The Titanic — History Reading Comprehension Lesson

Reading Passage

The Titanic

The RMS Titanic was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner ever built at the time of her launch. Constructed by the Belfast shipbuilding firm Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line, she measured 882.5 feet long and weighed 46,328 gross tons. She had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 watertight compartments — a design her builders believed made her virtually unsinkable. She featured a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a Turkish bath, first-class dining rooms decorated like fine hotels, and cabins ranging from spartan third-class berths to opulent first-class suites. On April 10, 1912, she departed Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage to New York City.

The Titanic carried 2,224 people: 1,317 passengers and 908 crew. The passenger list included some of the wealthiest people in the world — American millionaires, European aristocrats, and prominent businessmen — alongside hundreds of immigrants in third class, many traveling to America for the first time in search of a new life. The ship was under the command of Captain Edward Smith, one of the most experienced officers in the White Star Line. At full speed in calm seas, the crossing from Southampton to New York was expected to take about a week.

On the night of April 14, 1912, the Titanic was sailing at nearly full speed through the North Atlantic, despite multiple warnings of icebergs in the area. At 11:40 p.m., lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg directly ahead and rang the warning bell three times. First Officer Murdoch ordered the ship turned hard to starboard and the engines reversed, but there was not enough time or distance. The Titanic sideswiped the iceberg along her starboard bow. The collision opened a series of small holes and buckled hull plates across five of her sixteen watertight compartments. The ship’s designers had calculated she could stay afloat with four compartments breached. With five flooding, she was doomed.

The sinking took two hours and forty minutes. As the bow dipped lower, the stern rose higher out of the water until the ship broke apart and both sections plunged to the bottom. There were only 20 lifeboats — enough for about half the people aboard — and many were launched only partially filled as passengers and crew failed to grasp the ship’s true peril. The sea temperature was about 28°F (-2°C). Most of the 1,500 people who entered the water died of hypothermia within minutes. The RMS Carpathia arrived about an hour and forty minutes after the sinking and rescued 710 survivors. The death toll was 1,514 people.

The sinking of the Titanic shocked the world and triggered sweeping reforms in maritime safety. New international regulations required ships to carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, mandated 24-hour radio watch, and established the International Ice Patrol to monitor icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes. The wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 by explorer Robert Ballard, lying in two pieces 12,500 feet below the surface. It has been the subject of countless books, documentaries, and films — most famously James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster — and remains a powerful reminder of the limits of human technology and the importance of humility in the face of nature.

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