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TODAY IN HISTORY: Why nobody on world's most famous ship saw the iceberg

Richard Wood
Richard Wood

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April 14
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April 14

At 11:40pm on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg while on her maiden voyage between Southhampton and New York City.

The ship was sailing on a millpond-calm sea through a moonless night, which made such obstacles hard to see.

Normally, waves breaking against an iceberg would reveal its location hundreds of yards earlier.

Binoculars were also not available to the ship's lookout, despite a pair being behind lock and key onboard.

Attribution: Titanic Museum Attraction Facebook
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Within a few hours the world's largest ocean liner had sunk, killing 1500 crew and passengers.

But there were also some amazing tales of survival during the horrific night. 

Attribution: AP
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Joughin grabbed two bottles of fine whisky and quickly downed them. Then just minutes before the Titanic slid beneath the waves, he grabbed a lifejacket and jumped into the freezing Atlantic Ocean.

Amazingly he survived four hours in the water, which had a temperature of two degrees below zero, before he was pulled into a lifeboat.

Attribution: AP
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A massive storm caused cricket ball-size hailstones to fall on the east coast of NSW on April 14, 1999, in the costliest natural disaster for Australian insurers.

Sydney's eastern suburbs and central business district were some of the worst-hit areas when the storm unleased 500,000 tonnes of hailstones.

Attribution: Nine
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The storm, classified as a super cell, was the costliest natural disaster ever to hit Australia in terms of insured losses.

Insured losses reached about $1.7 billion, but the total costs were estimated to be $2.3 billion.

Attribution: Nine
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The debut single by former One Direction band member Harry Styles raced to the top of the UK charts on April 14, 2017.

Sign Of The Times knocked off Ed Sheeran's Shape of You following a 13-week run.

Attribution: Getty
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