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Short Stuff: Titanic Survivors! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck. And I can say with one hundred percent
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: certainty that neither one of us went down with the Titanic, Right,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that's true. Try to dispute that fact, you can't do it.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking a little bit. I know we did
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: an episode on the Titanic, but I don't know that
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: we really dug into the data of survivors. And I
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: can't remember why I was looking at this, but I
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: just it might've just been a story that came my way,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: but I just thought it was kind of interesting to
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: look a little bit about, like not the ones who perish,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: but the people who survived, and like who were these people?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always about the ones that perished.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Leo slipping under the cold, murky depths, even though
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: he could have fit on that door.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous, but still it
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: was a great ending. Yeah, So well, just kind of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: go over the basic facts here, right. Titanic at left Southampton,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: England for New York City on April tenth, nineteen twelve
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: four days later April fourteenth, maybe three days, I can't
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: remember if it was right, before the fourteenth or right
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: before the fifteenth. I really kind of meandered, there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Is the night of the fourteenth, so it went into
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the fifteenth.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we got that wrong.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I feel dumb.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Four days into this cruise aboard. Seriously, what was the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: most luxurious luxury liner, And there are plenty of luxury lines,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: this was the cream of the crop. With twenty two
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty people on board, nine hundred of which
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: were crew. It struck an iceberg and within less than
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: three hours the whole ship, massive ship, had completely submerged sunk.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: That's right. If you're looking at the overall survival rates,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: women survived obviously more than men, pretty significantly, seventy four
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: percent of the female passenger survived twenty percent of the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: male passengers obviously because of the notion of women and
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: children first, which has always sort of been the calling
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: card of any situation, disaster, situation, and not only the
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: literally Captain Edward john Smith, you know, making that an
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: order in the evac process, but just the general idea
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: that you know, you're going to prioritize the women and children. Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: and they actually did instinctively.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice to see, like you can say, just
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: statistically speaking, they definitely did. Seventy four percent of female
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: passengers did survive, but only twenty percent of male passengers survived.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, great, let's call it. Ah, it ended
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: just great as far as.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Those things are, Oh call it a day.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: The thing is is, if you start digging into the classes,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: there's some disparities that emerge that are a little disturbing,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and by a little, I mean pretty disturbing and sad.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there were three classes aboard first, second, and third,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and then the crew members, and they go as follows.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Sixty two percent of the first class passenger survived. For
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. Obviously, they were prioritized just because
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: unfortunately that's how it worked back then, maybe still how
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: it works a little bit. You're given priority on those lifeboats.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: But also just because of the sheer fact that when
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: you're up on a higher floor you're going to be
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: closer to those life boats, you're gonna be able to
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: get there quicker and get information relayed to you quicker.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, Plus all of them were automatically enrolled in the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Titanic's VIP Life Saving Members Club policy. Yeah, so the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: second class passengers. They didn't fare quite as well, but
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: still not that bad. Forty three percent of them survived.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Actually it's pretty bad. The reason why is for the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: opposite reasons of what you just said. They were further
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: away from the lifeboats, the crew paid less attention to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: helping them get off of the Titanic and onto those
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: life boats, and so so, yeah, more than half of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the people in second class died, and I saw that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: second So something I saw about this is that the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: third class passengers, which we'll talk about in a second,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: they actually had little cabins that were nicer than second
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: class accommodations on other liners. Oh yeah, but that the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: second class passengers had the kind of the jankiest because
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: for some reason, not all of the second class cabins
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: got finished because Titanic's construction was so rushed. Oh interesting,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and apparently there were reports of people who were in
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: second class that were finding half eaten sandwiches that the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: workmen had left behind. That's how I wonder recently it
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: was completed.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I wonder if they were that's remarkable. First of all,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: think I wonder if they were like, well, you got
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: two crews, let's start building from the top and from
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the bottom, and then they ran out of time in
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: the middle.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Man, I was on a flight, you mean, I went
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: to Dominican Republic years ago, and it was one of
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: those ones where you walk out on the tarmac and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: climb the stairs to board. Oh yeah, I've never seen
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: this before in my life. But the ground crew opened
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the front and the side door and said have at it,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: And so people had no idea which door to go up,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and we're like having to pass one another in the
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: middle of the airplane trying to get to their seats.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: It was the dumbest boarding I've ever seen in my life.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I'm still it still takes my breath away. I couldn't
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: believe it was going on. It was just absolutely hilarious.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: You knew who also? I wonder if I should name
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: this person? Is that bad to say that someone had
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: a VIP experience that you witnessed.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Is this about Hodgman?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It has to be no usher?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, what about them?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: When I got on my flight coming home from our
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Christmas vacation to the Bahamas, we were just about to
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: step onto the plane literally, and the airline employees were like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: you guys moved to the side, and this group of
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: about twenty people they just shuttle by us, which I
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't like what's going on here? I was just like
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: what's going on here? I was just more like, this
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: is weird. Who are they? I get on the plane
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: and the very first person I see is Usher sitting
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: there on the front first row. I was like, wait
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: a minute. I was like, Usher didn't he didn't walk
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: by us in that crew, he was already on the plane.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Interesting thought about it a little bit on the flight.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And then when we get to Atlanta, Usher's up in
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: front of us, obviously, and he he takes a left
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: out of that door where you like put your baby
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: stroller and doesn't walk up the jetway. And I was like,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: what's going on? And I looked out of that door
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: and there were probably fifteen Matt Black BMW sitting on
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the tarmac.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, Usher doesn't even have to walk
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: through an airport. No, And I'm sure we can pay
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: for that kind of experience.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. I'm doog that he even flew commercial.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: If you're doing that kind of stuff, why wouldn't you
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: just fly private?
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: We asked ourselves that same question. If he, I mean,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: he clearly is paying for like a lot of his
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: family and extended family to take this awesome vacation. Okay,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: there were so many people, it seems like it would
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: have been more cost effective to probably rent a plane.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd think, so, come on, not sure, let's get
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: it together.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: But they weren't sitting in first class, and he had
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: his family back there and coach. Really most of them.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I think I saw a few in delta comfort, but
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: there you go. You know, he was up there with
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: his wife.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: He didn't fly private because he was sacrificing for his
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: family members because he didn't want to fly them private.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't be graduated. Good for him if he
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: can afford that. More power to you.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Man who thought Usher was going to make an appearance
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in this Titanic Survivor short stuff?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Not me at all. So maybe and Usher, but not
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: the Usher.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Sure, So let's real quick before we take a break
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: go through.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: So third class, Oh geez, is that where we were?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were the worst off of all. Only twenty
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: six percent of people in third class one hundred and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: seventy four out of seven hundred and nine passengers survived.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just should point out that that's obviously
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: due to them being lower, but then also they're not
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: prioritized and they're not getting They didn't even bother telling
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: them what to do. Basically, they were like, figure it
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: out yourself, and they may not have even understood figure
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: it out yourself in a lot of cases because as
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: we know, fun a good the three and then the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Titanic movie. Can't remember his name, Billy Zane Leo's Italian buddy.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Giuseppe, was that his name? I don't remember he had that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think the guy was really Italian, but he
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of times those third class passengers
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: on the Titanic may not have spoken English, so there
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: was a language barrier on top of everything, right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ironically that actor was native American playing in a how
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: in person.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And he cried when he saw trash in the ocean.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: So you said one more thing though, that they're in
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the lower decks. It's not just harder to get up
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to the upper decks in the lifeboats. That's also the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: first area to flood with seawater when ship strikes in Iceberg. Right,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: So yeah, crew members actually only twenty four percent of
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the crew members survived. Yeah, that's actually the lowest number,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: kind of a heartfelt number because most of them died
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: saving other people's lives. Yeah, let's take a break and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: we'll come back and run through some notable survivors. How
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Let's do it, jaw all right, we promise talk of
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: notable survivors. We have a good list here, but we're
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: just going to kind of pick and choose some of
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: our faves. So I'll go first, if I may, yes, please.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: The first person I'm gonna pick is a little bebie,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a nine week old baby named Milvina Dean, the youngest
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: survivor of the Titanic, and I did a little more
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: research on Milvina. Milvina was from England. Her parents ran
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: a pub and decided they wanted to move to Kansas.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I think they had family in Kansas, or maybe it
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: was misery. I can't remember one of the two, and
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: either way, they're immigrating to the US. They sold their
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: pub Dad bought a third class family ticket. Ironically, they
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: were not even supposed to be on the Titanic. Like
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of the passengers, there was a coal strike
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that relocated them to the Titanic, and when the incident happened,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: when the iceberg was struck, Dad instructed the family to
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: go up, up, up to the lifeboats. They survived mom, brother,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: and little nine week old Milvina. Sadly Dad did not survive.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: They went back to England afterward because they didn't really
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: you know, just the mom and the two kids went
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: back to what was more familiar and she ended up
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: being the oldest living survivor just died in two thousand
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: and nine at ninety seven years old. And one other
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: quick thing, she did not even know she was a
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: passenger on the Titanic until she was eight years old.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, crazy, that's a good one, Chuck, I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: got one.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: What you got?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: There was a very famous survivor, a woman named Margaret
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Molly Brown and sinkable, yes, very famously dubbed the unsinkable
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Molly Brown, because not only did she survive the Titanic,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: she was instrumental in helping like organize the survivors aboard
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the Carpathia. She helped with language barriers. She was originally
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: from Ireland, so she was able to speak to some
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of the Irish immigrants who didn't speak English. And not
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: only that, she raised ten thousand dollars, which is equal
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: to about three hundred and twenty thousand dollars today among
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the first class passengers to help the second and third
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: class passengers who had lost family members before the Carpathia
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: even reached New York.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The other notable thing about her, and there's plenty
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of notable things, but the press dubbed her of the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: unsinkable Molly Brown. She never used the name Molly in
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: her entire life. It was always Margaret.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Is that I didn't know that was even a nickname.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the unsinkable Oh Molly for Margaret. Yeah, I didn't
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: know that either. I thought Molly was just Molly.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, Yeah or e Come on, all right,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I've got a couple here that are linked. A gentleman
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: named Carl the k Bear and a gentleman named Dick
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Norris Richard nor Williams the third. I mentioned these guys
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: together because they were both tennis players, like tennis stars.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I believe Carl Bert was traveling with his fiance, Helen Newsom,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: or maybe they weren't engaged yet, but she became his
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: wife at some point.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: No, they were engaged and he did help her onto
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: a lifeboat. They were separated, but he got a spot
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: on a different lifeboat. Richard Norris Williams, the second, was
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: traveling with his father. They were separated, but he was rescued.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't see about his father.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't either.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: But Williams was rescued. And again I mentioned them together
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: because they ended up competing against one another post Titanic.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: On the tennis courts.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Pretty crazy, and I'm sure some Wiseacre said something about
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: it being like a Titanic of a match or something.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I've got one more. Then how
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: about you do one more?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: No, let just let's just finish up with yours.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, this is well, Now I have to choose.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So there's a woman named Edith Rosenbaum Russell. At the time,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: she was just Edith Rosenbaum. She became a fashion journalist
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and a fashion buyer. Had she not survived, the pantsuit
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: might never have been invented. But what she's famous for
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: is that she had a toy pig that she brought
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: with her that her mother had given her while she
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: was grieving the loss of her husband, who had died
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: in an auto accident like a year or two before.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So she carried this toy pig with her everywhere. Edith did,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and she said that she was spending time locking her
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: trunks because just in case the ship went down, she
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to float, or she wanted she didn't want people
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: stealing from them. She didn't plan on getting out of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the Titanic at all. But some random crew member grabbed
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the pig from her, from her arm and said, if you,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: if you, if you're not gonna save your baby, I will,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and threw the pig into one of the lifeboats. And
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: so Edith said she she realized very clearly that that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was a sign that her mother would want her to survive,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: because her mother had given her the pig. So she
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: followed the pig into the lifeboat and survived. And now
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the pig is in the National Maritime Museum in London.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: That's right, you know what, I am going to mention
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: one more just quickly, because I thought you were going
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: to pick this guy. Yeah, but we should mention that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Bruce Ismay, who was the managing director of the White
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Star Line that was you know that ran the Titanic.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: He survived, was A guy that was in the movie
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: was played by Jonathan Hyde, and he got a lot
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: of obviously got a lot of criticism. It was on
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: one of the last lifeboats, but still people were like, hey,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: women and children are perishing and the guy who runs
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the whole show gets himself on a lifeboat. Ye, you
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: should have prioritized other people's safety. So he didn't have
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the best reputation after that.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But you know what that means.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Is short stuff out? Yeah, stuff should know is a
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