
Show Notes
(Content warning: please be aware this episode includes discussion of suicide). It's 1140pm in the North Atlantic Ocean, April 14 1912, when Titanic lookout Fred Fleet first glimpses a hulking great mass of ice looming out of the darkness. He desperately warns the crew with the famous words "Iceberg! Right Ahead!" But it's already too late.
Many things went wrong in the build up to one of history's most famous disasters and the loss of around 1500 lives.
And in this episode we're focusing on the Titanic story through the point of view of 24-year-old lookout Fred Fleet.
Why didn't Fleet see the iceberg in time? How come crew apparently ignored ice field warnings? And what does the catastrophe tell us about the Edwardian attitude towards the natural world in the name of progress?
Michelle's joined by Titanic expert Paul Lee for an epic Beastly History.
Discover More:
Explore Paul Lee's Titanic research: https://www.paullee.com/titanic/
Read Fred Fleet and others' testimony at the Titanic inquest in 1912: https://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTInq15Fleet01.php More Beastly:
Follow Beastly History on Instagram @beastlyhistory
Subscribe to @BeastlyHistoryPodcast on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@BeastlyHistoryPodcast
Email Beastly History at Wild Beast Studios: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Beastly History
It’s 1995 and Waterworld is meant to be blockbuster of the year. But everyone’s talking about it for all the wrong reasons.
It’s 1912, and on the Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition, scientist and explorer George Murray Levick and five other men are marooned on what they’ll come to call ‘Inexpressible Island’.
You may have heard of Captain Scott's doomed race to the South Pole. But do you know about the other gripping survival stories on history's most infamous Antarctic Expedition?
Nellie Chapman has an extraordinary way of drawing a crowd. Born into the strange and spectacular world of 19th Century travelling menageries, she rises to fame as one of Britain's most celebrated lion tamers. Performing inside the cage with some of the world's most feared predators, Nellie captivates audiences eager for a glimpse of danger.
Rory Carragh has a deadly reputation. He hunts wolves, and he’s very good at it.