The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the best remembered nautical disasters in history. Over 1500 passengers died after the luxury ocean liner struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic in April 1912. Since that time there have been many more disasters at sea that have been deadlier and arguably more historically consequential. And yet, all of those subsequent tragedies are still dwarfed in public memory by the Titanic. This is at least partially due to the fact that the Titanic story has been so thoroughly embraced by pop-culture. But, it goes deeper than that. Perhaps the reason the Titanic story has been so embraced by novelists, playwrights and screenwriters is because it is, what one scholar has called, a “modern myth par excellence.” But, has this myth clouded our understanding of the historical facts? Tune-in and find out how a giant vengeful bird, an icy representation of nature’s supremacy, and K-Ci and Jojo all play a role in the story.
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