Yesterday I visited the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium and was startled to discover the following facts while viewing their exhibit about The History of the Titanic.

In 1889, 23 years before the Titanic's ill-fated passage in April of 1912, the book "Futility" was written by the English author Morgan Robertson. It was a fictional account of the largest ship in the world, and her maiden voyage across the Atlantic in the month of April. The ship, which was going too fast, collided with an iceberg and sank, killing most of the people aboard.

Here are some similarities between Robertson's fictional work and the real sinking of the Titanic:

	R.M.S. Titanic	Fictional Ship
Flag	British	British
Nickname	Virtually Unsinkable	Unsinkable
Ship's owners	British	British
Ship's owners' Headquarters	Liverpool	Liverpool
Ship's owners' U.S.office location	New York	New York
Nationality of principal stock owners	American	American
Itinerary	England to New York	New York to England
Overall Length	882 feet	800 feet
Displacement	66,000 tons	70,000 tons
Gross Tonnage	46,328 tons	45,000 tons
Propellers	3	3
Maximum speed	23 - 24 knots	24 knots
Collision speed	22.5 knots	24 knots
Horsepower	46,000	40,000
Watertight Compartments	16	19
Watertight Doors	12	92
Total capacity (fully loaded)	3,547 people	3,000 people
Passengers (on board)	2,435	2,000
Crew (on board)	892	1,000
Deaths	1,523	2,987
Departure date	April	April
Lifeboats	20	24
First warning of danger	Iceberg Right Ahead	Ice, ice ahead, iceberg right under the bow
Side of ship hit by iceberg	Starboard	Starboard
Time of collision	11:40 P.M.	Near midnight
Location of collision	The North Atlantic, a few hundered miles off the U.S. coast	The North Atlantic, a few hundered miles off the U.S. coast

Sources

1. The Mystic Marinelife Aquarium
2. Titanic - A Voyage of Discovery
3. The Wikipedia entry
4. A Titanic FAQ
5. The Titanic Book Site
6. The Titanic Historical Society
7. everything2
8. Encyclopedia Titanica
9. The book itself
10. The Library of Congress Online
11. SkepticWiki
12. The Top 15 Strangest Coincidences
13. The Titanic Reading Room