The largest ship afloat, hailed as unsinkable, left dock at noon bound for Cherbourg, Queenstown, and finally New York City. Aboard were some of the era's wealthiest industrialists alongside hundreds of emigrants seeking new lives in America. Four days later, an iceberg would turn this celebrated voyage into one of history's most infamous maritime disasters.
Crowds gathered on the Southampton docks to watch the White Star Line's newest flagship ease away from berth 44, so massive that the suction of her propellers nearly pulled a smaller liner, the SS New York, into collision—averted only by quick tugboat action, an omen many later remembered with a shudder.
Titanic carried a curious mix of humanity: John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim traveled in first-class suites paneled in oak and hung with tapestries, while more than 700 third-class passengers, many of them Irish, Scandinavian, and Middle Eastern emigrants, packed into simpler quarters below. The ship's owners had spared little expense on luxury—a swimming pool, squash court, and Turkish bath—but had installed lifeboats for barely half the souls aboard.
Captain Edward Smith, on his final voyage before retirement, guided the ship into the English Channel that afternoon. Nothing about the calm crossing hinted at the catastrophe awaiting four nights later off the coast of Newfoundland, when the 'unsinkable' ship would strike an iceberg and sink in under three hours, killing more than 1,500 people.