A locket found on the ocean floor belongs to Virginia Clark, who boarded the Titanic in 1912. Premier had tried to sell its Titanic artifacts prior to that, but encountered difficulty because restrictions imposed by a federal judge made it hard to sell them piecemeal. In 2018, about 5,500 artifacts that were retrieved from its wreckage were sold to satisfy the company's debts. In 2016, Premier Exhibitions, which owned RMS Titanic, filed for bankruptcy. Since 1994, the company has collected thousands of artifacts, including top hats, China dinner plates, and a grand staircase cherub, according to their website.Īppraisers valued that 2018 auction collection at about $200 million. RMS Titanic conducted salvage expeditions in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 20, according to NOAA. Nargeolet was director of underwater research for RMS Titanic Inc. In 2000, the company sought to sell all its artifacts to the not-for-profit The Titanic Foundation, but courts blocked the sale, the NOAA said.įrench explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet - who has made multiple dives over the years to explore the Titanic - was one of the five passengers aboard the Titan, a submersible that experienced a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," leaving no survivors. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded the company salvor-in-possession status and exclusive rights over any items salvaged from the Titanic on June 4, 1994, according to NOAA. won several of these legal skirmishes, and the U.S. federal court battles ensued over the exclusive salvage rights, including sole and exclusive ownership of any items salvaged from the Titanic wreck. The team recovered approximately 1,800 artifacts that were conserved, according to the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 1987, Titanic Ventures Limited Partnership, which later became RMS Titanic, Inc., made a deal with a French research institute for an artifact recovery expedition to the Titanic.
Regardless, the quest for artifacts motivated explorers to continue to plan expeditions to the Titanic - and subsequently started battles for artifact rights that continue today. The act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on Oct 21, 1986. Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986 to encourage the international community - and explorers and adventurers– "to provide for reasonable research, exploration, and, if appropriate, salvage activities with respect to the shipwreck." Just one year after the wreckage was located, Congress passed the R.M.S. nuclear submarines - the Thresher and the Scorpion - which had sunk in the Atlantic in the 1960s.įighting over the right to "salvage" artifacts from the Titanicīallard said he fought to protect the Titanic's legacy. The Navy eventually said yes, but on the condition that Ballard used the funds to also find two missing U.S. In return, Ballard said he would find the Titanic wreckage. So, he turned to the Navy and asked Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Ronald Thunman for funds. Ballard and his team discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985.īut Ballard was having a hard time funding his project. Professor Robert Ballard, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, points to his footage of the wreck of the Titanic that is part of the exhibition on display in the Belfast Building, Northern Ireland, on April 14, 2012. In 1982, Ballard - an oceanographer and Naval Reserve commanding officer who had performed a number of top-secret Naval missions during the Cold War - started developing his own remotely-operated underwater vehicle. But the ship's remains remained undiscovered for decades. Global headlines about the ship's fate mesmerized the world. Only 700 passengers and crew members survived to be rescued by the R.M.S.
For more than 70 years, the location of the liner's wreckage - about 12,600 feet below the ocean's surface - had been a mystery since the "unsinkable" ship struck an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, 1912.īilled as the most luxurious ocean experience available, about 1,500 people died when the Titanic sank into the ocean depths within hours after impact with the iceberg. Titanic around 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. In 1985, it took Robert Ballard eight days to find the R.M.S.
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