Morgan Robertson was born on September 30, 1861, the son of a sailing captain on the great American lakes, and was a sailor himself for several years. Later, he studied jewelry making, but when it turned out that work setting diamonds was damaging his eyesight, he decided to become a writer. This is how he began to write stories about what he knew best, which was the sea. His works were published by the most widely read American magazines. One novella in particular has gone down in the history of literature – “The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility”. The book was published under the Polish title “The Fall of the Titan”.
People said he predicted the Titanic disaster 14 years before the tragedy
The plot of the story focuses on the huge transatlantic passenger ship SS Titan, which is considered the fastest in the world and, of course, unsinkable. As a consequence, there are too few lifeboats on board. Like the real one, the huge liner was built in Great Britain and sets sail in April. As a result of the collision with the iceberg, he goes to the bottom, which ends with the death of almost all passengers and crew members. This alone would be enough to conclude that the author predicted a real shipwreck with surprising precision. But there were more similarities.
The author even wrote that Titan would survive a head-on collision with an iceberg, but there is too much damage to one of the sides. The book ship also has dimensions similar to the Titanic – Morgan wrote about 244 meters long, while the real British liner measured 268 meters. The equipment of the ships was also similar: each of them had three propellers, and there was a similar number of lifeboats on board. Titan had 24 and Titanic 20. Titan collided with the iceberg at 25 knots, and Titanic 22.5. The disaster in the book occurred shortly before midnight – it is assumed that the Titanic began to sink at 11.40 pm. In addition, the disaster occurs in both cases in a similar area of the Atlantic Ocean near Newfoundland.
Historian George DeMass in the “Titanic Historical Society” even wrote that “religious people were convinced that Robertson was endowed with the grace of prophecy, and that ‘Titanic Falls’ was divinely inspired.” Others said that the writer was actually a clairvoyant, and he himself definitely dismantled such rumors. Historians believe that the similarities he described resulted from his extensive knowledge of how ships were built in that era and professional experience. The Titan book was reissued after the Titanic disaster, with the author altering the content to even more closely match the description of a real shipwreck.
The novella “The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility” wasn’t the only time Morgan showed far-sightedness or just a good idea of what the engineers were working on. In 1905 he wrote the book “The Submarine Destroyer”. In it, he described a submarine equipped with a device called a periscope – he later claimed that he developed the construction of the device, but he failed to obtain a patent due to legal and technical tricks.
How the Titanic rose and sank
Titanic was commissioned by the British shipping company White Star Line. Construction of the ship began exactly on March 31, 1909. Even before the liner’s maiden voyage, the opinion that it was an “unsinkable ship” began to circulate. The company that manufactured the bulkheads used in the construction boasted that the ship with their devices was “nearly unsinkable”. The public picked it up and at the same time stopped paying attention to the word “right”. The Titanic was undoubtedly the largest and most luxurious in its class at the time.
The ship was launched on May 31, 1911, and made her first voyage to New York on April 10, 1912. There were 2,207 people on board at the time. Four days later, the ship collided with an iceberg and sank. Only 712 survived the disaster. The remains of the passenger ship rest about 600 km off the coast of Newfoundland. The two parts of the liner lie on the ocean floor at a depth of 3,800 m and are 800 m apart. The wreck of the ship was found only on September 1, 1985.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
