On April 10, 1912, thousands of people gathered at a dock in Southampton, England. They’d come to see the largest ship in the world, the RMS Titanic, set sail on its first voyage. The massive ship spanned the length of four city blocks and was taller than most buildings at the time. The Titanic was expected to arrive in New York City about a week later.
But it never got there. Shortly before midnight on April 14, the Titanic crashed into an iceberg. The mountain of ice tore open the right side of the ship. Seawater began gushing in. In less than three hours, the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Of the more than 2,200 people on board, only about 705 survived.
More than a century later, the tragic story of the Titanic continues to fascinate everyone from kids to historians.
“No matter who you are, what your age is or your interests, there’s something about the Titanic story that pushes one of your buttons,” explorer Robert Ballard told Scholastic News in 2012. He’s the explorer who discovered the Titanic shipwreck 73 years after it went down.