More than any other disaster at sea, the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 has captured the imagination of people around the world. It was a luxury ship designed to be unsinkable, yet it sank on its very first voyage. As the story goes, the huge vessel tried to prove its speed by breaking the record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In the rush, it was unable to avoid striking an iceberg. 1,514 passengers and crew perished when it sank in the freezing water.

A passage about a theory that the Titanic would have survived if not for its center propeller.