When did the Titanic sink?
The Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, about 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its first voyage.
The RMS Titanic left Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, bound for New York. At about 11:40 p.m. on April 14, it struck an iceberg about 600 kilometers south of Newfoundland. The collision opened several of the ship's forward compartments to the sea.
The ship was designed to stay afloat with up to four compartments flooded, but five or six were damaged. It broke apart and sank at about 2:20 a.m. on April 15. More than 1,500 of the roughly 2,200 people on board died, partly because there were lifeboats for only about half of them.
What changed afterwards
The disaster led to the first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in 1914. New rules required enough lifeboat seats for everyone on board and a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol was created to track icebergs. The wreck was found in 1985, about 3,800 meters down.
Did You Know?
The Titanic carried about 20 lifeboats for more than 2,200 people. The nearest ship to answer its distress calls, the RMS Carpathia, arrived about an hour and a half after the sinking and rescued around 700 survivors.