There were several rumors that, in a moment of desperation, a few men actually dressed up as women in order to board a lifeboat. Among them were Dickinson Bishop, J. Bruce Ismay, William Carter, and William T. Sloper, which were plagued by the rumors throughout their lives. For Dickinson Bishop, the rumors even led to a divorce.
He and his wife Helen got divorced in 1916, and even though Helen claimed Dickinson was mean and a drunk, the rumors of him disguised as a woman to board the lifeboat ultimately ended their relationship. When asked about the incident, Bishop claimed there was no official order that only allowed women and children to board the lifeboats.
The Titanic "Curse" Began With Its Construction
Some people say that the Titanic was cursed right from the start. During the ship's construction, eight workers lost their lives, and three of them remain unidentified to this day. Unfortunately, back in 1911, when the Titanic was built, the health and safety practices demanded in construction work today didn't exist, and so it became almost inevitable for people in the engineering and construction fields to have fatal accidents.
Of the eight men that passed away during the Titanic's construction were Samuel Scott, John Kelly, William Clarke, James Dobbin, and Robert Murphy. In 2012, a plaque in Belfast was unveiled in their honor. Since most of the shipyard workers came from Belfast, it seemed appropriate to memorialize the lives of these eight men in the heart of the city.
Major Newspapers Mistakenly Reported the Titanic Disaster
Obviously, every newspaper was in a race to publish the first headline of what was one of the biggest disasters in history, and in that rush, major news outlets like The World, The Daily Mail, and the Belfast Telegraph mistakenly reported there had been no fatalities. Unfortunately, this gave false hope to the passengers' families and loved ones.
Taking advantage of the time difference, American newspapers were able to gather more information and their headlines were much more accurate. As shown in the photo above, the New York Times published the story under the headline: "Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued by Carpathia, Probably 1,250 Perish; Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing."
Not a Single Engineer Survived
So many people lost their lives when the Titanic sunk that the true heroes of the night of the crash are often forgotten. Not one of the 25 engineers on the ship survived that night, and it was because up until the very last minute, they stayed behind to keep the electricity and pumps running, even as the ship was sinking.
The ship's lights only went out when every last part of it finally sunk. The engineers also kept the radio working, making sure they were putting out distress signals until seconds before the ship disappeared into the water.
The Mysterious Story of the "Titanic Orphans"
Edmond and Michel Navratil were known as the "Titanic orphans", and they became somewhat of a media sensation at the time. The Navratil brothers were practically babies when the Titanic sank; Edmond was two and Michel was four. And, apparently, they had been kidnapped by their father, Michel Sr., who had decided to take them to America in order to get his estranged wife to follow them, hoping they could all start a new life on another continent.
Sadly, when the ship crashed, their father put them in a lifeboat and was never heard from again. They were the only two children to be rescued without a guardian, and since they spoke no English, a French-speaking survivor named Margaret Hays took them in until their mother finally found them a month later, due to their faces being all over the news.