Some stories were never supposed to be told. Stories that exist in the twilight, between

science and the supernatural, between history and the form. Stories that speak of terrifying

things. Stories that you want to hear. Stories that you need to hear. Stories that will

sink their teeth in and never let you go. My name is Mike Brown and this is Pleasing

Terrors.

Please stay tuned after the episode for a special preview of the new podcast Monster Madness.

Pleasing Terrors Podcast Episode 36 through a glass darkly.

It is one of the most famous stories in existence, a tragedy that ushered in an age of tragedies.

On the night of April 14, 1912, the massive luxury liner RMS Titanic, a ship over 800 feet

in length, cruised the icy waters of the North Atlantic, 370 miles south of Newfoundland,

carrying over 2,000 passengers and crew. It had been the largest ship in the world and

it only recently been eclipsed by its sister ship and the white star line the Britannic

a few months early. It carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as some

of the poorest. All of them protected from disaster by watertight compartments and what they

thought to be an unreachable halt. Everyone on board would soon discover that this was not true.

Traveling at full speed, the ship entered an area known as Iceberg Alley, a vast field of ice

flows containing immense icebergs, some of which towered over 200 feet high. Shortly before midnight,

a lookout spotted one of these directly in the path of the ship. An attempt was made to steer

around it, but they were too late, and the starboard side of the Titanic struck the iceberg,

causing whole plates to buckle and allowing water to begin seeping into the interior.

The ship was safe, so long as no more than 4 of its 16 watertight compartments were compromised.

The collision had ruptured five of them. There was nothing that could be done. The Titanic was doomed.

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