Titanic: The Anniversary

Today marks the 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. In a mere three years, the centennial of this tragic event will come upon us, and I imagine that it will spur interest anew just like the 1997 movie did. Tons of books and other materials were published that year and hardly a day went by that our library didn't acquire some new book on the subject as interest peaked. In the ensuing years, interest has waned, but I fully expect it to ramp up again in another few years when the centennial anniversary of this event comes around. I know that I first became interested when I saw the movie "A Night to Remember" with Loretta Young, many long years ago now. I suppose, also, that my interest in things like shipwrecks and sea life in general comes from many years of watching "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" as a kid. Shows like that and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" were staples of my childhood and fostered in me a great interest in the natural world. My interest in shipwrecks was further piqued some years ago when some friends and I went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to view the exhibit of items brought up from the wreck of the "Mary Rose", the flagship of King Henry VIII's Royal Navy, which sank in The Solent in 1545, taking over 700 men to their deaths, as Henry watched in horror from shore. Seeing actual items from a shipwreck like that and knowing that they were used and worn by actual people really appealed the archaeologist in me (it was my college minor, after all). A few years ago, the Great Lakes Science Center hosted an exhibit on the Titanic and I got to see items brought up from that shipwreck and it was terribly poignant to see things that you knew belonged to people and may even have been worn or used by them at the time of the great ship's sinking. I know that some folks regard taking things from that shipwreck and putting them on display as grave robbing, but I find it perfectly fascinating to see all those items from the most famous ship in the world, and I think people deserve to see those things instead of leaving them at the bottom of the ocean to rot and be forgotten. It gives us a picture of what life on board that ship was like for various classes of people, whether they were Third, Second or First Class passengers. I've seen other shipwreck remains in other museums as well, like items recovered from the pirate ship "Whydah" up along Cape Cod, that took pirate Black Sam Bellamy and all but two shipmates, who survived to tell the tale, to their deaths back in 1717. To see stuff from an actual pirate ship was utterly fascinating, given the many legends about pirates that one grows up on. That exhibit was in a museum in Provincetown, MA, my older sister's hometown, and I saw it while visiting her back in 1992. I imagine that since then a lot more has been recovered, and someday I will get back up there and see if there is another exhibit of that shipwreck's remains to visit. So in the meantime, I will remain fascinated by historical ships and shipwrecks. I hope that in 2012, a Titanic Centennial will be observed and interest in that ship will start up anew, with some new books and materials about possible new information regarding the most famous ship in the world. Maybe James Cameron will finally release a "director's cut" of his famous movie about it, with the deleted scenes newly included. Well, one can hope, but I rather doubt he'll oblige the many fans who'd love to see it.