Titanic's Biggest Myths Debunked
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
History Hit
4.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is it true that third-class passengers were locked below decks? Or that more lifeboats would have saved more lives? Did the band really play as the Titanic went down? Anthony is joined once again by the marvellous Gareth Russell to debunk the myths around the disaster. Gareth's book is The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era.
Research by Phoebe Joyce. Edited by Hannah Feodorov. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.
For tickets to see Anthony and Maddy talking about her new book, Hoax, click here: https://www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/event/hoax/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone, it's me, Maddie. I am back. Well, not quite. I will be back on the pod very soon. But in the meantime, if you've missed your fix of Anthony and me together, you can now catch us live on stage at Conway Hall in London on the 7th of May. There we'll be discussing my brand new book, |
| 0:22.4 | Hoax, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment, out that very same day. We'll be discovering |
| 0:28.7 | how fake news is nothing new, chatting about what it's like to spend time in the darker side |
| 0:34.6 | of the Georgian world, and meeting the three extraordinary, bizarre and |
| 0:39.3 | often frightening characters at the heart of the book. Cops of hoax will be available on the |
| 0:44.9 | night, which I'll be signing after the show and hopefully chatting to as many of you as possible. |
| 0:49.6 | So get your tickets now. The link is in the show notes. You can go to the Conway Hall website |
| 0:53.7 | or follow the link in my Instagram bio. I link is in the show notes. You can go to the Conway Hall website or follow |
| 0:54.3 | the link in my Instagram bio. I'm so excited about this book and I just can't wait to share it |
| 1:00.4 | with you all. Do come along. It is going to be the most fantastic evening. See you there. |
| 1:18.5 | To me, she looked like an enormous glowworm, for she was a light from the rising water line to the stern, |
| 1:23.9 | electric lights blazing in every cabin on all the decks and at her masked heads. |
| 1:30.3 | This was how one passenger described the harrowing scene before him as the Titanic heaved out of the freezing water. In 1912, in the early hours of April 15th, a total of 1,496 people died in the sinking of the Titanic. Witnesses later described an ungodly roar as the ship split in two, furniture crashing, engines whining, passengers screaming. Then came an eerie quiet as the unsinkable ship disappeared beneath the waves. Over a hundred years later, why is it that we still can't |
| 2:03.5 | look away? What really happened when the ship went down? What myths have endured? And what do we |
| 2:09.9 | know about the people for whom this tragedy was a reality? From the freezing depths of the |
| 2:15.6 | Atlantic, this is After Dark. I'm Anthony. and I'm Gareth. And this week we have had an email from a listener called Ian. And you can get in touch just like Ian did at After Dark at HistoryHit.com. If you have any questions you want to ask us or any suggestions for episodes. But Ian's email is this. |
| 3:08.0 | He says, how about the story of the RMS Titanic? |
| 3:11.1 | Was it the Titanic or its sister ship RMS Olympic that sank? |
| 3:15.1 | What about the people on the lower deck? |
| 3:16.8 | What was their story? |
| 3:18.2 | And did the band play as the ship went down? |
| 3:22.4 | To help me answer those questions is none other than my guest co-host this |
... |
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