What really sank the Titanic? By Amanda Brillant

    

 “God himself could not sink this ship!” (“Why Did People Consider the Titanic Unsinkable?”1). The Titanic is the most famous boat in the world, and it held 2,223 passengers on April 10, 1912 (Little 1). On April 14, 1912, in the late afternoon the “unsinkable boat” sank because it was hit by an iceberg and killed 1,517 people on the boat (1). There are many conspiracy theories about the boat:

1.      J.P Morgan sink the Titanic

2.      The Titanic never sank

3.      The ship was attacked by a U-boat

4.      A mummy’s curse doomed the Titanic.

5.       No Pope

Let’s look at the many theories with the best solution that proves the Titanic sank.                       

              Was J.P. Morgan truthful? J.P. Morgan was a rich and powerful man that had many connections within the government and the banking business (“J.P. Morgan” 1). He was on many sides, when it comes to money and people. He would use his power to help other people. People would say that J.P Morgan was “A man powerful and wealthy enough to play god” (Cain 1).  J.P had lots of control and power, but he would use it for his own use. Many politicians and journalist were very mad because they thought that J.P had too much power with Federal Reserve and manipulated the system for his own gain (“J.P. Morgan” 1). His selfish intentions cause that whole situation to end in court and J.P. was called to testify about congressional committee in Louisiana (1). The reason why he was in court was because of a situation about “trust money” that J.P. had with people on Wall Street (1). Many people in the financial business still had mixed feelings with J.P. Morgan had with the American banking and industry in his control (1). This showed that J.P. had a lot of trust issues with people he worked with.

J.P. Morgan may have had trust issues with his business, but was he greedy? J.P Morgan was working with the Board of Trustees, alongside Goldman Sachs and other financial corporations, to try to keep millions of dollars invested in unclean and harmful chemicals that is causing climate change to happen in the world and the trustees voted on (Nelson 1). The Cornell Community College has been calling out the trustees about the situation but have been not responding to their concerns about how the unclean chemical was affecting their community (1). J.P Morgan and the trustees were also working with the worst fossil fuel companies out there (1). These companies were damaging the environment, and they were profiting from Cornell's investments, making J.P Morgan and the trustees richer and benefiting them (1). It shows that J.P Morgan and the trustees didn’t care about students and the faculty (1). Students of Cornell did their research and found out that in 2006-2015, Cornell loss $45 million dollars from fossil fuel investments that the trustees used (1). This caused everyone to realize that the Board of Trustees made a bad decision and wasted money that Cornell could have used for their school (1).

There have been other situations that J.P Morgan showed that he was greedy. In 2017, J.P Morgan company was using the “dirtiest fossil fuel on the plant” (Breech 1). The company was abusing the human rights and the environment (1). J.P. Morgan company is the largest company to use fossil fuel (1). The company was using dirty fossil fuel that wasn’t good, which they made 11.6 billion dollars (1). The fossil fuel was making people sick and causing climate change to get worst (1).

All these situation shows the J.P Morgan would do anything to get money to benefit him. Even if it will cause people to have trust issues with him, stealing money from people, and making the environment unsafe. This evidence shows how greedy J.P Morgan and his company really is and how he didn’t care people; he only cared for himself.

One theory is J.P. Morgan had been involved with causing of the Titanic sinking. In the Washington Post “Morgan witnessed the Titanic’s launch in Belfast on May 31, 1911” (Trickey). J.P. Morgan was a part of the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in the US (Cain 1). But there were three unhappy men that were in Morgan way from doing business with the bank (1). The three men were Benjamin Guggenheim, John Jacob Astor, and Isidor Straus (1). They reportedly were against the idea of the bank and Morgan working together (1). Business Insider said, “Morgan somehow manipulated all his rivals into sail on the maiden voyage, so he could sink it” (1). When the Titanic did sink all those people died and Morgan rivals died too on the ship. Somehow J.P. Morgan got away with death by canceling his trip in the eleventh hour and ended up staying in Europe to buy some art (1). The author J. Kent Layton wrote “Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania” said, “Surely there had to be easier ways to carry out the plan?” (1).

 

Many people believe that the Titanic really wasn’t the real ship. Another conspiracy theory about the ship was that it was switch for other. In a book called “Titanic: The ship that never sank?” by author/researcher Robin Gardiner wrote that “the whole disaster was the result of an insurance scam by the International Mercantile Marine Co” (Cain 1). This company was owned by the White Star Line and their vessels were the Titanic and Olympic (1). The Olympic was another ship and it was damaged in 1911 (1). Before that, there was a theory that the Olympic was already damaged while sailing from England to New York (Little 1). The Olympic had lots of repairs that needed to be done, so they sent it to New York in March 1912 so it could get fix, a couple of weeks before the Titanic would set to sail (1). Some people ending up finding out that even when the Olympic was damage they still made money off it and ending switching it with the Titanic “purposefully” to get rid of the damaged ship (1). All the people who were part of the making of the Titanic was getting insurance money but just killing people in the process (1). How the Olympic and Titanic got switch was the construction number, the Titanic was 401 and the Olympic was 400 (Cain 1). Both ships were damaged and they pulled all the numbered items from the wreck of the Titanic (1). The Paul Burns, the vice president and curator for the Titanic Museum Attraction, said: “it just doesn’t make any sense” (Little 1). But many people still believe this popular theory.
Another conspiracy theory is that a German U-boat was behind the Titanic sinking (Cain 1). In 1915, the German U-boat throwing of the British ocean liner off the coast when they were in Ireland and ended up killing 1,198 people (1). Some people who survived the sinking says they noticed “unidentified vessel approximately five to six miles away from the sinking ship” according to the Huffington Post (1). Survivors saw that there were many explosions near the ship, some may say it could be the Germans (1). They may have not known their target wasn’t the right one and was the luxury vessels (1).

The next conspiracy theory about the Titanic is very creepy. Some may say that there was a dead mummy on the ship that was a ghost. Even the Washington Post wrote an article titled “Ghost of the Titanic: Vengeance of Hoodoo Mummy Followed Man Who Wrote Its History.”(Little 1). In the early 20^th century spiritualism had spent the past years trying to prove that the mummy was the cause of the disaster in London (1). Another theory was that the “Egyptian curses” and “Native American burial grounds” were part of a conspiracy that was played off by colonialist (1). So, a mummified princess “left a trail of death” and going to England in the early 1990s right after it been removed from Egypt (Cain 1). The British art collectors and museum professionals were sick and tired of all the haunted mummy at their museum, so they end up selling it to an American archaeologist (1). The mummy was going on the Titanic with the man (Little 1). The archaeologist was ignoring the warning sign that his seller was telling him but ending not really caring and he headed up going back to New York, yet never made it back to America because of the ship sinking (Cain 1). It made it to the Denver museum, but the British Museum called it “unlucky mummy” and they also say it was the cause of the sinking ship (Little 1).

The last theory was that the Titanic had a controversial secret message (Cain 1). Some would say that the Catholic workers noticed that the new ship’s hull number 3909 04, which ended up being a secret message (1). They found out that if you flip 3909 04 upsides down, it would look like it says, “NO POPE” (1). The Catholic worker was scared to work on the ship, and they thought that harm would come to the ship (1). But the shipbuilding firm Harland and Wolff wasn’t happy that this theory was spreading around (Cain 1). So, the company drove all the Catholic employees away in the late 1800s and started only to hire Protestants says the “Irish Blood, English Heart, Ulster Fry” by Annie Caulfield (Little 1).

So, all these conspiracy theories show all different ways how the Titanic could have sunk, and some people believe these theories. A survey of twenty people showed 90% agree that it was hit by an iceberg. Even Paul Burns, the vice president and curator for the Titanic Museum Attraction, said: “it just doesn’t make any sense” (Little 1). This shows that the “unsinkable boat” didn’t live up to expectations and that many things went which cause 1,517 people to die.

Work Cited

Breech, Ruth. "JPMorgan Chase Can’t Hide from the Truth." Rainforest Action Network - Fighting for People and Planet, Rainforest Action Network - Fighting for People and Planet, 2 Oct. 2018, www.ran.org/the-understory/chaseagmreportback/.

Cain, Áine. "5 Wild Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Sinking of the Titanic." Business Insider, 12 Apr. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/titanic-sinking-conspiracy-theories-2018-4#jp-morgan-was-behind-the-whole-thing-5.

"J.P. Morgan." HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, 11 Oct. 2018, www.history.com/topics/19th-century/john-pierpont-morgan. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

Little, Becky. "The Craziest Titanic Conspiracy Theories, Explained." HISTORY, 25 Feb. 2019, www.history.com/news/titanic-sinking-conspiracy-myths-jp-morgan-olympic.

NELSON, WYATT. "GUEST ROOM / Trustees Fail; Now The Burden Is Ours." Gale PowerSearch, GALE, 17 Oct. 2015, go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T004&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=2&docId=GALE%7CA432957077&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=&prodId=GPS&contentSet=GALE%7CA432957077&searchId=R8&userGroupName=txshracd2496&inPS=true.

Trickey, Erick. "Fact-checking QAnon conspiracy theories: Did J.P. Morgan sink the Titanic?" The Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/04/how-j-p-morgan-didnt-sink-the-titanic-and-other-qanon-conspiracy-theories-debunked/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2e1bb1933971.

“Why Did People Consider the Titanic Unsinkable?” History, HistoryOnTheNet, 15 May 2018, www.historyonthenet.com/the-titanic-why-did-people-believe-titanic-was-unsinkable.