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Highlights for April 15
At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the British ocean liner Titanic sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. The massive ship, which carried 2,200 passengers and crew, had struck an iceberg two and half hours before.
On April 10, the RMS Titanic,
one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners ever built, departed
Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The
Titanic was designed by the Irish shipbuilder William Pirrie and built in
Belfast, and was thought to be the world's fastest ship. It spanned 883 feet
from stern to bow, and its hull was divided into 16 compartments that were
presumed to be watertight. Because four of these compartments could be flooded
without causing a
critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. While leaving
port, the ship came within a couple of feet of the steamer New York but passed
safely by, causing a general sigh of relief from the passengers massed on the
Titanic's decks. On its first journey across the highly competitive Atlantic
ferry route, the ship carried some 2,200 passengers
and crew.
After stopping at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, to pick up some final passengers, the massive vessel set out at full speed for New York City. However, just before midnight on April 14, the RMS Titanic failed to divert its course from an iceberg and ruptured at least five of its hull compartments. These compartments filled with water and pulled down the bow of the ship. Because the Titanic's compartments were not capped at the top, water from the ruptured compartments filled each succeeding compartment, causing the bow to sink and the stern to be raised up to an almost vertical position above the water. Then the Titanic broke in half, and, at about 2:20 a.m. on April 15, stern and bow sank to the ocean floor.
Because of a shortage of
lifeboats and the lack of satisfactory emergency procedures, more than 1,500
people went down in the sinking ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic
waters. Most of the 700 or so survivors were women and children. A number of
notable American and British citizens died in the tragedy, including the noted
British journalist William Thomas
Stead and heirs to the Straus, Astor, and Guggenheim fortunes. One hour and 20
minutes after Titanic went down, the Cunard liner Carpathia arrived. The
survivors in the lifeboats were brought aboard, and a handful of others were
pulled out of the water. It was later discovered that the Leyland liner
Californian had been less than 20 miles away at the time of the accident but had
failed to hear the Titanic's distress signals because its radio operator was off
duty.
Announcement of details of the
tragedy led to outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. In the disaster's
aftermath, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was held
in 1913. Rules were adopted requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for
each person on board, and that lifeboat drills be held. An International Ice
Patrol was established to
monitor icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes. It was also required that
ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch.
On September 1, 1985, a joint U.S.-French expedition located the wreck of the
Titanic lying on the ocean floor at a depth of about 13,000 feet. The ship was
explored by manned and unmanned submersibles, which shed new light on the
details of its sinking.
Pol Pot, the architect of Cambodia's killing fields, dies of apparently natural causes while serving a life sentence imposed against him by his own Khmer Rouge.
The Khmer Rouge, organized by Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle in the 1960s, advocated a radical communist revolution that would wipe out Western influences in Cambodia and set up a solely agrarian society. In 1970, aided by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, Khmer Rouge guerrillas began a large-scale insurgency against Cambodian government forces, soon gaining control of nearly a third of the country.
By 1973, secret U.S. bombings of Cambodian territory controlled by the Vietnamese communists forced the Vietnamese out of the country, creating a power vacuum that was soon filled by Pol Pot's rapidly growing Khmer Rouge movement. In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, overthrew the pro-U.S. regime, and established a new government, the Kampuchean People's Republic.
As the new ruler of Cambodia, Pol Pot set about transforming the country into his vision of an agrarian utopia. The cities were evacuated, factories and schools closed, and currency and private property was abolished. Anyone believed to be an intellectual, such as someone who spoke a foreign language, was immediately killed. Skilled workers were also killed, in addition to anyone caught in possession of eyeglasses, a wristwatch, or any other modern technology. In forced marches punctuated with atrocities from the Khmer Rouge, the millions who failed to escape Cambodia were herded onto rural collective farms.
Between 1975 and 1978, an estimated two million Cambodians died by execution, forced labor, and famine. In 1978, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh in early 1979. A moderate communist government was established, and Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreated back into the jungle.
In 1985, Pol Pot officially retired but remained the effective head of the Khmer Rouge, which continued its guerrilla actions against the government in Phnom Penh. In 1997, however, he was put on trial by the organization after an internal power struggle ousted him from his leadership position. Sentenced to life imprisonment by a "people's tribunal," which critics derided as a show trial, Pol Pot later declared in an interview, "My conscience is clear." Much of the international community hoped that his captors would extradite him to stand trial for his crimes against humanity, but he died of apparently natural causes while under house arrest in 1998.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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