A historian on TikTok has uncovered an amazing historical fact relating to the Titanic ship disaster.
The RMS Titanic was the world's largest passenger ship before it sank during its maiden voyage between Southampton, England, and New York City in April 1912, after it hit an iceberg. Of the 2,200 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 died.
Many of the survivors were women and children who had an eyewitness view of what happened to the Titanic before it went underwater as they rowed away to safety on life boats.
According to the Who Did What Now Pod TikTok account, many of the survivors reported that the ship split in two before sinking. But their testimonies were not believed because that would have been highly unlikely.
"The discovery of Titanic shipwreck was so important because it proved the survivors were telling the truth. As we know, the majority of survivors were women and children... and until the electricity gave out the women on the life boats were able to see a lot of what was happening," historian Katie Charlwood, who also hosts the Who Did What Now history podcast, explained in the video.
"They reported that they saw the stern go up. They heard a cracking noise and the stern went down again. And as we know that was the Titanic splitting in two but up until this point when ships sunk, they went down all in a 'oner.'
"But the men investigating the disaster thought the women were suffering some kind of mass hysteria and the survivors' testimony was simply dismissed. But upon the discovery of the wreckage, it proved that they were, in fact, correct."
The historian cited a news interview with one survivor Eva Hart, and the book Titanic Voices by Hannah Holman, which featured interviews with 63 survivors of the disaster.
The Titanic's wreckage was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard, a retired navy officer and underwater archaeologist, 435 miles south of St John's, Newfoundland.
An inquiry was held in London in 1912 to determine the cause of the ship's sinking and sought testimony from officials at White Star Line, which owned the ship, survivors and maritime experts.
"After she got to a certain angle she exploded, broke in halves, and it seemed to me as if all the engines and everything that was in the after part slid out into the forward part, and the after part came up right again, and as soon as it came up, right down it went again," said Frank Osman, one of the surviving crewmen said during the hearing.
Others gave similar testimonies that they saw the ship split in two, but that was deemed "utterly untrue," by the Titanic's second officer, Charles Lightoller, and much weight was given to his testimony, according to historical website Biography.
But after the wreckage was found and proved the ship did snap in half, many survivors felt vindicated, including Eva Hart ,who died in 1996.
"Many times after the event I was told that the Titanic couldn't have broken in two and must have sunk in one piece, but I was always certain she had," Hart said, in memoir A Girl Aboard the Titanic.
"Eventually, I was proved correct."
The Titanic wreckage has been the subject of much global chatter this week after five people died during an expedition to see the wreckage of the ship at bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The submersible vessel carrying the five suffered a "catastrophic implosion," the U.S. Coast Guard announced on Thursday.
The capsule, named Titan and owned by the company OceanGate, lost contact with its surface ship on Sunday morning.
The Titanic wreckage sits at around 12,500 feet below sea level, and according to OceanGate, the Titan was only one of five vessels in the world able to journey that far down.
Those who died were Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a former French navy diver, British adventurer Hamish Harding, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.
Update 6/26/23, 6:39 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include Charlwood's name and her role as a historian.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more