I love a Mystery

I have always been fasinated by sunken ships and treasure,
so this is a few of my disasters-----HA HA HA

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Battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor February 15, 1898,

killing 261 of her 355-man crew. Though the cause of the explosion

Which literally blew the ship in half, is a debate . The ship appeared

to have been destroyed by a mine attached to her hull. 

Americans quickly jumped to the conclusion that the Spanish had

destroyed the ship.

What became of the demolished battleship? 

It was raised from the muck of Havana harbor in 1911

Towed out to open ocean, where she was sunk

with  full military honors. Just a rarely heard battle-cry “Remember the Maine!”

Sinking of the Lusitania . While the loss of life was—1,200 men, women,

and children drowned when it was sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast

May  1915

Its loss was America’s eventual entry into World War One.

What was especially suspicious about the ship’s quick descent to the bottom

was that it was done in by a single torpedo Many to suspect that the civilian liner

was illegally carrying munitions on board. Though the charge was roundly denied by

British authorities at the time, years later it was demonstrated that the British were,

indeed, using civilian ships to carry munitions and other instruments of war

.DON'T FORGET THE  Titanic, 1912

The famous S.S. Republic

The S.S. Republic

Civil War-era side-wheel steamship sank during a violent gale off the Georgia coast
 in October, 1865, it went down with something other than the ordinary goods.

The Republic, her holds were filled with tons of silver and coins and ingots being

transported from the West Coast to help rebuild the war-ravaged south. 

The ship’s entire crew and passengers managed to get off safely before it sunk.

The ship’s  location remained unknown until 2003. Found 100 miles off  Georgia.
In 1,700 feet of ocean  The  recovery  not only yielded one of the largest caches
of gold and silver coins in history. Also t included  19th century goods
that revealed much about life in those days. The recovery was  over 51,000 U.S. gold

and silver coins had been recovered along with nearly 14,000 artifacts,

 making it  the richest find in the history of salvaging.

Then there was the Sophia

Passengers included gold miners and employees of the paddle wheelers that plied the Yukon River. Most were returning south before the numbing cold of winter in the Yukon and Alaska set in.The tragedy occurred just four hours after the Sophia left  Alaska en route to Vancouver, British Columbia.

There were no witnesses to the sinking. 

Historians have spent decades, searching this disaster.
Could this have been prevented?  What caused the Sophia to sink?

Posted by Yvonne @ La Petite Gallery
Comments are welcome