On which day did the Titanic sink?

Only one ship has been proudly called "unsinkable" and on its maiden voyage it sank. At 2:20 in the morning of April 15, 1912 Titanic went down in the northwest Atlantic, taking with it 1513 of the 2, 224 people on board. It was a sea disaster without equal, not so much because of the appalling death toll, but because it seemed to pass a damning comment on the ability and aspirations of man. The British ship was the newest and most luxurious ship in the world, nearly 275 meters long, 11 decks high, and a marvel of technology and science. Yet a 10-second scrape against the submerged shelf of a drifting iceberg turned all this achievement into mockery.
    When the White Star Line’s Titanic sailed from Southampton on April 10 bound for New York, its passenger list included many millionaires and members of British and American fashionable Society, all bent on enjoying a carefree week’s voyage on the latest miracle of the sea. Far below, on levels ignored by the first-class passengers and in conditions far less privileged, hundreds of emigrants were crossing the Atlantic to a new life in a new land.
    The first days were uneventful, but on the fourth day the radio operator began receiving alarming messages from ships ahead. Icebergs were drifting unusually far south. Throughout Sunday April 14, in the gaps between the innumerable personal cables sent out by the first-class passengers, the messages continued to come in. The first was forgotten about for several hours. Two later messages never arrived at the bridge. By early evening the air temperature fell sharply but despite this indication that ice was in the vicinity the Titanic never changed its direction nor reduced its speed even slightly.
    As night fell, Captain Edward Smith posted lookouts to watch for ice and at 11:40 pm the crow’s-nest lookout caught a glimpse of an iceberg ahead. The officer on the bridge ordered the Titanic to turn hard to starboard. It was too late — the ice cut a 90-metre-slice along the plates of the ship’s hull. Ironically, if the ship had continued on course and collided with the ice head-on it might well have emerged from the encounter scarcely damaged.
    Most passengers, aware only of a faint jarring sensation, thought no more about it. But to the engineers anxiously examining the damage it was clear the ship was doomed. The "unsinkable" could keep afloat if four of its 16 watertight compartments were flooded but the iceberg had sliced the walls of five. Already third-class passengers had awoken to find the floor of their cabins awash. The radio operator sent out the new SOS call — the first time it had been used by a ship in distress — and at 12:05 the order was given to launch the lifeboats.
    Unknown to the passengers the lifeboats held no more than 1,178 people, half the number of people on board — and even this was generous by the legal requirements of the day. At first there was no panic. Passengers simply refused to believe the ship could be in danger — after all, it was the "unsinkable". Only when it began to list alarmingly did they lose their complacency. Women and children were given priority and husbands and fathers said farewell to their weeping families. There were also shameful displays of selfishness by people who thought only of themselves. Number One lifeboat, with a capacity of 40, was lowered with only 12 people in it — Sir Costmo and Lady Duff Gordon, her secretary, two Americans, six stokers, and one of the ice lookout men. First-class passengers were looked after in preference to those of other classes.
    Only four women from the first class died，three of them by choice because they preferred to remain with their husbands. But of the 272 women in second and third class only 96 survived—— and for a time the doors leading down to the third—class levels were locked to prevent people surging up.
    The ship’s band played ragtime tulles on the sloping deck，their last number being the hymn " Aummn " with its hopeful line，"Hold me up in high waters". As the ship tilted further， millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet went to their cabins and reappeared on deck in evening dress. Howard Case，a London oil executive，was last seen leaning against the top deck calmly lighting a cigarette. At 2:20 am the Titanic stood almost vertical in the water and then slid down，nose first，to bury itself in the soft Atlantic ooze 3 kilometers below. The emigrants who had been unable to find their way along the dark companion ways were carried down with the ship. Those on deck were washed into the freezing sea where their cries for assistance were largely ignored by those in the lifeboats. The most disgraceful fature of the appalling tragedy is that out of approximately 1，500 people in the water only，13 were picked up by 18 lightly laden boats.