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Did You Know...Fun facts about the Titanic
- The Titanic was 882 feet, 8 inches long (the length of four city blocks), and 92 feet, 6 inches wide (almost the length of a football field).
- The Titanic's whistles could be heard 100 miles away.
- The Titanic had a heated swimming pool on its decks, the first ever on a boat.
- The R.M.S. in R.M.S. Titanic stands for Royal Mail Steamer. Besides carrying passengers, the Titanic's main purpose was carrying mail between Europe and America.
- It's a tradition to "christen" a ship by breaking a bottle of champagne on its bow, but the Titanic was never christened.
- The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. It sank 2 hours, 40 minutes later at 2:20 a.m. on Monday, April 15.
- The Titanic could carry 3,547 people. It was carrying 2,224 passengers on its first and final trip. It only had enough lifeboats to carry 1,178 people.
- Women and children were rescued first. At least one man disguised himself as a woman to get onto the lifeboats.
- The ship the Californian was just 6 miles away from the Titanic. Its radio operator went to bed ten minutes before the Titanic sent out distress signals. The Titanic fired distress flares, too, but people on the Californian thought they were just having a party.
- After the Titanic disaster, many changes were made to improve ship safety. All ships must carry enough lifeboats for every passenger on board. Ships' radios are manned 24 hours a day. Regular lifeboat drills are held, and speed is reduced in ice, fog, or any other dangerous weather conditions.
Did You Know...Fun facts about Sharks
- Sharks, as we know them today, have been around for 100 million years. This means that they were here the same time that dinosaurs were.
- Sharks have an excellent sense of smell. They can smell a single drop of blood in an Olympic-size pool.
- Sharks have excellent eyesight and they can see colors.
- The largest shark of all—the Whale shark—eats the smallest food, microscopic plankton.
- If you ate like a shark, you would only eat a hamburger and French fries every two or three days.
- Sharks never overeat, except for Blue sharks. Blue sharks eat until they throw up, and then they go back for more.
- Most sharks give birth to live young, and shark pups are on their own from the moment they are born.
- The smallest shark is the Dwarf Lantern shark which is only about 7 inches long.
- When sharks sleep, they keep their eyes open.
- The sharks that are responsible for a majority of attacks on humans are Bull sharks, Tiger sharks, and Great White sharks.
- Bull sharks will sometimes swim up rivers and into lakes.
- Twenty percent of shark species are close to extinction.
- In 2003, 13-year-old competitive surfer Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm to a 14-foot Tiger shark. She went back out surfing one month later, and won a national surfing title in 2005.
- People are far more likely to die from hornet, wasp, bee, or dog attacks than from shark attacks.
- Mako sharks can swim 20 mph and can jump 20 feet into the air.
- Less than 100 people are attacked annually by sharks with about only 10% of them resulting in fatalities.
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