With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Titanic disaster blamed on Moon

Although a collision with a vast tower of ice ultimately brought the passenger liner to its sticky end, it was a freak lunar event three months earlier that put the obstacle in its path, a new study claims.

An incredibly rare combination of astronomical factors including the closest approach of the moon to Earth in 1,400 years caused an unusually high tide in January 1912, researchers found.

This once-in-a-lifetime swell would have swept a vast field of icebergs from their normal resting place off the coast of Canada and caused them to drift further south.

It would have taken them almost exactly three months to reach the shipping lanes where the Titanic sank on April 14 at a cost of 1,500 lives, the scientists reported in Sky & Telescope magazine....

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)