Wording of this Handout:
The Titanic.
There have been at least two big movies based on the sinking of the Titanic. An early one was made in 1953, and starred Robert Wagner, amongst others, Robert Wagner has been on TV lots of times, in movies such as It Takes a Thief. He's the 'smooth' guy, like James Bond, who always beats the baddies without ruffing his hair too much.
The Titanic was a British passenger liner which struck an iceberg near Newfoundland in 1912. it was s show-pice of the finest in ship-building, carpentry, machinery, metal and glass-working, and elegance. It held many of the world's most important people, and it represented the finest which the Western world could produce. But when it sank, 1513 lives were lost. In 1985 a robot submarine found the wreck and in 1987 pieces of the ship were brought to the surface again.
If you saw the latest movie, with heart-throbs Rose and Jack, you might have noticed that:
Some people who didn't know the ship was sinking weren't told right away!
Some people who knew the ship was sinking didn't tell anyone else!
Some people thought the Titanic couldn't sink, so even when they were told that the ship was sinking they didn't believe it!
Some people knew where the lifeboats were, and some people didn't
There was a very wealthy man on the ship who tried to buy his way on to a lifeboat but was refused.
Many people were not prepared for a sinking ship, so thy didn't know where to go.
When the lifeboats put out from the ship, they were not full. Plenty more people could have got into them, but the lifeboats didn't come back.
People in half full life boats watched as hundreds of people drowned.
The Titanic was like a time capsule. It represented the triumph of science and technology over the elements. Many people thought, at that time, that Mankind was on the verge of solving every problem, Wealth, peace, control of the planet and happiness seemed so close... unfortunately the optimists were completely wrong. When the Titanic sank, it became instead a warning to the world, that wealth and man's best efforts are not enough, and soon the first of the World Wars broke out, plunging the world into misery.
Science and technology are wonderful things, and so is the cleverness of Man, but this world needs more than these to bring peace and happiness.
What do you think this world needs most of all?