The Daily Waffle Jubilee Celebrations meant that poor old May 1912 didn’t get a special, dedicated Back In Time last month. Aaaaw. It only seems fair, therefore, to inform you of my favourite stories from that month before moving onto June…and apologise in advance for the fact that (despite my complaints in April) both can be linked back to the sinking of the Titanic. The first is an indirect connection, but one which I, and maybe I alone, found quite intriguing: May 1912 saw the launch of the biggest ship in the world, the SS Imperator, in Hamburg. Yes, that’s right. The biggest ship in the world. For all the talk of the size of the Titanic, it was only a month later that it was to be superseded in the record books. Colour me surprised. Incidentally, during the launching of the ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II was almost hit by a large piece of wood falling from the ship. That’s not particularly important, of course…just amusing. The second story concerns a silent film released this month, entitled ‘Saved From the Titanic’. It starred Dorothy Gibson, one of the biggest film stars of the day, and an actual Titanic survivor (who was clearly very traumatised by her experience, her costume is even the actual dress she was wearing when the ship went down). ‘Saved From the Titanic’ was the first film ever to use special effects, and has somehow garnered a 7.2 rating on IMDb, despite the film having been lost in a fire in 1914. To think we thought pop culture today liked to jump on tragedies a little too quickly…
Moving onto June, and this month’s story fits very nicely with the mood of (some of) the UK population right now. June 1912 saw the opening of the fifth modern summer Olympics in Stockholm, and according to my giant book of 20th Century history (I’m not kidding. It takes two people to lift it), it ‘produced the highest standard of performance of any Games to date’. It also produced the first Olympic death (marathon runner Francisco Lazaro of Portugal), the world’s longest wrestling match (11 hours and 40 minutes) and the first (only?) missing competitor in Kanakuri Shizo, a marathon runner who fell unconscious, was cared for by a local family, and then returned home to Japan without telling anyone. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t see the 2012 Olympics topping that. There were 102 events held in only 14 sports (including running deer shooting), compared to 110 events in 22 at the previous Games in London, and 2,406 athletes competed, with only 47 of these being women. It was also the last Olympic Games to issue solid gold medals. The most famous Olympic Games over the past century tend to have remained in public consciousness for darker reasons: Munich 1972, or Berlin 1936, for example. Stockhold, though, with Lazaro’s death aside, seems to have been a successful and enjoyable Games, encapsulating true Olympic spirit. Let’s hope London 2012 is able to stand proudly alongside its century-old ancestor.
