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Shipwreck · Protected

RMS Titanic

Sank 1912 · found 1985, N. Atlantic, ~370 mi SE of Newfoundland
PROTECTED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

RMS Titanic: still unexplained.

A memorial, not for salvage

The law of this ground: Protected under a UNESCO convention and a US, UK, Canada, France agreement, a grave site; recovery is tightly restricted.
The subject
RMS Titanic
The manifest
A memorial, not for salvage
The account

Unsinkable, they said. Four days out she grazed the ice, and proved them wrong in two hours and forty minutes. Fifteen hundred souls went into freezing water; by every account, the band played on. Seventy-three years later a camera sled drifting over the abyss caught a boiler in its lights, and the most famous ship on Earth had an address again. Two and a half miles down. Bow upright. Still pointed at New York.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • The wreck was found by Robert Ballard in 1985 at about 3,800 meters, 370 miles off Newfoundland, split in two with a wide debris field between bow and stern.
  • It is a protected maritime memorial under a US and UK agreement, and recovery is restricted as the hull slowly collapses.
  • There was no great treasure aboard, that is a myth; artifacts lie in the debris field, and the real work is documentation before the ship is gone.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • The wreck was found by Robert Ballard in 1985 at about 3,800 meters, 370 miles off Newfoundland, split in two with a wide debris field between bow and stern.
  • It is a protected maritime memorial under a US and UK agreement, and recovery is restricted as the hull slowly collapses.
  • There was no great treasure aboard, that is a myth; artifacts lie in the debris field, and the real work is documentation before the ship is gone.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 41.726°, -49.948° (approx.) View on the Map