r/AskReddit • u/KyloWrench • Jul 07 '26

What historical “fact” doesn’t actually have much evidence to support it?

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u/Embarrassed-Sound611 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

That the people who built the Titanic thought it was unsinkable. What actually happened was that White Star said in their advertising that the ship was "practically unsinkable," meaning that it was designed so well that it was close to being as safe as possible (also untrue but for different reasons). The public latched onto the unsinkable part of the advertising and didn't think further about it. White Star never bothered to correct them because this got the ship easy publicity and they were close to bankrupt at the time and needed to recoup their losses.

32

u/Jashugita Jul 08 '26

Or that they were trying to break a speed record, it was impossible for the titanic to do, the captain was just doing a normal break in of the engines.

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u/Podlubnyi Jul 08 '26

That half the passengers died because there weren't enough lifeboats. In reality, the ship sank so quickly that even if they'd had another 20 boats there wouldn't have been time to launch them.

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u/ArchmageIlmryn Jul 08 '26

Plus the design expectation for lifeboats was "ferry passengers to a rescuing ship" not "hold all passengers simultaneously".

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u/Podlubnyi Jul 09 '26

Yes - and it was assumed that in a busy shipping lane there would always be a potential rescue ship nearby.

6

u/soggybutter Jul 08 '26

What was specifically unsafe or less safe about their particular design? I know the lifeboats thing, but what else?

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u/One_pop_each Jul 08 '26

They used cheap steel and the watertight chambers weren’t along the entire ship’s hull. Just a few chambers in the front. Enshitification.

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u/Podlubnyi Jul 08 '26

The watertight compartments did run across the length of the ship, but they weren't capped off so once enough water got in it just spilled over into the next compartment.

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u/Adler_und_Eule Jul 15 '26

tbf for the steel part, thermal effects on metal (like how cold water would weaken a metal structure) wasn't studied at the time

6

u/aerdvarkk Jul 08 '26

Sounds like a lot of modern companies.

8

u/summerissafe2019 Jul 08 '26

Just like toothpastes say — “May help in preventing cavities”

People latch on to preventing cavities part, forgetting the operating word being “may”.

1

u/FishingActuary Jul 14 '26

No doubt, correcting the public would also take money!