Re: (off topic) Unsinkable 97 years ago.

This topic brings up a number of things.

The Titanic disaster took a total of 1,517 crew and passengers. As large as that is it is only one of several tragic maritime events.

A few years later (May 29, 1914) the Canadian Pacific steamship EMPRESS OF IRELAND was struck by a collier at night in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and sank in 15 minutes. The causality count was 1,012; but, the number of passengers lost (840) was more than on the Titanic (832). These passengers were mostly middle-class Americans and Canadians -- not the New York high society -- so it got little remembrance.

At the end of the Civil War the side-wheel riverboat SALTANA blew up and burned on the Mississippi River on the night of April 27, 1865, with the loss of 1,547 people. Many of these were survivors of Andersonville, the Confederate prison camp.

The New York harbor excursion boat GENERAL SLOCUM caught fire on a Sunday in 1904 and burned with the loss of over 1,000 people.

The Lake Michigan excursion ship capsized while awaiting departure from Chicago as part of a large, multi-ship excursion of Western Electric employees. The loss of life was 845.

In my own family my father was always interested in the Titanic disaster. He was born in Nebraska on April 16, 1912. The family story is that the doctor who came out from town for the delivery brought with him the news of this disaster.

Brian Norden