If you’re a history buff or maybe just a devoted Leonoard DiCaprio fan, then you know yesterday marked the 101 year anniversary of the Titantic’s sinking. To mark the 101 years that passed since the terrible tragedy, The History Press took the retelling of the disaster to creative heights by setting up a Twitter account that’s been tweeting hypothetical bits and pieces from the ship herself over the past year.
#captain Exactly a month now before Titanic’s journey begins, I cannot wait to see her completed and on the ocean!
— TitanicVoyage (@TitanicRealTime) March 10, 2012
@TitanicRealTime’s first tweet was posted March 10 of last year, exactly one month (a hundred years ago) before the RMS Titanic was scheduled to set sail. The Twitter account then featured by-the-minute updates told from the points-of-view of the captain, engineers, officers, and crew members, as well as the passengers from fist, second, and third class.
Attention to the mock live-tweet of the Titanic voyage began to gain momentum again a few days ago – the date the ship hit an iceberg in 1912 – when an officer alerted, “3 gongs coming from the lookout and a report on the telephone – Iceberg Right Ahead. Hard-a-starboard!!” From that tweet on, everything just started getting worse (as we obviously already knew).
#crew A lot of water now entering hold 1, the tarp is ballooning over the hatch. More water coming in at the bottom of the firemen’s tunnel.
— TitanicVoyage (@TitanicRealTime) April 14, 2013
#passenger Why are the lifeboats being readied? This ship is unsinkable, this cannot be happening!
— TitanicVoyage (@TitanicRealTime) April 14, 2013
#ThomasAndrews I cannot believe this. The ship cannot be saved, she only has 1 to 1.5 hours at most before she goes under…
— TitanicVoyage (@TitanicRealTime) April 14, 2013
Most of us know what sort of horror the passengers of Titanic are in for – but the Twitter feed gives a chilling, “real time” feel to the disaster, and it’s one of the more unique ways we’ve seen social apps used to create a conversation.
The History Press plans to begin another live-tweet accounting of a different historical tragedy, this time focusing on the Whitechapel murders of 1888, told from the points-of-view of the detectives, officers, and residents from the district. Tweets will start appearing this coming August, and as early as now, the still-empty Twitter feed already has over 3,000 followers waiting.
Since The History Press unleashed this live-tweet project last year, the Titanic Voyage has garnered over 73,000 Twitter followers, and it would be safe to assume that this count will spike every time April 15 – the official date the Titanic went under, killing 1,502 passengers of the 2,224 onboard – arrives.
