Titanic Makes News Again
Although Titanic foundered on that freezing April night, it has continued to make history. The wreck lay on floor of the Atlantic Ocean until September 1, 1985, when it was discovered by Dr. Robert Ballard and the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the French National Institute of Oceanography led by Jean-Louis Michele. The discovery came during a covert mission to find two sunken U.S. nuclear submarines. The Navy had granted the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Ronald Thunman permission to search for Titanic in the area once the sub mission wrapped up. But they hadn’t expected the team to actually find the Titanic. Ballard told National Geographic, “the Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and so when that happened, they got really nervous because of the publicity. But people were so focused on the legend of the Titanic they never connected the dots.”