Sinking of the Titanic in the context of "RMS Carpathia"

RMS Ivernia was a British ocean liner built for the Cunard Line by C. S. Swan & Hunter of Wallsend, England, and launched in 1899. The Ivernia was one of Cunard's intermediate ships that catered to the vast immigrant trade between Europe and the United States of America in the early 20th century. She saw military service during World War I and was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat on New Year's Day 1917.

Ivernia was the first of three related liners of the Ivernia class. Saxonia was her larger sister ship, and was launched three months after her at John Brown & Company of Clydebank, leaving Ivernia the largest Cunard steamer during those months. Carpathia was a smaller half-sister of Ivernia and Saxonia, built at the same yard as Ivernia and launched in 1902, to a modified design based on her older half-sisters. Carpathia was made famous for her role in the aftermath of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is an international maritime treaty which sets out minimum safety standards in the construction, equipment and operation of merchant ships. The International Maritime Organization convention requires signatory flag states to ensure that ships flagged by them comply with at least these standards.

Initially prompted by the sinking of the Titanic, the current version of SOLAS is the 1974 version, known as SOLAS 1974, which came into force on 25 May 1980, and has been amended several times. As of April 2022, SOLAS 1974 has 167 contracting states, which flag about 99% of merchant ships around the world in terms of gross tonnage.

RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died (estimates vary), making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship. Titanic, operated by White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture. It was the second time White Star Line had lost a ship on her maiden voyage, the first being RMS Tayleur in 1854.

Titanic was the largest ship afloat upon entering service and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners built for White Star Line. The ship was built by the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast. Thomas Andrews Jr., the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, who went down with the ship. J. Bruce Ismay, White Star Line's chairman, survived in a lifeboat.

A four-funnel liner, also known as a four-stacker, is an ocean liner with four funnels.

In the early 20th century as shipping companies competed for passengers on the lucrative transatlantic route between Europe and America a series of increasingly large, luxurious and fast ocean liners were built requiring four funnels to service their expansive boiler rooms. An ocean liner with four funnels rapidly became symbolic of power, prestige and safety to the travelling public and shipping companies leveraged this trend extensively to market their best ships. The narrative that four-stackers were emblematic of safety was shattered with the loss of the Titanic, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1912. While the naval architecture of four-funnel liners started to give way to more efficient ship layouts in the 1910s the distinctive profile of the four-funnel ocean liner has firmly endured in the public consciousness well into the modern age, largely due to ongoing interest in the loss of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania, which significantly altered the course of World War One.