The Titanic Part 2: The Voyage, The Iceberg, The Aftermath

In this episode of The Compendium, we continue our Titanic story as we set sail across the Atlantic within this engineering marvel, we explore the luxury and daily life aboard the ship, providing insights into the lives of both passengers and crew. 

We'll uncover the intricate details behind why the Titanic sank and the aftermath of this catastrophe. By examining the ship's design, the events leading up to the collision, and the harrowing experiences of those on board, we shed light on the legacy this disaster left behind.

We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:

1. "A Night to Remember" by Walter Lord
2. "Titanic" Wikipedia
3. "Titanic: The Tragedy Begins" The rest is history
4. “The official Titanic Museum” website
5. "Titanic” by James Cameron

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Credits:

• Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
• Intro and Outro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland by Aleksey Chistilin
• All the Latest Things Intro: Clowns by Giulio Fazio

Transcript

[EPISODE 68] The Titanic Part 2: The Voyage, The Iceberg, The Aftermath

Kyle Risi: Well, emily was in the lifeboat with a nine year old son frankie, emily was cuddling him, trying to shield him from seeing what was happening. But of course he could hear everything 

Kyle Risi: So years later, he lives near the detroit tigers baseball stadium And he says that every time the team would hit a home run, the sound of the crowds roaring brought back memories of the sounds of those 1, 500 people all just freezing to death in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Kyle Risi: The thing that most survivors remember is not the horror of what they saw, but it was the sound and some describe this as a swarm of locusts on a midsummer night in the woods of Pennsylvania. 

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the compendium and assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We're a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing. We dive into stories pulled from the darker corners of true crime, the annuls of your old unread history books, and the who's who of extraordinary people.

Kyle Risi: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. I'm Kyle Recy. And I'm Adam Cox. And in today's compendium, we are diving into an assembly of Grand Voyages and Iceberg Follies. This is the second part of our Titanic series. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, no, the first part, um, it was really good.

Adam Cox: We covered, we covered a lot of ground in that in terms of the history of the Titanic and some of its people. 

Kyle Risi: And that's the thing though, it's the people that really make the story. So now that we have like a real connection. To some of the people on board. It's going to make what eventually happens to the titanic just Strike us even more in the fields, 

Adam Cox: Yeah, like the you ended on the the guy or the kid that just turned 16.

Kyle Risi: Oh the goldsmith family Yeah, that was rush. 

Adam Cox: That was really sad how he Decided to become a man 

Kyle Risi: And not get onto the lifeboat. 

Adam Cox: Yeah 

Kyle Risi: There's loads of different stories like that in the titanic which just is just so heartbreaking. So Adam, we left off last week. We had just set sail on the grandest ship of them all, the Titanic. We explored the ship's origins, its ambitious conception, and the incredible array of passengers on board. 

Kyle Risi: But today, we continue this epic voyage as we relive the final days of the Titanic from its departure to the moment it met its icy fate in the Atlantic. 

Kyle Risi: So I want you to prepare yourself for a gripping conclusion of our Titanic series. But of course, in old fashioned Compendium style, it's time for all the latest things! 

Kyle Risi: So this is the segment of our show where we catch up on all the week's happenings share a quick tidbit strange fact Or laugh at a bit of weird news from the past week. So adam, what have you got for us today? 

Adam Cox: So this week, my, I've got two mini stories. Okay. Let's do this. They're about precious metals.

Kyle Risi: Okay. The blandest subject you could possibly think of, and you're bringing it to the table on all the latest things. It's not, how do you, why is this the bland, blandest subject? I don't know, precious metals. It's like Sheldon from Big Bang geologists, right? 

Adam Cox: Well, I think once you hear the story, you'll realize, actually, it's quite interesting.

Kyle Risi: We will see. 

Adam Cox: Okay. Fire away. So, my first story is linked to silver, although it might not have been silver, to be honest. It might have been like, I don't know, nickel or something. But anyway, it was a necklace that a man was wearing. So, you know those really heavy metal chains that guys tend to wear? 

Kyle Risi: The, uh, the kebab shop owners . 

Adam Cox: Yeah. So this one was about, 10 millimeters thick. So it's quite a, a sturdy, that's like a centimeter, right? Yeah. Wow. Okay. So pretty thick. Yeah. So a guy that was wearing one of these silver necklaces. Ended up getting shot with a 22 caliber bullet, and the only reason he's still alive is the fact that his necklace stopped the bullet from piercing his skin.

Adam Cox: Really? 

Kyle Risi: Wow, you hear like these stories all the time, especially like during the war and stuff, where this guy's like, I only survived because I was wearing my Bible in my pocket, and like the bullet lodged into that. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I think it's incredible because obviously a centimetre either side and that would have gone through his neck and would have killed him for absolute sure. But yeah, a necklace, um, a bit of bling allowed this person to survive. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, it's a lesson to us all out there, right? We should just wear a bit of bling. Yeah, so Wearing bling saves lives. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, if you think it's too much, actually, it could be doing you a favour. 

Kyle Risi: It's like, uh, the famous Coco Chanel thing, like, before you leave the house, always take one thing off. It's like, no, put one thing on. Yeah,

Adam Cox: and make it heavy. 

Kyle Risi: It can save your life. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so that was my silver story. And so my next story is about gold. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: So a lady, a flight attendant, has been arrested for smuggling gold into India. 

Kyle Risi: Let me guess, up her bum. 

Adam Cox: Yep, up her bum. Ha 

Kyle Risi: ha ha, God!

Kyle Risi: How many up the butt smuggling stories can you come up with? 

Adam Cox: Well, I just thought people would put drugs up there, but didn't realise that you could put gold up there. 

Kyle Risi: Adam, I'm surprised that it's only drugs that you think that you could put up there. 

Adam Cox: Fair enough, but um, The thing that, so um, Authorities I think had cottoned on to this woman I think they kind of Um, had some inclination that maybe She was doing something shifty 

Kyle Risi: So she was saying like, oh I'm just 125 pounds And like, okay ma'am could you step on the scale please Ma'am, You are like 200 pounds.

Kyle Risi: What is going on? It's like, it's just the way, it's just the lighting. It's the angles. 

Adam Cox: Um, yeah, I think what happened was she was on a flight. It was a three hour flight, from Oman to, um, well, I don't really matter where she was going. But the point was, I think she had 960 grams of gold that she was smuggling.

Kyle Risi: That's a kilo, man. Yeah,

Adam Cox: pretty much a kilo that she had in her bum. 

Adam Cox: And the fact that she had so much I think made the police realize that she was a professional smuggler because you don't just start off with a kilogram of gold. 

Kyle Risi: No, like you got to work your way up to that. 

Adam Cox: Like a couple of coins or something. I don't know. Oh, so what kind of gold was it? Um, not, I'm not sure what shape it was.

Adam Cox: Um, but maybe gold bars or coins. Not raw 

Kyle Risi: gold, like straight from the ground or jaggedy. 

Adam Cox: I don't think so. I think this is kind of like, nicely done. Why was she smuggling 

Kyle Risi: it? 

Adam Cox: Um, I assume to maybe make some coin on the side. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, you don't think that she was a mule? Do you think that she was acting alone?

Adam Cox: Oh no, she was probably a mule. I don't know. I'm not quite sure. I didn't, I didn't get into the detail of why she was doing it. But she was a smuggler. I assume she's connected to some network. Because apparently it's quite common in India. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, okay. Well, I mean, let's address now the next thing.

Kyle Risi: Your obsession with bringing butt smuggling things to this podcast is just, I mean, the ratio is way too high. Something, something is up. 

Adam Cox: Well if it isn't butt smuggling, it's poo. 

Kyle Risi: And actually, we're going to come on to my all the latest things in a minute. 

Adam Cox: Is it about poo? It is 

Kyle Risi: about poo again, unfortunately.

Kyle Risi: But the last one that you brought up was about the guy smuggling those animals. I think, did you not smuggle some birds up his bum? I don't know if they were up 

Adam Cox: his 

Kyle Risi: bum. Oh no, that was in his pants. Just in his pants that he had some 

Adam Cox: animals. So, um, someone was like, Sir, your, your finger's moving. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, like something's wiggling down there.

Kyle Risi: It's just my butt cheeks. It's like two little piglets wrestling in there. 

Adam Cox: But yeah, now maybe we should rename this segment. To what? Um, all the latest Smuggling Smuggling Hantics. Hantics, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: I think we've got some merch coming up with uh, some smuggling stuff. Maybe we should, maybe there's an opportunity there.

Adam Cox: Yeah, so on, on a t shirt we could have um, what's in your bum? What's up your butt?

Kyle Risi: So my all the latest things is, well you know like how the French what are they most famous for? 

Adam Cox: Well um, cheese. Okay, let's think more politically. Being rude. 

Kyle Risi: Politically being rude. Well, they love a good protest, don't they?

Kyle Risi: Yes. They love a good protest, but there's a big protest coming up very soon. Because, as we know, the Olympics is happening in Paris this year. And the French are very, very, very miffed about some of the, uh, Things that the government have been doing to prepare for the Olympics.

Kyle Risi: The old classic things, you're spending too much and like how you're going to be giving back to the communities and all these different things. One of the things was that the, President of France was saying that he was going to be using the Seine as, which is obviously the main river that goes through France, as, uh, Is that the Seine?

Kyle Risi: The Seine, yes. It's Kyle Riese here, so terrible pronunciation. I was thinking, 

Adam Cox: what roadside?

Kyle Risi: So this week there was an article in the paper that I read, um, by a guy called Jerry Thornton and he's discussing an upcoming protest that's planned by the French citizens against the Paris Olympics and it's scheduled for the 23rd of June this year, 2024.

Kyle Risi: Now the protest is going to involve participants defecating in the river Sen. Why? So this is going to symbolize apparently their dissatisfaction with the government's handling of various issues including The significant investment in cleaning the sign ready for the Olympic Games and they don't believe that the government has actually undertaken the process of cleaning the sign because there's been no signs of that happening, right?

Adam Cox: So what have the government said they've been doing exactly? 

Kyle Risi: I've no idea. Okay. But apparently to prove that the sign is clean, And is going to be worthy of some Olympic events taking place on the sign, like rowing and swimming and things like that. The President of France, along with some other dude, is going to, on the 23rd, take a swim through the sign.

Kyle Risi: And the French are beside themselves by this. So they've created this massive, huge campaign on social media to make the 23rd of June shit in the sign day. So they're all going to come along and they're going to throw shit and they're going to take shits in the sign. So when the president comes along and does his little swim, he's going to just swim through everyone's crap.

Kyle Risi: I

Adam Cox: can't, are people actually going to do this? 

Kyle Risi: I don't know, but Adam, like there are hashtags everywhere. Like people are really seriously drumming up support for this. People have even started putting sculptures of toilets along the river, you can sometimes get these little steps to take you down to kind of the water level.

Kyle Risi: And each step is a toilet, they've just put a toilet on there. I guess just to symbolise that this thing is coming up. So people are proper like 

Adam Cox: I can just imagine all these bums hanging over the edge and all these poops popping into the water. 

Kyle Risi: I would actually just get into the river and just do it there.

Kyle Risi: Because it's easier, right? It's just going to slip out. 

Adam Cox: No, I, I, I want to see 

Kyle Risi: Oh, you want to see some peps coming out of butts. I

Adam Cox: want to see all the bums. I think that'd be more comical. Gross, but more comical. 

Kyle Risi: But I must say, like, this is two episodes in a row now, and both episodes, all the latest things, have had something to do with poop, or butts, or smuggling.

Adam Cox: I'm gonna blame the algorithm. The algorithms. 

Kyle Risi: So, yeah, they've got this planned, and unfortunately this episode's not gonna Come out until obviously after it's happened But by the time it does happen, we'll probably have an update to see what the 23rd is like So i'm well excited for that.

Adam Cox: Cool. 

Kyle Risi: But yeah, that's all my latest things for this week. Should we get on with the show? Let's do it 

Kyle Risi: so adam as we discussed in the last episode all the passengers are now on board the titanic and it's finally time to set sail Across the atlantic to new york city You And the voyage is expected to take five days and so far everything is going smoothly There's nothing out of the ordinary About the conditions at this point. The only thing is that the atlantic ocean is incredibly calm and still possibly like a foreboding 

Adam Cox: a bit too 

Kyle Risi: calm a bit too calm suspiciously calm It's like a foreboding or a warning from the gods like the calm before the storm If you know what I will.

Kyle Risi: Now on board the ship It's abuzz with activity passengers from all classes are enjoying the facilities, they're playing cards. They're relaxing on the decks It's quite literally An amazing time for literally everyone on board as we said we debunked some of the myths in the previous episode about how a lot of people believe that third class was this Environment of squalor with rats and like rations and things like that. 

Kyle Risi: But actually for some of the passengers in third class even this was like some of the best food that they've ever had Really exotic they were getting three meals a day, which is really out of the ordinary. 

Kyle Risi: And also they had loads of space and remember the titanic wasn't even at full capacity It was less than half full because at this time in history shipping was an extremely Saturated kind of competitive market with loads of different kind of companies competing to transport people across the the atlantic ocean 

Kyle Risi: So on sunday the 14th of april captain edward smith. Remember, he's mr. Birdseye Oh, yeah, so he's hosting a church service for the first class passengers In the main dining saloon at 10 30 a. m in the morning.

Kyle Risi: And because it was Sunday, the ship was supposed to have a lifeboat drill, which was standard practice for the White Star, but just to add, regulations didn't require this, it was being done out of White Star's concern for health and safety, and it was also something that passengers liked seeing on previous liners.

Adam Cox: Right, okay. 

Kyle Risi: It was almost like a show, know what I mean? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess it does make someone filled with confidence if they see procedures being done right. 

Kyle Risi: I'm not getting the sense that this reassuring people, I think is more for the show. Okay. Pretty much. Yeah, nice strapping kind of crewman, checking the lifeboats, doing a little fire drill, 

Adam Cox: but when you're on an airplane and they do like their safety inspection or the safety drill thing with, where the exits are and they put the thing over their neck, is that a show? 

Kyle Risi: But does it fill you with reassurance though? I mean, they do it so half arsedly. Do you know what I mean?

Adam Cox: It's, I always find it quite funny when they do the bit where they put the mask over their face or they pretend to do that. And obviously you can see like the, the string around it is all really grubby and they hold it away from their face. It's like, Ooh, this is gross. I don't want to 

Kyle Risi: touch it. You're good. You're going to save my life, but I don't want to touch it. 

Adam Cox: But yeah, sorry. Your story. 

Kyle Risi: The thing is though, these lifeboat drills weren't really something that captains liked to do because it was just a major faff and would often take the crew away from their normal duties. So usually this was considered a bit of a disruption. Now that morning conditions were a little bit windy, which gave Captain Smith the perfect opportunity to cancel the drill.

Kyle Risi: And the cold wind that seemed to breeze over the ship just seemed to come out of nowhere. And initially passengers were out enjoying the deck after lunch when all of a sudden this cold breeze just drifted over the ship. So many passengers just returned indoors to spend the rest of the afternoon playing cars, playing bridge and things like that.

Kyle Risi: And as we mentioned in the last episode, the Titanic also amazingly had a printing press on board which they used to kind of print newspapers. And this was possible because the ship was fitted with a Marconi wireless machine that allowed the Titanic to communicate with land.

Kyle Risi: And this was wildly popular on board because of course this was the maiden voyage of the Titanic so passengers were queuing up to send their messages. But by Friday evening, the Marconi device actually broke down and a huge backlog of messages started to mount up and the operators had to work flat out to try and catch up.

Kyle Risi: Now this is going to be very important for explaining what happens next. 

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: Because it wasn't just newspapers and messages that they were exchanging back and forth over the Atlantic. They were also getting messages from other ships and amongst these messages was a warning about the unusually large amount of ice that was drifting down from the north. And of course, winter had been unusually mild this year. So a lot of ice had broken off and was now floating down through the North Atlantic. 

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: So they received the first message of this nature on friday from a ship called the La Touraine and basically it was saying that other ships should watch out and be careful and There was a bit of a delay getting these messages to the relevant people because of course as we mentioned the Marconi operators were battling against that backlog. So by Sunday, three more messages had been received from the Cunard Line, the Koronia and also the Noordam, again all warning against ice in the Atlantic.

Kyle Risi: Now the question is whether or not Captain Smith received these messages. We know that he at the very least received one of them, and there is very little doubt that he received the others too. However, because different people were being handed these warnings every few hours amongst a whole load of other messages and instructions, They sort of kind of got put down and overlooked.

Kyle Risi: It's argued that if they had kind of like all been handed these messages in one go, then maybe someone would have been able to collate them and potentially understand the seriousness of the situation, maybe take them a bit more seriously. 

Adam Cox: Right. So the, they had different messages from different ships?

Kyle Risi: Different messages from different ships, but really sporadic. Okay. And they weren't given with any urgency. They were given to different people. But the point is, is that if they'd all been kept together and seen together, they would probably be taken more seriously.

Kyle Risi: Right, with you. 

Kyle Risi: The one that we know that he did receive, this is Captain Smith, was from the Nordam, Which was handed to him on the way to Sunday lunch that afternoon. We know that he actually handed this letter to Bruce Isme. As you remember, Bruce Isme is the guy who actually runs the white star line.

Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm. . And apparently he read it, he folded it up, and then he put it in his pocket. And then later during the lunch, ISME actually showed this note to a few other people in first class, but nothing came of it. 

Kyle Risi: Later that evening, we know that Captain Smith asked for it back to show the crew, but as far as we know, he never actually showed it to them.

Kyle Risi: It's guessed that Captain Smith wouldn't have been overly concerned by this anyway, because as we discussed, ships like the Titanic, they were literally built to ram into icebergs and just carry on, right? 

Adam Cox: Right, okay. 

Kyle Risi: And in the film there is that scene where Ismay tries to convince the captain to go faster so they can reach New York ahead of schedule and grab headlines.

Kyle Risi: Do you remember that scene? 

Adam Cox: Yes I do, yeah.

Kyle Risi: And it's kind of like this foreshadowing scene that tries to implicate, this is the reason why the Titanic sank. Because if it wasn't going fast enough, then maybe they might have had an opportunity to miss the iceberg. Right. But the reality is that there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that scene actually happened.

Kyle Risi: And in fact, the Titanic was probably never put into its top speed ever on that ship. As we discussed in the last episode, The White Star wasn't known for speed. It was known kind of more for luxury and comfort. And we know this because in a subsequent inquiry that happened after the Titanic sunk, according to some of the surviving engine crew, the Titanic wasn't even running all of its spoilers. So it never was going at that top speed. It was just cruising along at 22 knots per hour. 

Adam Cox: And does it need to get that top speed to crack through an iceberg? No, not at all. 

Kyle Risi: Just, it will just ram through the iceberg and it should be fine. So even if they were going faster, holding kind of speed accounts before the Titanic hit in the iceberg is silly because 

Kyle Risi: it wasn't even common practice for ships to even slow down when going through these ice fields Anyway

Kyle Risi: if there was anything to be concerned about it would have been how unbelievably calm the sea was On the night of the 14th of april and reports say that the sea was literally like glass And because of this it made it very difficult to see icebergs in the water because when you're looking out for them it's the swell that the iceberg creates at the waterline that gives them away.

Kyle Risi: So a calm ocean just made it a lot harder to kind of see them. So that evening, Captain Smith was dining with the Wideners. Remember, that's their son, Harry, who's the guy who bought the 1598 copy of Francis Bacon's essays on board. Mm hmm. He's the one who looks like Eddie Munster 

Kyle Risi: And the thing is that many people argue that the captain shouldn't even been out having dinner with passengers at all And they see this as like a major negligence on his part. But the thing is that it was quite literally the captain's job to be around the passengers and to be seen engaging with them and having dinner and hosting these church services and things like that.

Kyle Risi: So yeah, like it's his job. 

Adam Cox: He has his deputy that takes over. Oh my 

Kyle Risi: God. And not just one deputy. He's got like a second officer, a third officer and a fourth officer, even a fifth officer as well. He's got a whole crew there. 

Adam Cox: And they probably paid. I mean, that's a common thing for having dinner with the captain, isn't it, on a cruise ship, and people pay for that.

Adam Cox: It's 

Kyle Risi: a priv Exactly, it's a privilege. Yeah. So this meant that the person in charge of the ship that evening was supposed to be, Charles Lightoller. Only, he had just finished his shift, and the third officer had taken over, and this was a guy called William Murdoch. And it's these two men who will play pivotal roles in deciding Who lived and who died once the Titanic started loading passengers onto lifeboats?

Kyle Risi: Wow, so the Titanic was cruising along at 22 knots per hour it's a clear night with the sea as clear as glass and the ship had six lookouts two of them were in the crow's nest.

Kyle Risi: This was a guy called Lee and the other one was called Frederick Fleet. Now at around 11 40 p. m that night they see a dark shape emerging dead ahead in the ship's path and Fleet decides to telephone the bridge and he gets through to William Murdoch and reports an iceberg. Is dead ahead right in their path 

Kyle Risi: So william murdoch then makes a decision that will be fatal to the titanic rather than just continuing straight ahead and ramming the iceberg Straight on which if you recall from the first episode the ship is fitted with these four water type bulkheads in the front of the ship Which means that if it's breached it would mean the ship would be absolutely fine.

Kyle Risi: He thinks Instead he can potentially clear the iceberg, right? So he turns the ship towards starboard and he instructs the engines to begin reversing, but spotted the iceberg too late and they were going too far. So what ends up happening is that the Titanic ends up grazing the iceberg and shedding a large gash along its side.

Kyle Risi: Now this is significant for two reasons. Remember along the body of the ship, the bulkheads only came up around 10 feet above the waterline. We explained this all in the first episode. Now normally this wouldn't be an issue if the iceberg hadn't ripped a hole across multiple bulkheads. If it was just one, fine.

Kyle Risi: Two, fine. Three, fine. Four, again fine. Any more than that we've got problems. So 

Adam Cox: how many did it actually rip across? Six. Six. Oh that's, and how many other on one side? Eight. 

Kyle Risi: I don't know. Yeah, probably. No, there's 16 total, so I don't know how many there are, but it's a big, massive gash. It's like half 

Adam Cox: the side of the boat.

Kyle Risi: That's it. So what this means is that even if they shut the bulkhead gates, enough compartments have been breached that the ship would eventually start to tip, and the more the ship tipped, the more water would then spill over into the next compartment, kick starting a cascade of water filling more and more compartments. Causing it to tip even more and so on and so on before it's then too late and then the ship is about to sink 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so do you think if Captain Birdseye, essentially, if he had been on Duty and not having dinner, he might have taken a different action considering his knowledge and everything like that.

Kyle Risi: What an incredible question Who knows? Maybe Because, I mean, he's more experienced, right? 

Adam Cox: Even though he did have two crashes. 

Kyle Risi: Two little mishaps in the last eight months. Yeah. But, who knows? It's a really great question. 

Adam Cox: Because I guess someone less experienced might think, Oh, that's perhaps the best thing to do to avoid it.

Adam Cox: But actually, maybe someone more experienced would have calculated the speed and gone, Actually, no, we're better off doing that. 

Kyle Risi: What a great question. I don't know. So, here is an account from a steward called James Witter. on what it was like when the ship grazed the iceberg. So he says that he was in the second class smoking room when it happened and he was busy clearing up there.

Kyle Risi: They were around about 40 other passengers just playing cards in the main smoking room. Now normally this wouldn't be allowed on a Sunday. But because this was the maiden voyage of the Titanic, they just relaxed the rules for his maiden voyage.

Kyle Risi: Now, James says that all of a sudden the ship just shuddered slightly and then everything just seemed normal. Like they just went back to just doing what they were doing. Others said it was like a mild rumble that they heard and like a grating sound that just echoed. Through the ship's bones, if you will.

Kyle Risi: It was almost like it was riding over gravel Others described it as a kind of a sort of clattering noise and other people have said it was like riding over marbles.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, I imagine it must have sounded different depending on where you were in the ship, right?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess so, but ultimately however you describe it at this point. Nobody was concerned in the ship Everything literally just seemed normal. Now, by this point, Captain Smith had already gone to bed, and so he was made aware of the situation, and from this point onwards, there would be a total of 2 hours and 40 minutes before the Titanic would sink beneath the ocean.

Adam Cox: And what day was this? This was a Sunday. Yeah. And the trip takes about five days, so how far away were they from New York? 

Kyle Risi: So they weren't that far away from New York, I think they only had like another day to go.

Adam Cox: Yeah, so they could have been in New York within 24 hours, perhaps, pretty close.

Kyle Risi: So Captain Smith orders that all the bulkheads be closed immediately. But of course what he didn't know was that more than six of the compartments along the body of the ship had already been breached meaning that the ship would begin to tip as it slowly took on more and more water.

Kyle Risi: So at this moment in time, the ship has come to a complete stop. Now, everything was just silence, almost deafening, because what normally happens is that with the rumble of the engine, that becomes just the, the normal kind of sound. So when everything has stopped, you notice it, right? And this is pretty much the first time the ship has stopped since they departed.

Kyle Risi: So it's very obvious. Now, a few passengers started inquiring about what had happened, but the stewards just reassured them that everything was fine. And the ship's engines would start up again in a few moments. The last thing that anyone wanted was to just cause a panic and then potentially result in a stampede.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, even if that was the case, that they knew something really bad was happening, no one knew anything was wrong. Not even the stewards, because remember, the Titanic was an unsinkable ship. 

Kyle Risi: So Lady Duff Gordon, remember she's our underwear mogul, knickers and bras.

Adam Cox: And her suitcases. 

Kyle Risi: And her suitcases.

Kyle Risi: So she said that. If it wasn't for the stewards reassuring passengers at that point, there would have been a lot more people saved. But of course, it's also true that there just weren't enough lifeboats for everyone on board. But what we'll come to learn later on is that when the lifeboats were being launched, many, in fact most, still had spaces available. In fact, Adam. Some of them would be less than half. 

Adam Cox: That's crazy to think about that. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And you're going to understand why that happened in a few moments because it's, it does become very chaotic and very panicky. People are desperate to just get these lifeboats launched.

Kyle Risi: So slowly the word spreads and the captain wants everyone to start preparing the passages to get on deck. And people are really, really annoyed by this. They didn't see any points because at this moment in time, everything seems normal. One passenger even noted a saying, you cannot sink this boat no matter what we've struck. She's good to go for another 8 to 10 hours. 

Kyle Risi: So people really believe that these ships were unsinkable. And because of their size, if they are taking on any water, it's going to be hours and hours and hours. But I guess no one knew that there was a massive gouge across the side of the ship.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I'm just trying to think. They, I guess they wouldn't have had, like sensors or anything back then. Whereas now they probably do. So it's a lot easier to detect the size of damage because you can't just stick your head out and see down the boat really clearly. Can you? 

Kyle Risi: That's it. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So Marconi station and orders operators to send out a message to nearby ships asking for help. And from there. He goes with Bruce Ismay to inspect the damage and they see that six of the compartments have now been breached and immediately it's apparent to them that they are going to sink. Right, wow.

Kyle Risi: Also, the realization that there are not enough lifeboats for everyone on board. Begins sinking in and they realize that many, many people are going to die. 

Adam Cox:  God, that realization must have been horrible. Mm-hmm. To go oh, this is much worse. Oh shit. That's it. 

Adam Cox: And the fact is that you mentioned that the boat was half full. Mm-Hmm. . And it only had 20 lifeboats, what would it have been like if it was full? 

Kyle Risi: It would be carnage, right? Remember it had a capacity of 3, 000 passengers excluding crew. There was only, I think, 1, 178 passengers on board, total 2, 224, including crew. So yeah, it would have been a lot worse. Thank God it was a highly saturated competitive market. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and to think that they thought 20 would be enough for like a full capacity. I can understand if you maybe adjust the number of lifeboats based on capacity. 

Kyle Risi: But they don't, they base it on tonnage. That is ridiculous. I know, right?

Kyle Risi: So it's been around 35 minutes since the iceberg has struck. And Captain Smith decides to send out a CQD distress call. So it's like what they use before SOS, um, kind of became the standard in kind of the industry. So the, the CQ is the distress signal, and then the D stands for kind of the emergency call.

Kyle Risi: And a ship picks up the distress call almost immediately, and they head to the coordinates on the message. But when they arrived. There's no Titanic, because they've taken down the wrong coordinates. 

Adam Cox: They, well, they have their ships taken down the wrong coordinates. 

Adam Cox: So they interpreted them wrong? 

Kyle Risi: I don't know how the Marconi device works. I don't know if it's a bit like a telegram and Morse code, but maybe they've written it down wrong, but they go there and there's just no ship there. Another ship was also nearby at the time. It was a Californian freighter, but the operator had turned their Marconi machine off just moments before the signal from the Titanic was sent out. And in fact, that Californian freighter actually came within view of the Titanic. But they had no idea that she was sinking. Why did they turn it 

Adam Cox: off? That feels a bit foolish when you're out at sea. 

Kyle Risi: It does. I guess maybe his shift had ended. Like, no one was going to be manning it anyway. 

Adam Cox: Oh, go to bed.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Don't need this anymore. 

Kyle Risi: So after sending out the distress signal, Captain Smith orders all hands on deck It's now time to start preparing the lifeboats. Now to recap from the last episode the Titanic had a capacity of 3, 000 including crew But as we know it was less than half full.

Kyle Risi: So carrying a total of 2, 224 passengers and crew. So in total the Titanic had 20 lifeboats That could carry a combined 1,178 passengers. This meant that a thousand people would not have a spot on a lifeboat if all the lifeboats were full to capacity. 

Adam Cox: Mm-Hmm. . 

Kyle Risi: And what we're about to find out? Is that a lot more than a thousand people were about to die for various reasons due to how the lifeboats were launched jeez

Kyle Risi: So Adam, it's now all hands on deck and they're now about to start deploying the lifeboats. But right now, the biggest issue that crew were facing, is was persuading passengers to get into lifeboats because of the ship's reputation of being unsinkable and the steward's constant reassurance and the cold weather just nobody wanted to get onto a damn lifeboat.

Kyle Risi: I'm also going to 

Adam Cox: add in stupidity. 

Kyle Risi: Absolute stupidity also think about it like getting into a lifeboat and then being lowered into the ocean was terrifying it was pitch black and it meant that you were literally scaling down an 11 story building into the atlantic ocean in the middle of the night.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess. So I get it. Yeah, I guess if you're not seeing the ship actually be going down at that point, you're not gonna think, mm, Exactly, that's the 

Kyle Risi: thing. A lot of people just was like, what's the point? The ship's not going down. But also at this early stage, there was just a reluctance and unwillingness to be separated from family members, especially in like the third class kind of cabins, which brings us to Captain Smith's famous orders that women and children should be loaded into the lifeboats first.

Kyle Risi: Here's the crazy part, because these orders were interpreted very differently by Charles Lightoller and William Murdoch, the second and third officers, who were tasked with managing the lifeboat launches on opposite sides of the ship. 

Adam Cox: Mm hmm. 

Kyle Risi: On the starboard side, William Murdoch took these orders to mean women and children first, then load any men into the remaining spaces.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Charles Lightoller on the port side interpreted this as women and children only. No exceptions and his reasoning for this was that if men were permitted to get onto the lifeboats They might then push the women and children aside in a frantic rush. 

Adam Cox: Yeah men will do that 

Kyle Risi: But they didn't and that's the thing a lot of these men died with the most extraordinary dignity 

Kyle Risi: in Charles's case, driven by urgency to get the lifeboats launched quickly, he often just dispatched boats only half full with women and children rather than having them reach their capacity, because the last thing that you want, and it's logical, the last thing that you want is to have a lifeboat in the vicinity when the ship physically sinks, because this will cause a swell potentially leading to the lifeboats in the vicinity capsizing.

Kyle Risi: Was he the second or third hand? Sorry. So Lightoller was the second officer. He's the one with the extraordinary life, the one that just like your granddad kind of survived a shipwreck. He kind of survived malaria. He went to go be a cowboy, just incredible life. 

Adam Cox: So he, Was the one that was saying, hey, women and children, get in, get out, or, and out to the sea.

Kyle Risi: Men, no exceptions. So it's 

Adam Cox: almost, it feels like a, an element of, I understand what you're saying in terms of maybe, just needs to get them launched, but if there's spaces there, almost like some kind of panic probably took over just Yeah. I feel just get this job done. 

Kyle Risi: Thing that's getting me is, is the urgency.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's right, okay, I don't have time to diddly dally while all the passengers are still diddly dallying. I need to get these lifeboats out. But I mean, the purpose of the lifeboats is to get passengers in there and then get them out. So you miss the very important part. 

Adam Cox: And it sounds like he survives then.

Kyle Risi: He does. 

Adam Cox: Interesting. 

Kyle Risi: But his survival story is just outrageous. Like I said, his life is incredible. And the Titanic story and how he survives is equally. Incredible. So in the 1997 film there is this belief that the third class passengers were prevented from accessing the deck To get onto the lifeboats.

Kyle Risi: You might remember them begging at the barriers to be unlocked 

Adam Cox: Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: but that just wasn't true. Yes, there were barriers and if you recall from the previous episode They were there because the titanic was an immigrant ship and the u. s Immigration demanded that third class passengers be quarantined from first class to prevent diseases from coming into the USA, right?

Kyle Risi: But in actuality, those barricades were unlocked by the deck crew around 40 minutes after the iceberg had hit. And you could argue that this was still too late, but remember, nobody was panicking at the stage. There was just no rush to get into those lifeboats. Among the third class passengers, there was even more reluctance to get into the lifeboats because they didn't want to be separated from their luggage.

Kyle Risi: Remember, Their luggage would have been literally everything that they owned in this world No one thought that they were going to die at this moment in time. So to be separated from their luggage It was just a big no no. 

Adam Cox: Yeah 

Kyle Risi: On top of this Many of them just didn't speak english and had just no idea what was going on. There's also an instance where a steward responsible for looking after kind of single women and couples in third class had escorted a group of families to the top deck for kind of preparation to be evacuated. But because it was cold, they just went back inside. 

Adam Cox: That's bizarre, isn't it?

Kyle Risi: Isn't it just weird? It's not what you think when you think about the story of the Titanic. I just 

Adam Cox: think people are like running around screaming, but I'm guessing that's probably at the very end. That's gonna come, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So there is an account of two Finnish third class passengers who were loaded into a lifeboat, right?

Kyle Risi: But soon after they got in and they were like waiting for other passengers to get on board, they just got out and scurried back inside where it was warmer. So they were physically in the lifeboat already and they got out. So there's just no evidence that there was any prejudice. Against third class passengers at all because they were all been ushered up to the decks 

Kyle Risi: It's true that the third class passengers were further away from where the decks that the lifeboats were on deck So some people argue that mixed with a lot of other things that could contribute to the reason why so many of them died But it's multifactorial and we'll get onto that later on 

Kyle Risi: So the first lifeboat to be launched by william murdoch on the starboard side was lifeboat seven And this was between 12 It could hold 65 passengers, but only 26 were loaded, meaning that there were 39 empty spaces.

Kyle Risi: Now, there were initially three Frenchmen on this lifeboat as well. At this early stage before everyone was obviously panicking, they were really incensed by this whole ordeal and just didn't see any point in getting onto the lifeboat. So thinking that they were going to be fine, again, they just got out and left.

Kyle Risi: The second lifeboat to be launched was on the port side, being managed by Charles Lightoller. Again, this had just 28 passengers, leaving 37 empty spaces. One of the passengers on this lifeboat was a first class woman called Eloise Smith. She was an incredible human being. She was a suffragist and also a member of the Republican Party.

Kyle Risi: And she was there with her husband, Lucian. And, asked Captain Smith personally if her husband could get into one of the empty spaces And he just looked right through her and then shouted through his megaphone Women and children first, to kind of just like reiterate their point And then Lucien turns to the captain and he says, never mind about that captain I'll see that she gets into the boat And then he turns to his wife and he says 

Kyle Risi: I've never expected you to obey me, but this is the one time that you must. It's only a matter of form to have women and children first. The boat is thoroughly equipped and everyone on her will be saved. Eloise then asked, are you telling me the truth? And he replied, yes. He kisses her. His last words to her were, keep your hands in your pockets, it's going to be very cold.

Kyle Risi: And then Lightoller just lowered the lifeboat down. And that is the last time that she ever saw him. Wow. And there are just hundreds of stories like this. It's just 

Adam Cox: grueling. And it wasn't, was this lifeboat filled, this one? No, there was, 37 spaces available. That particular one, that's what I mean. I just don't understand if people like messing about and it's like well fine Let's get some other people on here.

Kyle Risi: Remember getting these lifeboats down is arduous work So they just have to get them launched and deployed I guess maybe the thinking is they have these cutters as well These little cutter ships that they can just use maybe they can load some people on there and get them to some lifeboats but there's no evidence that they ever use them because I guess it got to You The final moment, and they never got that opportunity.

Kyle Risi: So at 1 o'clock, they start firing flares into the air. And it's at this moment that panic starts to set in when people realize that actually, this is actually happening, like if they're firing signals of distress into the air, then maybe, maybe? Maybe we should be concerned. Yeah, maybe something's actually wrong.

Kyle Risi: So around this time, Lifeboat One is launched and this was the boat where Sir Cosmo, Duff Gordon and Lucy, our underwear mogul, were getting on board. And in total, there were two passengers and seven crew members. So twelve in total. And Lady Duff asks William Murdoch, who's manning that side of the ship, if her husband could get in. And William was like yeah, of course. Get in. 

Adam Cox: Just completely different like, uh, Completely the opposite. I'd like to be on that side of the ship.

Kyle Risi: But what becomes really controversial later on is that Sir Cosmo tips all seven crew members on board this lifeboat Which I guess is just the American thing to do, but it wasn't received well by the rest of the world, who saw this as him bribing the crew members? 

Adam Cox: Right, yeah. Ooh, not a good look, eh? And am I right in thinking, and maybe you'll come onto this, that a lot of the men That did survive, almost had this guilt element, or were criticised.

Kyle Risi: My god, survivor guilt was just horrendous. In fact, and we'll come onto this later on, suicide rates amongst some of the passengers were just huge. Because they just couldn't live with the guilt. So Lifeboat 8 was next to be launched and that was reasonably full, but soon after that Lifeboat 10 is dispatched and Lifeboat 10 had a lot of second class women and children in it, among them was the West family.

Kyle Risi: Now Arthur West had his two daughters with him and at the time they were really really sleepy because it was quite late at night. So he puts them both in their life jackets and he carries them over to the boat deck. His wife Ada, she's heavily pregnant at the time. And he lowers Ada into the boat with these two little girls and he hands Ada a flask of hot milk for his youngest daughter who's just 11 months old at the time. And that is the last time that she ever saw him. That kind gesture of her, him handing her hot milk. That flask of milk for their kids. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So you'll also remember from our first episode when we talked about the conspiracy theory that J. P. Morgan had arranged for several first class passengers to be on board so he could get rid of them effectively.

Kyle Risi: One of those men was a guy called Isidore Strauss and his wife Ida. And because he was an old man, he was just told that he can get into Lifeboat 3. Like, no one's gonna turn away an old man, right? But, he said, I will not go before the other men. And he refused his seat. And as a result, so did Ida. Because they refused to be separated from each other.

Kyle Risi: And she said, as we've lived together, so we will die together. And so they just wrap up warm and they sit on deck chairs just waiting to die. And how do we know this if they die then? So this is, all of this is going to be through all the different kind of, uh, second hand account of the survivors that were there because remember there's lots of people they would have seen 

Adam Cox: them there and yeah seen what they got off or whatever didn't get on and then just sat there 

Kyle Risi: so that probably rings a bell because in the film there's a couple that you see hugging in the bed in one of the montages just towards the end but in reality they died on deck 

Adam Cox: So it was kind of based on, yeah, the couple in that film was based on these two people.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's it. So much of it was like, it's really super accurate. Of course, they made some kind of creative license decisions, but so much of it was from these first hand accounts, survival stories. Which is just so incredible. 

Adam Cox: I think that scene from the movie is probably one of the saddest for me.

Adam Cox: Oh my god. I like, it really makes you feel I just had a little shudder. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, so they were Jewish, by the way. And remember, the Jews of Eastern Europe didn't have a good reputation at this moment in time. And when this story broke around the world, it was significant for the Jewish community. Their rabbi in New York said that he was a loyal son to his people. A loyal American, and Isidore Strauss was a great Jew, and now, when we are asked if a Jew can die bravely, the answer is written in the annals of time. 

Adam Cox: Isn't 

Kyle Risi: that beautiful? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: but Ben Guggenheim, right? He's also a Jew. So we talked about him in the last episode So he was the colorado silver mine mogul and his last words remembered by a steward Were I am willing to remain and play the man's game. If there are not enough boats for the women and children, I won't die here like a beast. Tell my wife I played the game out to the very end. No women shall be left on board this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.

Kyle Risi: So there's a lot 

Adam Cox: of this. Theatrical. 

Kyle Risi: Well, he had a big fat museum, so I guess. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, he wanted to go down in a blaze of glory. 

Kyle Risi: But the thing is, this was the thing. It was this honour to die with dignity. Of course they're terrified, but they 

Adam Cox: Do you think that would be like that now? I just feel like the world has changed so much that You wanted 

Kyle Risi: equality , this is what you get.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I just feel like, I dunno if men would do that now. I think that not to the same level, maybe some would Mm-Hmm. Of course. 

Kyle Risi: I think that we are underestimating that. I think people can really surprise you how they can behave in a crisis. Mm-Hmm. . But hey, we'd have to wait and see. Right. Let's, let's hope 

Adam Cox: we don't wait and see. Let's hope we don't. Yes. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So one of the most famous heroic stories from the Titanic is that of the musicians, remember from the film they were seen, continues to play right up till the very end? Yes. So the band leader was a guy called Wallace Hartley from Colin in, Lancashire. 

Kyle Risi: So he and his band mates kept playing to keep the passengers calm while the lifeboats were being loaded. And at one point, Wallis told the other musicians like. You can all go now, right? It's now getting to the point where you need to get into a lifeboat. And initially they left, but when they turned around, They saw him continuing to play, they were just overwhelmed with a sense of shame so they came back and continued to play with him.

Kyle Risi: And what's incredible is that Wallace's body was later recovered and he was fully dressed in his evening wear with his music case still strapped to his back. And back in Lancashire, he received like a hero's funeral, literally attended by thousands and thousands of people because when the story broke, it was just heartbreaking, but also like an amazing thing for Lancashire to have this hero amongst 

Adam Cox: their 

Kyle Risi: population.

Adam Cox: for him to do that. I don't know if I was there, if that music would calm me, but the fact that he did this noble thing is incredible. Do 

Kyle Risi: you think he played like Flight of the Bubble? 

Adam Cox: I would, I just feel like, 

Kyle Risi: could you just 

Adam Cox: turn it off? 

Kyle Risi: I'm trying to die here.

Kyle Risi: So it's stories like this that exemplify the ultimate heroes who chose to die with dignity and selflessness. People saw these acts as discoveries of immense courage and stoicism in the darkest situations life can throw at us. Especially from the British side of the Atlantic.

Kyle Risi: And when the news breaks there, their focus is mostly on The bravery of the men on board, whereas in America, it's completely the opposite. It's about the tragic thing that happened, right? It's the event, but in Britain, it's about the people and the bravery.

Kyle Risi: So it's 1. 30am. Now, panic has properly set in because they started firing all the flares into the air, and now people are forcing their way onto the lifeboats. There's a story from Lifeboat 14 about a widow from St. Ives called Agnes Davis. She is on Charles Lightoller's side and she asks him if her 19 year old son could also get into the lifeboat.

Kyle Risi: And Charles says to her that if he gets into the lifeboat, I will shoot him. Yeah. So it's getting aggressive now in the state of panic. Also on this lifeboat was a family called the Colliers from Hampshire. Now Charlotte Collier was reluctant to leave her husband and eventually she is forced because a sailor grabs her daughter Marjorie from her arms and throws her into the lifeboat and her husband just shouted at her like get in he says go Go Lottie, for God's sake, be brave and go, I'll get a seat on another boat.

Kyle Risi: So she gets in, just sobbing, just absolutely sobbing. She gets in, she looks back, and all she sees is her husband's back? And that is the last time she ever sees him. The boat then just gets lowered, and she is just traumatized for the rest of her life. That being the last thing that she sees. And I, I don't know what it is about just seeing your partner's back and that is it, 

Adam Cox: and not having that sort of facial, I dunno, connection. Yeah. Just like even if you think, oh, say goodbye or any, yeah, that's the last 

Kyle Risi: thing he said to her was, for God's sake, just be brave. I'll get another seat. 

Adam Cox: I'm guessing he'd done that 'cause he perhaps couldn't look. Maybe, I don't know. Or maybe he was looking for another boat, I don't know. Maybe turned around. But I perhaps that was just too much for him. 

Kyle Risi: Also in lifeboat 14 was a young guy from Liverpool called Richard Davenport Hines. Um, so he sneaks into this lifeboat, right? And he's 16. So this means he doesn't qualify to be on that lifeboat. And the other women on board, they try to kind of like cover him up, but he's spotted by the fifth officer, Harold Lowe.

Kyle Risi: And he pulls out his revolver and he says, you've got 10 seconds to get out of this boat or I'll blow your brains out. So Richard, of course, is sobbing and he's begging and the officer is like, for God's sake, be a man. We've got women and children to save. We must stop at other decks on the way down and take on more women and children.

Kyle Risi: But of course, that was a lie. So Richard has to get out and essentially, he's just condemned to death. And that's just really tragic. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, this is horrendous. It's 

Kyle Risi: awful. These moments that these people are just desperate to live. But, and he's just 16. 

Adam Cox: And someone's, someone on this boat is choosing whether you live or die.

Adam Cox: And fair enough, if, if all the, um, lifeboats were fulfilled, then maybe we can go, okay, they did what they had to do in order to make sure whoever needed to survive. Yeah. The fact that it's just not, it's a bit careless. 

Kyle Risi: It's horrible, isn't it? 

Adam Cox: It's wasteful. 

Kyle Risi: So in the film, William Murdoch, his character is depicted as also threatening someone with a revolver before then saluting and then shooting himself in the head.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So I don't know if you remember that scene from the movie. That's really powerful. However This scene with william murdoch is completely denied by charles lightoller who said that this just didn't happen at all And charles claimed that murdoch was actually just swept away By a wave when he was trying to free a lifeboat, but after the film's release Murdoch's nephew in real life was so deeply offended by this portrayal of His uncle.

Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm. that he complained and this prompted film executives to have to fly out to Murdoch's hometown just to apologize. But James Cameron stated that the depiction of Murdoch wasn't intended to be negative in any way. He said it highlighted Murdoch's sense of responsibility and devotion to duty.

Kyle Risi: However, some people suggest that Charles Olla lied. To his widow in order to protect her from what he had actually done 

Adam Cox: Okay, 

Kyle Risi: isn't that crazy? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so will we actually really know then? 

Kyle Risi: But yeah, he was washed away. As for captain Smith, we don't actually know what happened to him. Like a steward saw him walking into the bridge and in the film we see him go there. And as of course the ship starts to tip, the bridges obviously submerged and the window just explodes and he's standing like there by the little wheel. But we don't know really what happened to him. The last eyes that we have on him is going to the bridge. So we assume that's where he died. 

Kyle Risi: Notably, another event involves Bruce Ismay. So remember he's the guy in charge of White Star Line, right? So he's actually survived and he actually gets into a lifeboat and this decision will completely change his entire life and how he is viewed by the rest of the world because many believed that because he was Like the chairman of White Star and he was on board that he should have died on that ship along with the captain and the other men on that ship.

Adam Cox: Yeah, why does he get special privileges? 

Kyle Risi: Well, the story goes that Bruce was helping other passengers into lifeboats doing his duty, right? So he was assisting the Goldsmith family from 3rd to 3rd class. Remember, we discussed that at the end of our last episode. They were the family travelling around the world. To New York with their son. If you remember they were traveling with Alfred Rush who had just celebrated his 16th birthday on that same day and as a gift The goldsmiths had given him a pair of trousers marking this kind of transition from boyhood to manhood Right now bruce is assisting emily and her son into the lifeboat and alfred wearing his new trousers Refuses to get in and he insists that he is staying there with the other men and essentially This poor boy has just condemned himself to death.

Kyle Risi: So when the lifeboat is ready to be dispatched one of the sailors beckons Ismay to get in there because of course there are six empty spaces available. One of those spaces was Alfred Rush's space. 

Adam Cox: Dragged him along if you're going to get in there. 

Kyle Risi: I would have dragged him along. Of course, it would have just been ludicrous to just let them go to waste. So, Ismay was not denying anyone a spot, yet his entire lifeboat. Reputation and for the rest of his life. He will just be considered a coward for this But he wasn't taking a space from someone else. 

Adam Cox: I well I yes he wasn't but he could have like Encouraged other people to get in maybe he 

Kyle Risi: was helping and assisting.

Adam Cox: Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: so I don't know. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: it's tricky situation So it's around 1 55 a. m And they are now loading the last big lifeboat lifeboat number four and this is on the port side Now getting into the lifeboat is madeline astor madeline astor is the pregnant child bride of John, jacob astor.

Kyle Risi: Do you remember she was 18 at the time? He owns the the ward off Astoria hotels And they were traveling around kind of Paris and France and places like that Yeah So aster asked charles lightoller if he can get in with his wife and of course based on what we know he refuses So aster turns to his wife and says the sea is calm. You'll be all right. You're in good hands I'll meet you in the morning and he gives her her gloves and then he steps back from the rail salutes her And then the lifeboat is lowered 

Adam Cox: Salutes her. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess it's You 

Adam Cox: I'll meet you in the morning. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Sad, isn't it? 

Kyle Risi: So Adam, there's no lifeboats left.

Adam Cox: So, what are people going to do now then? 

Kyle Risi: So, some people began jumping into the sea. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, but the sea's cold. 

Kyle Risi: The sea is freezing. So, Lightoller describes how a wave of water had came rolling up the deck and washed people back.

Kyle Risi: He says at that point, he decided to jump off the ship. I haven't explained this just yet, but the ship is severely tipping, right? Half of it is in the water, it's now rising up Something major is about to happen. If you've watched the film, you're going to know. But at this point, they're at the base of the ship.

Kyle Risi: Water's rushing up. It's washed a bunch of people back. Lightoller has jumped off. He jumps into the ocean. When he hits the water, he says that it felt like a thousand knives were stabbing into his body because the water was so cold.

Kyle Risi: And estimates suggest that you have about 20 minutes before dying of hypothermia in these waters, even quicker if you are a man, because of course you have less body fat and insulation. 

Adam Cox: Right, okay. 

Kyle Risi: So Lightoller was then dragged into a shaft with a wire grating on the ship, right? And the water's rushing in and it's sandwiched him against the grate.

Kyle Risi: He thinks he's going to drown, right? It's pinning him against this while all this water rushes in. He cannot move and he says that he would have died. If it wasn't for that precise moment, the ship breaking into two at that moment. And when that happened, a bubble of hot steam had blew him up out of the water, freeing him.

Adam Cox: What? Yeah. I'm trying to picture this. So he's being like held against something. Yeah, with the 

Kyle Risi: water rushing in on him and he's like smashed against it. 

Adam Cox: And as he, he's outside the boat because he's jumped off. Yeah. But I don't know where this grate is. He's on 

Kyle Risi: deck somewhere. So it's like like a corridor, but there's a grate.

Kyle Risi: Imagine like it's a gate, if you will. And he's sandwiched against that while the water's rushing in. And the ship is now split in two. It's hanging out of the water. It's split because of the force. Yeah, it's come crashing down. Yeah That's released a big bubble of hot. Steam from the engine or something or from wherever from like Trapped air or something and it's blown him out of the water and he's free.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's incredible And where does he land? So from there he's able to then scramble onto a collapsible lifeboat that is washed away from the ship. As the ship was breaking to the funnel of the ship collapses and crashes down into the sea smashing people who are already in the water because people have been washed off the ship now, right?

Kyle Risi: And people who witnessed this from the lifeboat said they heard screams of terror And then all of a sudden, it was just silent. 

Adam Cox: I wonder if that would have been better in some way, because that would have been over, then for some people, rather than freezing to death. 

Kyle Risi: That's it. I completely agree with that.

Kyle Risi: So Bruce Ismay is sitting in his lifeboat, and he just cannot bring himself to look out of shame. But Lucy Duff Gordon says that the lights of the ship started to flicker and then just completely went out, plunging the entire scene into darkness. She says then she shuddered. But then she forced herself to keep looking and at that moment her husband said, Oh my God, she's going!

Kyle Risi: And then slowly the back of the ship reared out of the water, bringing its rudder and propeller up into the air in an upright position. It paused for a moment before then just slowly sinking down into the ocean. And they described this like watching a collapse of a skyscraper. So this moment is obviously captured brilliantly in the film where you see jack and rose at the back of the ship Riding the ship all the way down into the ocean.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and this is that moment that they're describing the thing that most survivors remember is not the horror of what they saw, but it was the sound of 1, 500 people crying all out in unison. And some describe this as a swarm of locusts on a midsummer night in the woods of Pennsylvania.

Kyle Risi: I'm

Adam Cox: trying to think what that sounds like. So 

Kyle Risi: imagine like cicadas when we go to kind of Spain and you're walking through like some brush and you just hear all these cicadas but times that by a million. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So remember the goldsmith family that was the family that gifted alfred rush some trousers on his 16th birthday Well, emily was in the lifeboat with a nine year old son frankie And emily was kind of cuddling him and trying to shield him from seeing what was happening But of course he could hear everything So years later, he lives near the detroit tigers baseball stadium And he says that every time the team would hit a home run, the sound of the crowds roaring brought back memories of the sounds of those 1, 500 people all just freezing to death in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Kyle Risi: Imagine living with that for your whole life. So all the lifeboats were just kind of drifting in the Atlantic at this moment in time, many of them with empty seats available, right? Yeah. Get this, only one of those lifeboats, that's lifeboat 14, went back to try and collect any survivors that they could.

Kyle Risi: What? Why not? 

Adam Cox: Were they that far away 

Kyle Risi: to do that? They weren't far away. The others were afraid that if they went back that they would be swamped with blood. Potential kind of people trying to scramble on board, potentially capsizing the boats causing everyone to die.

Adam Cox: Yeah, okay. 

Kyle Risi: So when lifeboat 14 did go back, they only found four survivors. One of those survivors was a Chinese fireman named Fang Lang. And he was found clinging to a door. 

Adam Cox: Oh, like in the movie. Just like Rose survived 

Kyle Risi: in the film. Yeah, 

Adam Cox: which definitely had room for Jack. Listen, we promised each 

Kyle Risi: other that we were not going to have this debate on this podcast It's so outdated. But yeah, 

Kyle Risi: So there is this god awful story about a survivor called Rhonda Abbott My god, Adam, so she was on collapsible lifeboat A So she was from Buckinghamshire and she'd been living in Rhode Island with her husband, I don't know if they got divorced, but she decided that she was going to move back to the UK with her two sons.

Kyle Risi: They spent some time in the UK. They decided they didn't like it and they decided that they were going to come back. Right. This is why they were on board the Titanic. So she was returning to Rhode Island with her two sons, Rossmore and Eugene. Because the officers wouldn't let her sons on a lifeboat, she decided that she was going to stay with her boys.

Kyle Risi: Now, as the ship was plunging into the ocean, her sons shoved her into a collapsible lifeboat that they hadn't had an opportunity to pull down and get set up. They forced her into that lifeboat. And then the two boys, 16 and 13, were then just hanging on the edge of the lifeboat while Rhoda just looked on, and one by one, they just slowly froze, and then just slipped away into the sea, and there was just nothing that she could do about it.

Adam Cox: And there was no She couldn't get them onto this clouds all life. Yeah, I don't I 

Kyle Risi: don't understand why they couldn't just drag them on There's no one was enforcing it at this point 

Adam Cox: Yeah, cuz was it just her that was in there or 

Kyle Risi: sounds like it was just them Yeah, they managed to kind of scramble on there unless there was any other passengers on there.

Kyle Risi: So the ship that obviously did come to the rescue almost two hours too late was the Carpathia it was carrying 743 passengers and they were heading to Gibraltar and then beyond, right? So they didn't initially receive a distress call from the Titanic. What actually happened was that the Marconi operator was getting ready for bed when he heard a transmission from Cape Cod.

Kyle Risi: To the Titanic asking like how are you getting on? Have you sunk yet? I mean, what a stupid question. Yeah. Are you still there? so the operator sends a message To the Titanic who then replied saying we've hit an iceberg. We are sinking. Please come straight away. So he did when they got there, they started bringing on the survivors on board.

Kyle Risi: Obviously the ship had already sunk by this point, right? 

Adam Cox: Survivors from the lifeboats, I assume, 

Kyle Risi: yeah. Yes, survivors from the lifeboat. So when they got there, they started bringing the survivors on board.

Kyle Risi: The thing they said struck them the most was just that. The silence, like the survivors came on board solemnly and shivering or traumatized and all just in complete shock about what happened. The millionaires were then given cabins, as many as they could obviously spare, and the others were set up in the dining room with beds and blankets and food and drink and things like that.

Adam Cox: Why would the millionaires got cabins? Everyone should be the same at this point. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly, because they probably paid the most money and they know more people, who knows. Hmm. Seems unfair, right? Yeah. So they started doing a survey to try and judge the number of people that had died and remember we didn't actually know how many passengers were on board, but the US estimates were 1517 people died and in the UK official estimates there were 1503.

Adam Cox: So basically 1500. Essentially, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So 700 of those who died were crew, which is still considered one of the largest losses of life in maritime history. 

Adam Cox: That's, that's half the people then, pretty much. 

Kyle Risi: Crazy. Of course the overarching determining factor in whether or not you survived was of course your sex If you were a man, you were more likely to have died 74 percent of women survived 52 percent of children survived and just 20 percent of men survived.

Kyle Risi: So that's just harrowing. It's awful 

Adam Cox: And only 50 percent of children. That's quite it's quite a high number. Yeah I thought there'd be more 

Kyle Risi: many of them would have been from third class and i'm going to explain to you why 

Adam Cox: Hmm 

Kyle Risi: so there was, of course, a class dimension out of the first class passengers, 62 percent survived in second class, 42 percent survived and in third class, just 25 percent survived. Yet, if you were a third class woman, you were more likely to survive than a first class man. 

Adam Cox: Okay. 

Kyle Risi: So while this was true that a lot of the third class passengers died, it wasn't because they were third class as such. A lot of people think that the high death toll amongst third class was due to the quarantine barriers. But of course, as we discussed, these were open long before any urgency even set in. Mm hmm. It turns out that having a larger family increased your chances of dying, which lots of third class passengers had, right?

Kyle Risi: They might emigrate with their entire family sometimes. And so there was this general reluctance to be separated from them and also distance away from the deck. Also seem to impact their odds of dying as well because third class passengers had to travel further in bigger groups with all of their luggage to get to the deck.

Kyle Risi: So all of those things combined factored into whether or not you were likely to live or die. 

Adam Cox: They were trying to bring their luggage. I know you said because obviously it's all their stuff. Yeah. But even at that point they were trying to bring their luggage. Wow. Shocking, right? Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: As for second class passengers, there is a suggestion that because second class was typically made up of clergymen, shopkeepers, et cetera, they were the people that were more likely to be conformist or obedient or to hang back and be anxious about doing the wrong thing. And as a result, that resulted in a lot of second class passengers dying.

Kyle Risi: So the news of the Titanic sinking first reached the Marconi outposts in Newfoundland. And from there. It was then shared with the New York Times via Montreal. And at two o'clock in the morning, a New York Times journalist called the vice president of the International Mercantile Marine for comment, but he just dismissed the story as just like a minor mishap, saying like the Titanic was unsinkable.

Kyle Risi: And it wasn't until Monday evening that confirmation came in that the ship had actually sunk. But when it was confirmed, the news spread across the USA, and when news reached President Taft, learning that Archie Butt, as we discussed in the first episode, and that he didn't survive, he was so devastated at him, he just broke down immediately and then straight away ordered all flags to be flown to half mast, and again, that just kind of shows you how close they were, and I love that story because Archie Butt was an open homosexual, And he was like in the upper rungs of kind of like US politics.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. 

Adam Cox: The president wasn't a clustered homosexual, was he? 

Kyle Risi: No, no, no. He was just that. Okay. 

Adam Cox: I mean, the two can go together. 

Kyle Risi: In Britain, the news arrived at the Marconi station in Cornwall. And by Monday evening, it was in all the papers. Initially many reports said that everyone was saved, which only ended up giving people false hope.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Now, cities Where many of the crew were from like Southampton, Belfast and Liverpool, like they just went into a complete state of shock, in one school in Southampton a hundred and twenty five children had either lost a father, a brother or an uncle. God. It's crazy. And of course, as people do, they start to look for someone to blame in these types of situations, right?

Kyle Risi: The most obvious person was Captain Smith, but he went down nobly with the ship. But Bruce Ismay, as we know, the chairman of White Star, survived after being invited on board a lifeboat. And as a result, his reputation is just completely shattered, and he is accused of cowardice in both America and in Britain.

Kyle Risi: And during this time, during the initial aftermath, dozens of memorial services were held all over Britain and the US, attended by literally thousands, and very quickly the Titanic just became the symbol of human hubris and the fragility of kind of life. Following this, regulations quickly changed, finally.

Kyle Risi: So ships were now required to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew along with new safety protocols. And as well as that, the International Ice Patrol was established to monitor icebergs and all shipping lanes were then all moved further down south so they didn't kind of cross the iceberg zones, essentially.

Adam Cox: Makes, all these things make sense. 

Kyle Risi: All of them make sense, but it's just too late, isn't it? 

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: What's really interesting is how different this tragedy has spun in America and in Britain. In America, the disaster is kind of fuelled by climate change. By populist sentiments against big business and millionaires. And they have this kind of negative aspect on that side of things. Whereas in Britain is all framed as a show of kind of heroism and national pride. For how their men died with dignity and bravery So it's really interesting how those two kind of were spanned and it kind of makes sense when you think about the differences between the cultures, right? It's very new world money Very driven american imperialism Whereas in britain, It's all about the bravery, right?

Kyle Risi: Keep calm and carry on. Keep calm and carry on and Dignity and bravery, yeah. It just makes sense to me, I can't explain it. It just makes sense that that's how it would be spun across the pond. 

Adam Cox: Also, I think it helps people to deal with a tragedy such as this, knowing that if the people had lost someone, they were a hero because they went down with the ship.

Kyle Risi: But then the other way could also make sense as well. There's this outcry against the plutocrats and big business and capitalism, right? So that makes sense that people would just naturally want to be angry as well. So you have that choice, right? And as a country, as a nation, we pick the first one. I just found it quite interesting.

Kyle Risi: So Bruce Ismay, he retired off the Irish coast after being publicly humiliated for obviously just surviving, even after being cleared by the subsequent inquiry that pointed out that there were no empty seats on that lifeboat. Like he was not to blame. So he fell into a major depression. He stepped down, obviously, as chairman of White Star.

Kyle Risi: And he never talked about his experience again. Maybe out of shame, maybe out of trauma, it's difficult to tell. But his grandchildren said that years later when they came to stay with him, they were just all very aware of the weird, eerie kind of silence that just prevailed over the entire house. Wasn't that he wasn't talking about the Titanic. He was literally just not talking about anything. So he was really devastated and traumatized by 

Adam Cox: it. It's like PTSD, but just maybe it just, yeah, he just, This guilt maybe just hung over him for so long. 

Kyle Risi: I think so. And this next story will give you a sense of potentially that guilt. So there was an occasion when one of his grandchildren asked if he'd ever been on a shipwreck and there was just this really long embarrassing and awkward silence.

Kyle Risi: He just didn't say anything. Another time, one of his grandchildren were reading a newspaper and told him about a train crash where 256 people had died. And Ismay just barked back, like, how do you know 256 people died? Were you there? Did you count them? And I think that shows, even years later, that he was haunted by the events of the Titanic.

Kyle Risi: Eventually, he ended up dying in 1937. Shallow of a man. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. What happened to Charles Lightoller? 

Kyle Risi: So obviously he survived. He ended up living a long life. He retired at the age of 72 and he ended up dying at the age of 78. But he went on to have just as an interesting life immediately after. 

Adam Cox: Where did he land up when he got like shot out of the water? 

Kyle Risi: So he was able to then, scurry into a lifeboat.

Kyle Risi: Oh, that's okay. Yeah. So he did survive. Yeah. So finally, I want to tell you about another figure who was deeply ostracized by his community just for surviving. And that's our engineer, Hosono, so remember he was the second class passenger from Japan, who was studying the railway system in Russia, and now he was returning to Japan via the Atlantic.

Kyle Risi: So, he said that when the titanic was sinking he was standing on the deck Thinking that he would never see his wife and children again, but he was determined to behave like a Japanese gentleman So he was preparing himself to die without any fuss when a sailor shouted over at him to get into lifeboat 13 The sailor said that if he didn't take it, he would just die pointlessly So he got in and he ended up surviving.

Adam Cox: He had an opportunity. He took it. Why wouldn't you 

Kyle Risi: So from there he then crossed to america. He returned to japan And here he was completely ostracized by his entire country He lost his job. He did end up getting it back though Because of course he was the only person in japan that knew anything about the russian railway system Yeah, however, his family were humiliated and they were completely ashamed 

Kyle Risi: Here's the fascinating thing because you hear all these stories about japanese soldiers dying with dignity for their country And if they don't do it They would kind of bring shame onto their family.

Kyle Risi: We covered it when we covered 

Adam Cox: Hero and Noda, where, um, yeah, people didn't return home out of fear because they were at war and they had the opportunity to go back home, but they remained in the jungle in hiding because of this weird guilt and pride. 

Kyle Risi: That's right. And that's the exact thing that I thought of when I was reading that he was ostracized. This kind of element of shame bestowed upon someone returning back from war only extends to warriors and soldiers, not civil servants caught up in the events of a foreign nation. 

Adam Cox: Yes, that's true. 

Kyle Risi: So this severe reaction was rooted actually in a complex interplay of cultural values and influences of Western norms on Japanese society. So his failure to act according to the expectations of the Anglo Saxon nations, which valued self sacrifice and stoic bravery, just ended up causing embarrassment to the whole of Japan because they expected him to die like an Anglo Saxon. 

Adam Cox: Right. Isn't that crazy?

Adam Cox: I be like, just cut this guy a break. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Poor guy. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So many of the survivors had to live with his profound guilt questioning like, why did I survive when so many others didn't? Mm. So there were even some who just couldn't live with the guilt or trauma, and many took their own lives.

Kyle Risi: Two examples was a young boy called Jack Thayer and Frederick Fleet. Frederick Fleet was the lookout who spotted the iceberg. Both took their own lives and statistically the number of suicides was remarkably high highlighting the impact that this must have had on people. 

Kyle Risi: Of course, many women lost their husbands and were left alone in the world. Where life was hard without their partners. Remember Joseph Laurech? He was the only black guy on the boat. He had his pregnant widow with him, Juliet. So she arrived in New York with her daughters and without Joseph, she had no reason to continue to Haiti, right? She couldn't speak English. She found it difficult to navigate the complexities of New York. So she returned to France and she ended up naming her son, Joseph. But she never ever spoke about her husband or what happened on that night ever again 

Adam Cox: Really? 

Kyle Risi: So many of the survivors they also became public figures in their own right as well Incredibly the very first film about the titanic called saved from titanic was released just four weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, that quick, and it starred a woman called Dorothy Gibson, an actual survivor who reenacted what had happened. Hang 

Adam Cox: on. This is a dramatic, it's not a documentary? 

Kyle Risi: No, it's a film. Oh my God. Morbidly. She even wore the same dress that she wore that night as well.

Adam Cox: Weird. It's 

Kyle Risi: strange, isn't it? 

Adam Cox: But the fact that four, four week turnaround. 

Kyle Risi: That's incredible. How did, how do you even manage that? I guess if you don't have a sound engineer because everything's silent.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: I don't know, I'm just speculating. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, perhaps there's not a lot of dialogue. But yeah, I just think that's odd. Do you know what I mean? That's really weird. 

Kyle Risi: Then of course, in 1997, James Cameron, he releases a film, just a little film. 

Adam Cox: With Celine Dion. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, with Celine Dion called The Titanic.

Kyle Risi: And of course this release remains the most significant cinematic retelling of the story. So when it was released, many expected it to fail just due to the enormous budget that it had, right? Uh, but it ended up becoming, as we know, one of the highest grossing films of all time. At the time, I think it had overtaken Jurassic Park.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I think it is. held that title for quite a while until James Cameron released Avatar. And I think like maybe one of the Marvel movies is now, has been as high up there, but it's still like one of the highest ever grossing considering it was released in the 90s. 

Kyle Risi: I love that film so much. I know you hate watching it. 

Adam Cox: I think it's just, it's a long movie. I don't do well with long movies. No. And also, just because it's so sad, I like to watch something a little bit more upbeat. Do

Kyle Risi: you know what, I need to watch the sad film every now and again just to kind of dust out the tear ducts. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, remember that you are a human.

Kyle Risi: Remember I am a human. And that, Adam, is the story of the Titanic. 

Adam Cox: Wow. Yeah, that was fascinating. I don't think I knew some of the, those details about the boat, about the people. So yeah, wow. I'm

Kyle Risi: glad you enjoyed it. So if you do enjoy. This type of topic then we do have a recommendation for you from our back catalogue, I guess Which one am I going to say adam?

Adam Cox: Uh survival people in the snow. 

Kyle Risi: Ah Miracle of the andes. Yeah, so we have episode five in our back catalogue Miracle of the andes the story of a group of survivors of a plane crash in the andes in the And this episode explores that just tragic yet fascinating survival story similar to the titanic where You A bunch of, uh, young rugby players were traveling to, uh, Chile from Uruguay and their plane ended up crashing in the Andes mountains and they survived 72 days out there on the snow.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that one's, that one's incredible. 

Kyle Risi: It's probably one of my favorites. It's probably one of our most popular as well. Yeah. So if you haven't listened to that one, go and listen to it. It's one of our early episodes. So I'm really proud that episode five is probably one of our most popular episodes that we've ever created, which is a huge achievement.

Adam Cox: For 

Kyle Risi: sure. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Adam Cox: Oh, it's that uh, is that that sound again? 

Kyle Risi: It's listener mail So a couple of weeks ago, you may have noticed a new link in the show notes and we've had a few great messages from our freaks. So we figured we'd start reading some of these as part of our listener mail at the end of every show. So, Adam, do you want to go first?

Kyle Risi: Sure, 

Adam Cox: so this one comes from jake in lincolnshire He says hey just got wrapped up listening to the cleveland balloon fest episode as a kid in the 80s Just like adam we would tie a message to a balloon see if we would hear back and from how far And to be fair, it's fun and interesting. But as you say Zero F's given about the environment.

Adam Cox: The 80s was a troubled time. Thanks, Jake. 

Kyle Risi: I never did that as a kid. No, I didn't. Oh, you missed out. I want to throw something in the ocean. Is that okay to do? Like a glass bottle in the ocean with a note in it? I

Adam Cox: don't know. I don't think polluting at all is good these days. Oh, okay. 

Kyle Risi: No, it's a big taboo, right?

Kyle Risi: So I've got one here from Stephanie Wallace in New York. So she says, Hi guys, literally this morning I was listening to the Anna Delvey episode. I work in New York City District Council and while I was heading up Hudson, I saw Anna Delvey making her way to the immigration hearing on the corner of Hudson and West Houston Street.

Kyle Risi: She was being hounded by a bunch of paparazzi, but in all honesty, it felt very staged. She wasn't exactly trying to get away. I couldn't believe it. Like, what are the chances that I was listening to an episode on Anna Delvey and just up ahead, there she is. Love you guys. Stephanie. 

Adam Cox: Thanks, Stephanie. 

Kyle Risi: Thanks, Stephanie.

Adam Cox: Oh, so this is another one about, um, the Cleveland Balloon Fest. Um, so Austin from, uh, Clearwater, Florida. 

Kyle Risi: Clearwater?

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Isn't that where, that's where the Scientology headquarters is? Is it? I think so. Oh, okay. In Florida. 

Adam Cox: Did not know that. Oh, I wonder if he knows Roxy Andrews. Maybe. Um, So, not to run to Cleveland's defense, because it is still a dumpster fire, but rivers catching fire wasn't just something that was affecting Cleveland.

Adam Cox: Lots of rivers caught on fire around this time. Chicago's did often as well. The only reason why it became such mainstream news was there was a Time magazine reporter there when it happened, and they wrote about it. Great episode, though. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, really? So, rivers catching fire in America is quite common.

Adam Cox: Apparently. I've 

Kyle Risi: never seen that happen in the UK. I've never seen it. Guys, sort out your rivers, right? Yeah. It's time. So, yeah, keep your messages coming. You can write in by sending a text via the link in the show notes. Or you can reach out to us on Instagram or Patreon.

Kyle Risi: Shall we run the outro? 

Adam Cox: Let's do 

Kyle Risi: it. And that's another episode of the Compendium Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us on your favorite podcast app. It really helps us a lot.

Kyle Risi: We now release next week's episode seven days early on Patreon. It's completely free to access. So don't let that subscribe prompt fool you. If one episode isn't enough and you're craving our entire backlog of unreleased episodes, consider subscribing as a certified freak.

Kyle Risi: You'll get access to all of our backlog episodes, exclusive posts about what we're up to, and sneak peeks of what we're working on next. 

Kyle Risi: We'd love you to join and come and have a chat. We release new episodes every Tuesday and until then remember, every mighty ship can sink, so always watch out for icebergs. See you next time. 

Adam Cox: Do you know a ship that doesn't sink? 

Adam Cox: Goodbye.