London From a Belfast cathedral to a ship in the cold North Atlantic, thousands were gathering Saturday to remember the Titanic, 100 years after the sinking of the luxury liner.
The ship, on its maiden voyage from England to New York, struck an iceberg at 11.40pm on April 14, 1912, and sank at 2.20am on April 15. More than 1,500 of the 2,208 passengers and crew died.
In Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built — pride of Harland & Wolff shipyard — thousands are due to attend a nationally televised concert at the city's Waterfront Hall or a requiem Mass at St Anne's Cathedral yesterday.
In its departure port of Southampton, England, an orchestra will play composer Gavin Bryars' work The Sinking of the Titanic.
Aboard Balmoral, a cruise ship that is taking 1,309 history buffs and descendants of passengers on the route of the doomed voyage, passengers and crew will hold two memorial services at the site of the disaster, 640 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland — one marking the time when the ship hit the iceberg, the other the moment it sank below the waves.
A shipboard band, which has been entertaining guests in the evenings during the cruise, will play Nearer My God To Thee, the tune the Titanic's band were said to have played before the vessel went down. Another cruise ship, Journey, left New York on Tuesday and will join Balmoral at the site.
‘Power of the tragedy'
Two Titanic survivors who later became tennis pros are being honoured at Rhode Island's International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum. Nearby on Cape Cod, a wreath will be laid for a radio operator who relayed Morse code messages as the ill-fated ship went down. In Denver, a musical piece composed for famed passenger Molly Brown is getting its premiere.
With remembrances and exhibits planned from San Diego to Singapore, places with few or little-noted connections to the Titanic are showing the power the tragedy holds worldwide 100 years after the vessel sank on April 15, 1912, taking more than 1,500 people to their deaths.
In Newport, R.I, visitors can stop by the tennis museum's "Tennis and the Titanic" exhibit as a tribute to Hall of Famers Richard Norris Williams and Karl Howell Behr. They met in their 20s aboard the rescue vessel Carpathia and became friends, with both tennis and tragedy in common.
Williams, who grew up in Switzerland, was headed with his father to Massachusetts, where he would attend Harvard. As the ship went down, the two prepared to jump in the water, but one of the Titanic's smokestacks toppled, crushing Williams' father. The 21-year-old jumped in nonetheless and found a lifeboat.
‘Public discussion'
"He climbed aboard that and spent the next five hours waist deep, or occasionally deeper, in 28-degree water," said Williams' son, Quincy Williams, now 80, who was on hand for the exhibit's opening on Thursday and participated in a public discussion with members of Behr's family.
Behr, an already successful tennis player who bought a ticket for the Titanic's maiden voyage in pursuit of a woman, became a member of the Carpathia's survivor committee, helping other passengers to safety. He proved himself to the woman's disapproving parents and later married her.
Williams and Behr faced each other several times on the court, most notably just two years after the sinking, in the quarterfinals of the US National Championship, held that year in Newport. (Williams beat Behr in three sets.)
The most famous maritime disaster in history — occurring as the Titanic steamed from Britain toward New York — is being highlighted in other ways in places without direct links to it.
Venues in Las Vegas, San Diego, Houston and even Singapore are hosting Titanic exhibitions that include artefacts recovered from the site of the sinking. Among them: bottles of perfume, porcelain dishes, even a 17-foot piece of hull.
The University of Denver is holding a Titanic concert featuring the premiere of Lifeboat number six, in homage to hometown resident Margaret "Molly" Brown.
