Remembering Titanic, 102 Years Later

Courtesy National Museums Northern Ireland

Yesterday marks the 102nd anniversary of RMS Titanic's sinking in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, USA. Postcard US-2542374 to Portugal shows that Titanic was leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912 as the last mooring line connecting Titanic to port was cast off. The postcard was obtained from the exhibition "Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic" at the National Postal Museum in Washington D.C. The exhibition, concluded on January 6, 2014, examined the less known heroic story of Titanic's mail clerks and featured a remarkable underwater footage of the ship's mail room.

The Heritage in Negeri Sembilan

Postcard from Malaysia shows "the Heritage in Negeri Sembilan." Negeri Sembilan, one of Malaysia's thirteen states, is located on the western coast of Peninsular Malaysia just south of Kuala Lumpur. Its heritage is believed to be heavily influenced by the Minangkabau people who were originally from West Sumatra in present-day Indonesia. Minangkabau features are visible on the card in traditional architecture and local artifacts.

On an unrelated note, news related to Malaysia has focused on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, missing since March 8, 2014. DigitalGlobe, an earth-imagery company, deployed its FirstLook service and directed two of its five satellites to obtained photos of more than 1,200 square miles of suspected crash area, and opened  its crowdsourcing platform, Tomnod, to the public for help in identifying any visible evidence that could help locate the missing Boeing 777 aircraft.

I was assigned this map, did you see anything? However, CNN recently reports that Malaysian plane may have flown long after last contact, which would place the plane outside the initial search area.

Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic

Postcard US-2388538 traveled from Washington D.C. to Hawaii in 3 days. It was from another exhibition "Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic" at the National Postal Museum in Washington D.C., showing the airship Hindenburg.

Both Hindenburg and Titanic attempted to fill the demands for the mass travel and communication demands at the early 1900's. Both operated as the world's largest mobile post offices promising the fastest mail service in its day. Ironically, both ended in disasters. The exhibition shows rare artifacts including a mail sent from Titanic and burnt mail salvaged from Hindenburg.

The exhibition opened on March 22, 2012 and runs through January 6, 2014. For those who can't attend in person, please visit the online gallery on the web.