No place aboard the Titanic seemed to be busier on April 14, 1912,
than the wireless room, where two operators worked non-stop.
Shipboard wireless, introduced by Marconi in 1898, was still a
glorious novelty when the "unsinkable" luxury liner made her maiden
voyage, and frivolous greetings from passengers to friends were
piled high in 1st Operator Jack Phillips' In-Basket.

All that day, Phillips had also been receiving warnings from other
ships of unusually heavy ice in the North Atlantic. The news was
duly relayed to the ship's officers, but by 9:40 P.M., when yet
another iceberg warning came in from the Mesaba, Phillips was too
busy to pass it on, and he cut short a similar message from the
Californian around 11:00.

Only 40 minutes later, the Titanic, racing along at full speed,
plowed into one of those icebergs, and by 12:15 Phillips, with
operator Harold Bride, was madly tapping out distress signals.
The lights of the Californian could be seen 10 miles away, but her
wireless opertor had gone off duty at 11:30 and there was no
response. A full 58 miles away, the Carpathia picked up the frantic
crackle and sped to the rescue, arriving after the Titanic had gone
down with some 1,500 passengers. Still, she was in time to pull
705 survivors out of the icy waters. From that day on, Marconi's
wireless was viewed not as a novelty, but as a necessity, and a
24-hour radio watch soon was required of every passenger ship at sea.
Discovering America's Past


Transatlantic Crossing

Between Oct. and Nov. 1997 Phil Stubbs and Rob Hamil, both of
New Zealand, crossed the Atlantic from Tenerif to Barbados in
just 41 days in their 21 ft. rowing boat. Despite having to
anchor for two days to ride out a 60 mph


Titanic In Spanish

Titanic and Song Lyrics
by Celine Dion

Love In The City

Sealed with Love and Kisses
Greeting Cards

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