Titanic: 112 years since the legendary shipwreck – Greek passengers and conspiracy theories

Time stood still for the passenger ocean liner Titanic on April 15, 1912, when it struck an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

This miracle of shipbuilding for its time sank forever in the 2nd largest ocean on Earth and led to the death of 1,505 people. The disaster has been called one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history. 112 years have passed since then, and this story will forever remain in our memory, because the sinking of the Titanic has become synonymous with a timeless film that received 11 Oscar awards.

Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches (269.06 m) long, had a maximum beam of 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 m), and had a total height measured from the base of the trophy to the top of the bridge of 104 feet (32 m), 46 328 gross tons, and with a draft of 34 ft 7 in (10.54 m) she had a capacity of 52,310 tons.

A 1997 sentimental drama film written and directed by James Cameron.

The first and last voyage of the Titanic

On this day, the Titanic set sail from Southampton on its maiden voyage, which lasted only four days, when it was struck by an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. It sank two hours and 40 minutes later at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, taking with it more than 1,500 people to their deaths, with at least 700 more in lifeboats watching the tragic event, becoming the most famous shipwreck in history.

Since the sinking of the Titanic, the number of passengers has changed several times. The British Parliament in 1912 concluded that the ship was carrying 2,224 passengers, of whom 900 were crew members. Of these, 711 people were saved, and 1513 died.

The Titanic had 20 lifeboats, designed for 1200 people, and the number of lifeboats was calculated depending on the width of the ship! One… detail that still makes sense today: the ship's orchestra continued to play until the last minute.

The crew first saw the wreckage of the Titanic on September 1, 1985, at a depth of 3,800 meters, 22 kilometers from the place that the cruise ship indicated at the time of its sinking.

Greek passengers of the Titanic

There were four Greeks on board the Titanic. They all came from the village of Agios Sostis in Messinia, and none of them managed to survive. All young people went to the United States in hopes of building a better life for themselves and their families. 30-year-old Panagiotis Liberopoulos was the oldest of the Titanic's Greek passengers and the only one with ties to the United States. According to all known information, he was the owner of a small factory in New York and returned to Greece to witness the baptism of his son.

Despite his wife’s persuasion, a few days later he decided to return to the promised land again. Two other members of his family, the Chronopoulos brothers, decided to travel with him. The elder brother, Apostolos Chronopoulos, was 26 years old and a worker. The young man boarded the Titanic from Cherbourg with his 19-year-old brother Dimitris. The last Greek passenger on the Titanic was 19-year-old Vasilios Katavelis, who hoped to reach Milwaukee, USA. Tragic irony is that both Liberopoulos and Katavelis changed their tickets to be able to travel with the two brothers.

Conspiracy theories surrounding the shipwreck
Such an important event as the sinking of the Titanic has given rise to several theories to explain it. Today, many believe that excessive carbonation to extinguish the ignited coal contributed to the crash, which increased the speed and may have made a collision with the iceberg inevitable.

A new scientific theory about the Titanic's collision with the fatal iceberg is that a rare lunar phenomenon occurred in early January 1912. According to scientists, that month in 1912, the Moon was at its closest distance from the Earth in 1,400 years. This event caused a huge ebb and flow of the tide, and within three months, many icebergs were dislodged from the shallow waters that held them off the coast of Greenland and moved along the sea lanes, eventually ending up in the path of the Titanic, which led to the shipwreck.

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