My friends,
I am SO SORRY to have dropped off the face of this earth where this blog is concerned. It’s been on my mind, but over the past several months, I have:
- Written one book. It wasn’t great. I ditched it.
- Written another book, which I’m now editing.
- Traveled to eleven states for school visits.
- Written a screenplay, which I’m preparing to pitch.
- Received a grant for some research travel.
- And a bunch of other stuff.
Including, preparing to release ICEBERG, a story of the Titanic.
Here’s the summary:
The thrilling story of a young girl who stows away onboard the Titanic and as she explores, attempting to find answers to her many questions about the ship, suddenly finds herself caught up in the desperate struggle to survive after it strikes an iceberg.
Hazel Rothbury is traveling all alone from her home in England aboard the celebrated ship Titanic. Following the untimely death of her father, Hazel’s mother is sending her to the US to work in a factory, so that she might send money back home to help her family make ends meet.
But Hazel harbors a secret dream: She wants to be a journalist, and she just knows that if she can write and sell a story about the Titanic’s maiden voyage, she could earn enough money to support her family and not have to go to a sweatshop. When Hazel discovers that mother didn’t send her with enough money for a ticket, she decides she must stow away onboard the storied ship.
With the help of a porter named Charlie and a sweet first-class passenger named Sylvia, Hazel explores the opulent ship in secret, but a haunting mystery quickly finds her. The danger only intensifies when calamity strikes, and readers will be caught up in the terror and suspense alongside Hazel as she fights to save her friends and herself.
ICEBERG will release on March 7, 2023, but I’m already excited to share it with you. Because it’s the holiday season and because I’ve been so absent, I’m going to do a BIG giveaway, of ten advanced copies of the book!
You can enter only once. In comments, simply give me one cool fact about the Titanic, but make it cool. Ordinary facts that everyone knows are worth one entry. Incredibly cool facts are worth three entries, and the rest are in the middle for two entries.
The decision for how cool each fact is solely mine, and based on nothing other than how interesting it is to me. I won’t share feedback on how many points I gave your entry, because honestly, did you see that list of stuff above? Most of it is still going on so I won’t have that time.
Winners will be announced soon after the end of the contest on December 22nd at 10 pm ET.
(And I promise to try to keep up on the blog a little better! In my next post, I’ll answer a few of the questions that you all are emailing me about.)
105 Comments
The owner, second officer David Blair, of the key that was thought to open the crow’s nest locker, which contained binoculars (equipment which could have potentially saved the Titanic from disaster), was put up for auction in 2007 and was removed from the crew before the Titanic set sail.
The Titanic had four smokestacks, but only three of them connected to the furnaces. The fourth one was made to make the ship look aesthetically pleasing!
Fun Fact: People believe that J.P. Morgan planned the sinking of the Titanic to kill some of his rivals, the millionaires Jacob Aster, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim, all who did in fact die. J.P. Morgan even had tickets to sail on the Titanic but mysteriously canceled just days before it left.
Milton Hershey, the same man invented Hershey chocolate, was traveling with his wife in Europe in 1912. They had booked tickets on the Titanic, but last minute business caused them to cancel days before it set sail. If they had traveled on the Titanic, they would have likely died, and chocolate as we know it today might be very different.
Here is my cool fact!
In the iconic side view of the Titanic, there are four black and cream funnels. However, only three were needed to release steam from the boilers. Even though it was not used, the designers concluded it would appear more aesthetic and impressive to add the fourth one.
So this isn’t really about the voyage, but their was one lady on the Titanic when they were leaving on the lifeboats who got sea sick frequently. So she brought her like chamber pot on the lifeboat, and it just got discovered and it is going up for auction. XD
One of the four funnels on top of the Titanic was fake, it was just for show!
There were 109 children aboard the Titanic, but only 56 of them survived
It is a theory that “The Wreck of the Titan” predicted the sinking of the Titanic 14 years previously. The book and what happened are scarily similar.
There were only enough lifeboats for around a third of the people on board. The Titanic’s original design called for 64 lifeboats. The owners of the ship thought they would get in the way of the view of the first class passengers so they cut the number to 20.
A safety inspector named Maurice Clark urged the addition of at least 10 more lifeboats but the ship’s owners thought that would take too much time so Clark was threatened with being fired unless he kept his mouth shut. At least 700 people could have been saved if the owners had listened to Clark.
Rather depressing, isn’t it? Anyway, I am so excited for the new book!
The Titanic actually had a mechanical horse and a mechanical camel in its exercise room!
The chief baker, Charles Joughin, claimed to have treaded water for 2 hours before being rescued. Why? He insisted it was because he was inebriated and the alchohol kept him warm. Who knows if it’s true!
Hello, Mrs. Jennifer A. Nielsen! So,my fact that I’d like to share is that during the time of the sinking, there were actually musicians that gave their lives to play music in order to keep the panicking civilians calm. Unfortunately, in the end, not a single one of them survived, but they gave their lives to help keep peace, even though they knew the ship would sink. Their instruments are actually displayed in the Titanic museum in Branson, Missouri. I hope this fact is helpful! Thanks for letting me do this! 😀
How were their INSTRUMENTS saved, but not the musicians?? That seems a TERRIBLE failure of priorities, or a majestic oversight…
Perhaps the instruments in the museum are likenesses?
(I really hope this doesn’t disqualify me, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to comment on Goodreads or on here. Hopefully you understand my confusion haha). Anyways, here’s my interesting fact: One of Titanic’s musicians, a cello player named Roger Bricoux, wasn’t officially declared dead until the year 2000! He was even labeled as a deserter when he didn’t call in for duty during World War I.
So excited for the new book! I’m sad that you ditched one of your books though.
I thought that a cool fact was that one of the smokestacks on the titanic is actually fake.
So excited for the new book!
I thought that a cool fact was that one of the smokestacks on the titanic is actually fake.
ahhhhh mrs. nielsen!!!! i’m so happy to see a new post!!!! i am so excited for this to be released.
here’s my interesting fact:
the co-owner of macy’s department store, isidor struas and his wife ida were passengers on the titanic and sadly died when it sank.
I came to order Shattered Castle for my son, he was introduced to them by hos 4th grade teacher. Then I saw this promotion. I’ve ordered Shattered Castle but will keep an eye out for this new one. He has always been facinated by the Titanic.
I’ve been following this guy on tiktok that posts titanic facts so I do feel like this is my moment; I’ll give it my best shot.
There were four smokestacks on the titanic, but only three of them actually worked. The ship really only needed three to function, so the fourth one was just there to make the ship look cool. It had some purpose for ventilation and stuff but it was really there because other ships around the time had four and maybe they didn’t want to make the titanic seem less cool in comparison.
The synopsis sounds super cool! Also screenplay 👀
The Titanic had two sister-ships because the sheer cost of building one was too much. The Britannic served as a hospital ship and sank after hitting a mine during World War One while the Olympic spent 24 years at sea before being scrapped in 1935 to provide jobs for the poor during the Great Depression. The first movie to ever show the events of the Titanic was “Saved From the Titanic” in which an actual survivor, actress Dorothy Gibson, starred while wearing the same clothes she had on the day of the crash. One of the Titanic survivors was also a nurse and lived through the crash of the Britannic. The wreck was allegedly discovered in 1985 by the Navy during the Cold War as they searched for the wreckage of two nuclear submarines.
Hi Mrs. Nielsen! One pretty surprising fact I found about the Titanic was that 3/4 of the funnels on the ship were real. The fourth one was just there for aesthetics. It made the ship look more beautiful and symmetrical. Instead of blowing smoke out of it, it was mostly used as an air vent.
Only 23 of the 908 crew on board were female. Of the 23 female crew members, only three did not survive the collision. Of the 885 male crew members, a tragic 693 went down with the ship.
14 years before the Titanic sank, an author wrote a book called Futility: Wreck on the Titan. This book was about the world’s largest passenger ship hitting an iceberg and sinking in the month of April. That’s exactly what happened to the world’s largest passenger ship, the Titanic, 14 years later in the month of April. Another interesting thing about the book is that the name Titan is only 2 letters off of the name Titanic.
This was a new one to me but probably not to all you Titanic enthusiasts: The reason the Titanic is often referred to as ‘RMS Titanic’ is because the RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship. It carried the post.
First-class passengers were given a music book titled “The White Star Music Book,” which contained 352 songs. Since passengers were able to make requests, the musicians were required to learn all 352 pieces before the voyage so they were able to play them upon demand.
Have you been to the Titanic exhibit in Las Vegas? It’s amazing!
* A 3rd class ticket cost about $40 ($900 today).
* A 1st class ticket cost about $4,500 ($103,000 today).
A lot of third class passengers could have purchased a second class ticket, but they chose to save the money for starting a life in America. Even though they were 3rd class accommodations, they were more than adequate. For instance, they had real mattresses, whilst other liners used straw mattresses.
There were actually two murderers aboard the titanic. One of them had just gotten out of prison and got a job working on the crew of the boat.
Hello!
This was a fact I did not know, so I hope you find it equally interesting. Charles Joughin was one of the survivors. The main reason he survived was because of the alcohol in his system. He was completely drunk when The Titanic sank!! The alcohol kept his body temperature higher than normal, thus helping him to survive! I just think this is crazy! He must have had some important work to do. 🙂
We’re so excited for you to visit our school! We’re beginning our author studies next week so our kiddos have time to read your books before your visit. 🙂
My Titanic cool fact is admittedly learned from Kate Messner’s book History Smashers: the Titanic – Pet tickets on the Titanic cost the same amount as a child’s ticket, or half of an adult fare. 3 small dogs were saved aboard lifeboats but the other animals presumably perished on the ship.
This new book looks amazing!
Not about the actual Titanic, but Rose in the movie was based on a real artist named Beatrice Wood who had a sort-of scandalous love triangle with her contemporaries Duchamp and Roché and I just sort of love that.
Milton Hershey was supposed to be on the Titanic. He got tied up with business and didn’t make it. Just think of the world without a Hershey’s chocolate bar>
ahhhhh mrs. nielsen!!!! i’m so happy to see a new post!!!! i am so excited for this to be released.
here’s my interesting fact:
the co-owner of macy’s department store, isidor struas and his wife ida were passengers on the titanic and sadly died when it sank.
(also sorry if i posted this twice)
An interesting fact I found was that eight people had died on the ship before it had even set out. Many were because of work accidents and one died the day of the launch.
Ship lookouts were had to use their own eyes because the ship’s binoculars were locked up and no one could find the key. Maybe that’s why they missed the iceberg! (Some people do believe this to be a reason)
There were 8 musicians on board. While the Titanic was sinking, they played memorized songs from the first class passengers’ songbooks. The last song(s) that survivors recorded them playing was “Nearer my God to Thee” or a waltz called “Autumn.” All 8 musicians went down with the ship.
Hello, Mrs. Jennifer A. Nielsen! So, my fact that I have to share is this: during the time the Titanic was sinking,a group of musicians played on deck to calm the civilians. The incredible part is that they knew they were going to die, but they still kept playing as the citizens boarded the lifeboat, whoch shows their humbling service to others. Unfortunately, every single musician perished. Today, you can view their instruments on display at the Titanic museum in Branson, Missouri. Thank you so much for giving us the chance to get into this book entry! (Also, I’ve already sent this same message out, but I’m not are if it went through, so I repeated it, just fyi. 😉
Only three small dogs survived the sinking of the Titanic. Two Pomeranians and a Pekingese.
Ny first comment didn’t come through so here we go. Lol
I learned that there are several conspiracy theories regarding the Titanic. According to Cosmoschronicle.com, one theory is that the Titanic was sunk to create the U.S. Federal Reserve. As someone mentioned earlier, a book was written, 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, that chronicled the sinkning of the fictional ship Titan in eerily the exact same way the Titanic ended up sinking. The captain of the Titanic was well known, and apparently would never have sailed on a ship that had so little safety measures and precautions that the Titanic did. Also, the author of the book about the Titan was poisoned a few years after the Titanic sank (scary!). Some of the very wealthy people on board the Titanic opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve. A group of people who desperately wanted a Federal Reserve are said to have orchestrated the sinking of the ship to murder their opposition. Also, the guy who funded the building of the ship cancelled his voyage on it (which saved his life). There are so many conspiracies about this, but I thought this was the most interesting.
Okay so there was an American author named Morgan Robertson who basically wrote a fanfic about how a boat called the Titan hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sunk. The book is called The Wreck of the Titan: OR Futility. Similar to the Titanic, the Titan has too few lifeboats, and many people died.
Also, I love all your books! I’m having a book club and we’re reading The False Prince everyone is loving it so much!
Of the approximately 700 survivors, only one was Japanese
Benjamin Guggenheim died dressed in his finest clothes, so he could “go down like a gentleman
Iceberg looks SO good! I’m so excited!
As for an interesting fact…There were 109 kids aboard the titanic, but only 53 survived 😞- which is sad, but interesting!
I recently learned that there were supposed to be 65 lifeboats onboard the titanic and only 20 made it on the ship. Each lifeboat had the capacity to hold 65 passengers, the first one only had 28 passengers. The rest were filled to capacity. Only 32% of the people onboard surviving.
Fourteen years or so before the Titanic sank, someone wrote a book about an alledgedly un-sinkable ocean liner called the Titan, that strikes an iceberg, and goes down.
Hello Ms. Nielsen! I am SUPER EXCITED for this book! I love your writing so much–I was actually re-reading The Shadow Throne earlier (I love the Ascendance series WAY too much and have an unhealthy obsession with it).
The interesting fact I found was that many people on the Titanic traveled under false names, so their identities were unknown for a long time. In fact, one 19-month-old boy named Sidney Leslie Goodwin was buried under “unknown child” until he was identified in 2008 after many tests!
Happy Holidays, Ms. Nielsen! I can’t wait to read this book and see what you write next!
Here is my cool fact!
Did you know that there was a fire in one of the coal bunkers? It started several days before the voyage and it weakened the hull which in turn made it more susceptible to the iceberg.
So this isn’t about the voyage on the titanic, but did you know that the titanic is disappearing? There is a bacteria that is pretty much eating the ship. People expect the ship to be gone by 2030.
Hi Mrs. Nielsen, my interesting fact about the Titanic is also kind of sad. There were nine dogs on board the Titanic, and even though there was little room in the lifeboats for people, two dogs were saved. If I remember correctly, they were a Pomeranian and a Pekinese.
Violet Jessop survived the Titanic, and she later survived another sinking ship, the Britannic
The Titanic lies 12,600 feet underwater. The ruins of the Titanic lie nearly 2.5 miles beneath the surface of the ocean, approximately 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The ship broke in two, and the gap between the bow and the stern is about 2,000 feet in the sea bed.
A specific bacteria is slowly consuming the wreckage. What remains of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean will eventually be entirely eaten away by a rust-eating bacteria. This microorganism, named Halomonas titanicae, can adhere to steel surfaces and forms the rusticles seen on the hull of the wreckage.
The Titanic Museum, in Belfast, is in the location where the ship was built, and it is right next door to the filming studio where Game of Thrones was filmed. Both are a thrill to visit! 😉
It was there that i learned: The last message from the Titanic was sent at 2:10am and said “CQ”.
What happened to the book about the kid and the marker? Or whatever it was….
That’s the one that wasn’t quite working. I’ll come back to it eventually, but I have more details to iron out before it can be ready.
Okie 🙂 excited for the new book though!
Recently I had the chance to visit the burial site of some of the people who passed away when the Titanic sank, so here’s a fact that I discovered: Meticulous details were recorded describing every person who was buried over the years . Because of those carefully preserved notes unknown bodies have been identified, and some of the gravestones that were blank now have a name.
Please tell me . . . by any chance, does the screenplay have anything too do with The False Prince? That would be SO exciting.
😉
😱 You didn’t say no . . . Ahhhhhh
That would be amazing!!! 🤞🤞😃
So excited to see you back to posting on here!
My fact: two young boys who accompanied their father on the ship without their mother’s knowledge were orphaned when their father died in the wreck. Their mother in France found out about their survival when she saw a picture of them in a newspaper and she reunited with them in New York more than a month later.
The only lifeboat drill the boat had was called off just a day before the boat sank! And the cost of 1 titanic first class ticket would be
$ 4 591 US dollars today!
There were 324 first class passengers
Even thought everyone knew that the titanic had sank, it took 73 years for the shipreck to be found! It had snapped in half and debris was scattered two miles around the ship that had snapped in half
Hi Mrs. Nielsen!! I’m so excited for Titanic!!
My interesting fact is that there was actually another ship close by called the Californian, not the Carpathia, and got the distress signals when it was to late!
My Interesting fact is that one of the ladies on the titanic, Violet Jessop survived the sinking of Titanic and then went on to work on a ship modeled off of the Titanic. Jessop was a nurse aboard the Britannic (also called Titanic 2) when it sank and survived that tragedy as well. Unfortunately she sustained quite the head injury that affected her for the rest of her life.
In 1898, 14 years before the Titanic sank, a novel was written about a ship called the Titan. The ship is completely fictional and it is about a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable, but then hit an iceberg and there were no lifejackets or boats to save anyone’s lives. Many people believe this was a warning sign.
Hi! I am really excited to read your new book! Here is a fact I hope you find interesting. The lifeboats on the Titanic had tins of crackers and water, but the survivors didn’t know about them and most didn’t discover them.
I just read on USA Today that “according to historian Tim Maltin, atmospheric conditions the night the ship sank likely caused super refraction — which could have camouflaged the iceberg. This may explain why the iceberg wasn’t spotted until the ship was too near it to maneuver out of the way.” If that’s true, that’s pretty crazy but it makes sense!
OMG yay I’m so excited!! Your books are just the best 🙂
The Titanic’s equipment and parts were so expensive that two other ships were made along with her, called her ‘sister ships’. Their names were the Olympic and the Britannic. Strangely, the latter of the two also has a tragic story, as it sunk 4 years after the Titanic, killing 30 people. It’s almost as if the trio of ships were cursed with bad luck!
Or who knows, could be one of the world’s greatest mysteries…
One of the musicians on the Titanic wasn’t officially recorded dead until 2000, many years after the ship went down.
One man, the chief baker, was so drunk that he was able to tread water for two hours because the large amounts of whiskey had kept his body so warm.
Hey Mrs. Nielsen, I’m so excited for the new book to come out! Your historical fiction novels are all so amazing!
Here’s my fact:
Only two kids were rescued from the Titanic without parents, and were known as the “Titanic orphans.”
Michel (4 years old) and Edmund (2 years old) Navratil were travelling with their father, who had kidnapped them from their mother and decided to bring them to America. When the ship sank, the boys were put onto a lifeboat and rescued, but the father was never seen again. The boys were taken in by another Titanic survivor after the disaster until their mother was able to find them about a month later.
So this Titanic fact is really only relevant to my family history but my great grandmother was supposed to travel with my a grandmother’s sibblings from Poland to NYC via England on the Titanic, however details came together more quickly than expected, And The titanic took longer to build than expected so they left on another ship. Good thing or else I wouldn’t be here to enjoy your books so much. I can’t wait to add this title to our school library!
There’s a theory that the titanic never sank. Apparently there is no “titanic level ships the was “olympic” level the first of that lind actually being the olympic. So it rumored that the titanic was swapped woth the olympic.
My cool fact is about Violet Jessop. She is sometimes called the Queen of sinking ships, and rightly so. She began working on the RMS Olympic in 1911 as a stewardess. She was on board when it crashed with the HMS Hawke. After that she transferred to the Olympic’s sister ship the Titanic as a stewardess. She survived the sinking of the ship and in WW1 was a stewardess on the HMHS Britannic.In 1916 the Britannic sank into the ocean after an unexplained explosion. Violet survived the wreaks of all 3 ships and lived to the age of 83.
THE CARPATHIA WAS NOT THE CLOSEST SHIP TO THE TITANIC.
When the Titanic started sending out distress signals the Carpathia was not the closest ship. The Californian was.
On April 15th 1912 at 12:45am the crew of the Californian started seeing lights flaring (The Titanic’s distress flares) and immediately woke up their captain to tell him but he issued no orders.
The ship’s wireless operator had also gone to bed and did not see any distress signals until morning,it was too late and by then the Carpathia had already picked up any remaining survivors.
The United States Senate Inquiry and British Wreck Commissioner’s both concluded that the Californian could have saved many more, or all the lives that were lost that night, had the captain acted quickly when hearing of the lights in the sky.
The captain of the titanic was Edward John Smith, who was supposed to retire after the titanic’ maiden voyage. He sunk with the ship, so ironically it was his last voyage.
I don’t know alot about the Titanic, but my great grandma Elsie came over from Germany in 1913 one year after the sinking. I think she must have been brave to go even after hearing about it. It was also on her voyage she got to try her first banana.
I’m very excited for the new book! My fact is that after the Titanic sank, not everyone believed it. There were many news articles claiming that there were “no lives lost” and the “ship [was] in tow.” Apparently no one really knew what to think, so a lot of journalists got it wrong. I guess that in Iceberg, Hazel’s article will be all the more important because of it!
Good luck with your writing!
Hi Mrs. Nielsen!I love your books so much; I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve read The False Prince and sequels. I’ve been reading your books for several years now, but I’ve just recently discovered your blog, which is why this is my first comment.
My interesting fact is:
America’s mission to find the Titanic was actually a front for finding two sunken US submarines. The navy covered up the real project in order to hide it from the Soviets during the Cold War. They were trying to find out what happened to the nuclear reactors that powered the submarines. The navy didn’t think that they would actually find the Titanic, so they weren’t concerned about publicity.
Thank you so much for this opportunity!
Many people believe (due to the movie, and probably hearsay) that the musicians who sunk with the Titanic went down playing music like Auld Lang Syne, when in actual fact they were playing hymns – lots and lots of hymns.
There were a total of 885 bathrooms on the Titanic. There were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class bathrooms. 1st class had 316, 2nd class had272, and 3rd class had 297.
I’m so excited to see you at NTTBF and for your new book!!!
Did you know that Wallace Bartley’s famous violin that he played the beautiful melody of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” on was thought to be lost to sea just like the ship, however, it was recovered as an artifact! And as a little twist, it was recovered by a woman in 2006, it was found in her attic and no one knows how it got there!
Hi Mrs. Nielsen Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Really excited for you your new book “Iceberg”.
Here’s my interesting fact about the Titanic ( I actually have two, I couldn’t decide 😅), the Titanic was never actually described as “unsinkable.” It was described my it’s creators as “practically unsinkable” though this was a bold claim it was less bold as “unsinkable.” For my other interesting fact is the the Titanic was a very luxurious ship for it had a gym, a Turkish bath tub (whatever that is 😂), and even the first swimming pool.
Hope you and your family have a great holiday.
In 1898 14 years before the Titanic sank, an author named Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility. The book was about a ship called the Titan, that is dubbed “unsinkable” by the British owners. Then the ship sets sail, hits and iceberg one April and sinks, and becuase of the minimal amount of lifeboats, more than half of the passengers die. In 1914 Robertson also wrote a short story called Beyond the Spectrum, which seems to predict World War II, by describing a future war between Japan and America.
Hello!
My fact is that the Titanic’s interior was based on the Ritz Hotel!
I love your books so much and I’ve read almost all of them!! I can’t wait for Iceberg!!
Also I’m sorry if this went in twice, it wasn’t showing up the first time! 🙂
Lol not a fan of Titanic but I will sure buy your book once its available, so i do not have any interesting thing to share about it AND YAAAAAAY SO EXCITED FOR THE RELEASE OF THIS BOOK.
Hello, my cool fact is that Wallace Hartley, the band leader on the Titanic, played the violin to passengers as the ship sank in 1912. The violin sold at an auction for $1.7 million which is the highest price ever paid for a Titanic artifact.
Omg yay can’t wait for the new book 🥳 I found a lot of cool facts and found it really hard to pick just one but I chose this one coz I think it’s pretty interesting!
Roger Briocoux was the Titanic’s cello player and died when the ship sunk when he was only 21. But Briocoux wasn’t officially declared dead until 2000 though all of the musicians died on April 15th 1912! The French army even called him a deserter when he failed to show up to serve in World War 1.
The French Association of the Titanic worked to clear his name and officially put Briocoux to rest but didn’t succeed until 88 years after the Titanic sank
Hope you enjoyed my fact and thanks for this cool competition and I can’t wait for the new book!
Glad you’re back:) My interesting fact is that just one of the Titanic’s anchors was so heavy, It took twenty horses to pull! I hope it’s interesting, I didn’t have time to research facts, so I went through our many, overflowing, messy bookshelves to find one I had never heard of, and hope you didn’t either so it has a good chance of being interesting! There are so many cool facts on this page! May the best one win! – Shadowblade
Scientists think that a full moon strangely close to earth contributed to the sinking of the titanic. Strong tides caused by the moon could have caused icebergs to move southward, just in time to greet the Titanic. Conditions up in the atmosphere also caused mirages – this was noted by multiple ships sailing the area – which prevented the Titanic’s lookouts from noticing the iceberg in time.
In 1898, an American author named Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility, a book about a boat called the Titan, that hit an iceberg and sank in April. He wrote this book 14 years before the Titanic went down. Later, in 1914 he wrote a short story called Beyond the Spectrum that is about a war between the US and Japan. The book describes a sneak attack, by Japan on the US, among other similarities.
Hello!!
My fact is that the Titanic’s interior was based on the Ritz Hotel!
I love your books so much and I can’t stop reading them!! I have read almost all of your books and am so excited for Iceberg!!
I have already submitted a comment (or 2…) but none are showing up and the deadline is coming soon… so hopefully this one goes through I am trying from another device!! Thanks for doing this giveaway! And thank you for being such an amazing author and writing books where I spend my entire day reading!
Scientists believe that a full moon, strangely close to earth, contributed to the sinking of the ship. Tides caused by this moon could’ve pushed icebergs south just in time to meet the ship. That and conditions in the atmosphere could’ve caused mirages on the water, making it hard for lookouts to see the iceberg until it was too late.
Hi Mrs. Nielsen! I’m so stoked for your new book! Also…screenplay?!
Anyway, here’s my fact:
The most critical iceberg warning never made it to Captain Edward Smith because it was missing the prefix MSG, meaning Masters’ Service Gram. Having MSG would have required the captain to personally acknowledge receipt of the message. Because it did not have the MSG prefix, the senior radio operator did not think the message was important. If the captain had received the message, the crash might have been avoided!
The steel of the Titanic’s hull and the iron rivets were exposed to cold temperatures, high sulfur content, and high speeds. Because of this, something called brittle fracture happened. The steel basically shattered, and the rivets easily popped out. This caused the ship to sink 24 times faster than expected. Also, if the Titanic had hit the iceberg head-on instead of trying to avoid it and scraping it along the starboard side, the ship probably wouldn’t have sunk, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Alfred Nourney, a surviving passenger of the Titanic, made up a fake name and title. Travelling under the false title Baron Alfred von Drachstedt, Nourney used his “aristocratic” status to transfer to first class. As the ship sank, he was able to gain access to a lifeboat from the first class smoking room, unlike the 168 men in his original second class quarters.
The day the Titanic set sail, it passed the ocean liner SS New York. The suction from the Titanic was so strong it yanked the SS New York free from its mooring lines connecting it to the dock. If not for the fast thinking of the Captain, who ordered the crew to release a blast from the ship’s port propeller, a small space between the two ships never would have opened, and the Titanic’s voyage would have come to an early end.
Hi Mrs. Nielsen! So glad you’re back!
I have always wanted an ARC, and especially one of yours.
My fact is that the hanger used to build the Titanic is now a filming location. Game of Thrones is shot there.
Thanks so much and I cannot wait to read this book!
My fun fact is that there were six Chinese passengers on the titanic that were rescued by the carpathia, but were unable to get off the ship in America. Instead they were sent to Cuba, where they seemingly vanished.
Hi Mrs. Nielsen!
My fact is the last remaining survivor of the shipwreck died in 2009… she was only 2 months old when the titanic sank.
This isn’t actually a fact, and I know the event is over, but it’s cool, so you know. Supposedly, there was another ship that was really old and so since it was only going to have one last voyage, they just painted “Titanic” on the side and that’s why it sunk. Probably not true, but it’s interesting to think about.
The closest ship to the Titanic when it sank was 20 kilometers away, well within eyeshot. The SS Californian was a British ship, and the captain decided not to take action due to the number of icebergs surrounding the ship. Kinda ironic.
One of the Titanic’s funnels was not in use it was just for aesthetics, and a novel predicted that the Titanic would sink six years before the Maiden Voyage.