During spring break, my family and I went to Las Vegas to visit family and see some friends. One of the highlights of the trip was when we went to the Titanic exhibit in the Luxor Hotel. The full name of the ship was Titanic R.M.S. “R.M.S.” stands for Royal Mail Ship. It has two sister ships-the Olympic and the Britannic. About 1,500 people perished when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912.

When we arrived at the exhibit, we received a ticket that had the name of a person that actually was on the Titanic. Mine said “Mrs. Jane Quick.” She was traveling from Southampton to America to start a life with her husband and two children. However, her husband wasn’t on board because he was already in America. The card also had an interesting fact on it-she and her husband were very much in love, and before she left, he pinpricked “I Love You” on a leaf.

At the exhibit they had multiple artifacts from the ship, and some of the stuff was really cool. There was a perfume salesman on the ship, and they had recovered some of the samples and you could still smell it. There was a passenger scheduled to go on the voyage, but ironically he was kidnapped and wasn’t on the ship. However, his luggage was on the boat. They knew it was his because in his bag there was a tag with his name on it. There were some champagne bottles with the original champagne still in them. Also on display was the largest piece of the ship that has been recovered. According to the exhibits, many of the artifacts they found were in leather, because leather was treated different back then and the bacteria and bugs at the bottom of the ocean don’t like to eat it.

At the end of the exhibit we found out if our person on the ticket survived or not. I found out that Mrs. Jane Quick and both of her daughters survived. I later found out that they were on lifeboat #11, and the oldest daughter, who was 8 at the time, lived until 2002. In addition, we were amazed to learn that a surprising percentage of the crew survived.

After seeing the exhibit, I have gained an interest, and started a school project about the Titanic. Lucky for me, National Geographic’s cover story last month was about; you guessed it, the Titanic!