Titanic – Disaster In The Atlantic / The Titanic Chronicles DVD – Ellaline Terriss, Bernard Hill

Double Feature Disaster in the Atlantic On April 14 1912 the greatest ship of the time and man’s monument to the technological achievement the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic would sail into the lexicon of history. At 11:46 p.m. aboard ship the lookout signaled to the bridge and reported an iceberg right ahead. Within moments the Titanic struck ice and foundered in just over 2 hours. 2 223 souls were aboard. Only 706 would survive. Countless lives would be forever changed by the disaster. Indeed the trajedy touched the hearts of people around the world. No other historical event would inspire as many literary and cinematic treatments on the subject. This historical presentation was produced in 1929 and is the first feature sound film of the disaster. The Titanic Chronicles The Titanic Chronicles was an attempt to understand what happened to the Titanic the American government held a series of hearings to investigate the disaster. These hearings were filled with eyewitness accounts that detailed every minute of that terrifying night and they represented several different points of view. The U.S. Senate hearings were opened to the public and they were held in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The hearings were chaired by Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan. Senator Smith’s mission was simple: find out what had gone wrong and to discover the truth. This program is a reenactment of the most striking and revealing moments from the actual hearings. The testimony you will hear comes the closest to the truth as to why the R.M.S. Titanic now lies on the bottom of the North Atlantic.