this evidence had surfaced 20 years ago...