People reached the South Pole before the Titanic sank.
Amundsen planted his flag there on 14 December 1911; the liner went down four months later, in April 1912.
The events
- Amundsen reaches the South Pole1911 · South Pole. On 14 December 1911 Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition became the first to reach the South Pole. Robert Falcon Scott's British party arrived five weeks later and perished on the return. The race became a symbol of the heroic age of polar exploration.
- Sinking of the Titanic1912 · North Atlantic. On the night of 15 April 1912 the Titanic, the largest liner of its day, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. About 1,500 people died: there were lifeboats for only half of those on board. The disaster led to the first international convention on safety of life at sea.
More amazing facts
- 1909 · 1915 There are colour photographs of the Russian Empire over a century old. In 1909–1915 Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky toured the country in a darkroom railway car provided by Nicholas II, shooting everything through three colour filters.
- 1909 · 1910 Leo Tolstoy corresponded with Gandhi.
- 1910 In 1910 people bought 'comet pills'. Astronomers had found poisonous cyanogen in Halley's Comet's tail, which Earth was due to pass through, and hucksters sold pills and gas masks.
- 1911 · 1912 · 1916 Stewardess Violet Jessop was aboard all three sister liners in their hour of disaster: Olympic's collision in 1911, Titanic's sinking in 1912 and Britannic's in 1916.
- 1912 · 1948 From 1912 to 1948 Olympic medals were awarded for poems, music and paintings.
- 1912 · 1960 The meteorologist who said continents move was mocked for half a century.