The 100th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic

April 15th 2012 marks a century since one of the most famous disasters in modern history.

100 years ago, the ocean liner RMS Titanic hit an ice-berg and disappeared beneath the icy waves of the Atlantic Ocean. It's not an event which is likely to be forgotten any time soon.

To commemorate the occasion, the city of Belfast is unveiling its £100 million tourist attraction, The Titanic Experience. The doomed ship was built there. 

Meanwhile, the Titanic Heritage Trust will be staging events in all of the towns and cities associated with the liner - Belfast, Liverpool, Stoke, Lichfield and Southampton - as well as other places around the United Kingdom.

In Lichfield, at 8.30pm on the anniversary, a distress flare will be shot into the sky from Beacon Park. It will hover over the statue of the Titanic's Captain John Smith, which was itself only recently placed there. It's just one of a number of events being held in and around the town. Such scenes will be repeated all over the country.

On the television, there will be no less than five programs dedicated to the memory of the disaster on BBC alone. The other channels will be following suit.

Not to be out-done, Hollywood has re-released James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic, only this time in 3D. It will be hitting theater screens during April 2012.

There have been worse disasters in terms of scale. There has been greater loss of life. There have also been ships sinking in quite a similar fashion. Yet nothing has quite gripped the imagination of successive generations as this one.

So why would that be?

Authors and film-makers are forever searching for the perfect story.

It has to have it all, encompassing all passions to attract the largest audience, and it has to be timeless, in order to achieve longevity. Better still if it doesn't have to be up-dated, as the original telling will suffice.

The story of the Titanic had it all. It is perhaps one of the most enduring tales because of this strange mixture of timing and tragedy. It appeals to everyone. Though it's highly possible that we're not all looking at the same things.

Even during our own life-times, we may shift our personal focus onto another aspect. It's easy to do, as the circumstances on and surrounding the disaster have so much to tell us.

It is way too simplistic to state that the story of the Titanic is that of a ship, which set out from Southampton to New York City, but hit an ice-berg along the way. Even quoting mortality figures at each other isn't going to cut it. Millions of people die every day, often in tragic circumstances and frequently en masse.

What makes Titanic special is everything else about it. It can either be symbolic, or else feed the interests of many groups of people. As evidence of this, just search Amazon for 'Titanic'.

Under Movies and TV alone there are 19 different categories, which contain DVDs relating to the disaster. They include the usual suspects - drama, action and documentaries - but also comedy, musicals and, yes, even porn. Something for everyone indeed.

There's a strange psychology, which keeps human beings gripped on the testimonies of disasters.

I like to think that it's our survival instinct kicking in, rather than anything too voyeuristic. We want to know what happened to them, so we can ensure that it never happens to us or our loved ones. We want to be prepared.

But once the immediate adrenaline of learning has passed, what we want next are the tales of heroism, the human interest stories, the sadness and the grief. The clue is in the latter.

If we can focus on just one true life account, then we can weep for them all. Crying removes adrenaline from our system, thus returning us to normal after the shock and scare.

For those alive at the time, this would have been more immediate. They might have known someone on the ship, or at least known of them, so the urgency and danger would have felt more real.

For those encountering the story decades later, then Titanic can act as catharsis. We project our own real and present fears onto a 'safe' event (insofar as it happened so long ago). Then we get to feel emotion and shed tears in equal 'safety'. 

The story of the Titanic has plenty to cry about. With all cross-sections of humanity on board, you get to pick between the elderly, the lovers, the children, the men, the women, the poor or the rich and famous.

The Edwardian period is often viewed as an idyllic time, especially in Britain. Queen Victoria had died, taking a whole era of prudish values and rigid social etiquette with her.

Her son Edward VII had also passed on, but his son George hadn't yet made his mark as monarch. Everyone still considered themselves to be Edwardian; and it was a time of decadence.

The gold standard and the Empire had made the country rich. Female skirts rose an inch, in order to show ankles. Revolution was in the air, but that didn't yet seem threatening to the social order. It merely involved women silly enough to think they could vote.

Industry was powering on, with the Titanic the very epitome of that. A vast, glorious, unsinkable ocean liner, that sailed as a symbol of Britain's might. British ingenuity had designed that. It had been built in the United Kingdom using craftspeople from all four countries.

The pride in which she sailed was immense. Britannia well and truly did rule the waves.

But then she sank. The shockwaves didn't just start and end in the vicinity of the wreck, but back at home too. The whole world had witnessed that engineering shame, which probably did contribute to how well it was remembered too. Given what happened next, Britain probably never did get over it.

Within two years, the Great War was raging and the halcyon days were over. The gold standard was lost to the American dollar. Thousands perished in a senseless war; followed by the deadly Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which awaited the survivors. 

Austerity led only to the Great Depression, which in turn segued into the Second World War, the Blitz and the loss of the British Empire. All within thirty years of the Titanic sinking.

Why does the Titanic disaster have such a powerful hold on the British imagination? It's because it's been picked over, time and again, like a scab. It was the ultimate symbol of Edwardian ease; a nostalgic memory for those who recalled Britain in its golden age.

It was the moment when it all started to go wrong. Britain, like Titanic, had once been brilliant; and now they were both an almighty shipwreck.

Twenty-nine days after the Titanic sank, the first film was released telling its story. The American Film Industry was in its infancy, but they had the perfect star for the silent movie.

Dorothy Gibson was already a silent movie star and she was a survivor of the sinking. Not only did her celebrity add to the disaster's publicity, but she wasted no time getting in front of a camera to act it out.

For a cinema going public, still wide-eyed in shock about the news of Titanic, this was the ultimate expression of voyeurism. It felt like they were able to witness it first-hand, as 'told' by an actual eye-witness. She also wore exactly the same clothes on celluloid, as she worn on the night of the sinking.

Saved from Titanic was an instant success, though it's sadly no longer available. The only reels were destroyed in a fire.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, In Nacht und Eis (In Night and Ice) premiered in the winter of 1912. This silent movie also told the story of the disaster, only this one has survived the decades. Both were the first of many, many films, which continue to keep Titanic in the public eye.

I haven't even scratched the surface of all of the stories that can be told about Titanic. 

There are still tales of the spiritual, the ghostly, the premonitions and the curses, which haven't even been touched. Conspiracy theories abound.

The politics of the industry and the times all played their parts. Economy is in there too. The strict boundaries between rich and poor. They all have their stake in the Titanic story.

Under the heading 'timing of the disaster', I could have included the recent invention of Marconi's radio. It played such a vital part in bringing help for the survivors, not to mention forming an early chapter in the history of the internet.

Under the heading of 'human interest stories', I could have gone on forever. There are so many of them to tell from every conceivable angle. Which is also why it's time to bring this article to a close.

The sheer wealth of sources, in all topics and all genres, bring so many people to the story of Titanic. It's what makes the real life legend so enduring. It also makes it impossible to chart a course through them all.

But I hope that you enjoyed my 100th Wizzley article, on the 100th anniversary of one of modern history's most enduring events.