#the olympic

[punkrockhistory]

44 years ago today – what a fantastic way to end the year! 👍⭐👊

Black Flag, The Blasters, Suburban Lawns, Fear, and Saccharine Trust at the Olympic, Los Angeles, December 31, 1981

[unexplained-events]

The Titanic Never Sank

There’s a really interesting conspiracy theory that talks about how the Titanic never actually sank. Instead, it’s believed that the ship that sank was actually The Olympic.

The conspiracy theory doesn’t deny that a ship sank or that the ~1500 passengers aboard that ship didn’t die. The conspiracy simply suggests that the ship was not actually the technical marvel that the ship's parent company, the White Star Line, had promised. Rather, the White Star Line swapped ships for the voyage from Southampton to New York and the ship billed as the top-of-the-line Titanic was actually an older ship, the Olympic. This was all an insurance scam gone wrong.

The Olympic was White Star Line’s first built ship and it had seen a lot of troubles recently (most infamously its crash with the military ship, Hawke) and was considered an economic disaster at this point. A trial later held The Olympic responsible for the crash and there was an expensive lawsuit hanging on its head. This is where the conspiracy comes in:

White Star was owned by the International Mercantile Marine Co. (bankrolled by JP Morgan) and decided that it would build a 2nd ship would take on the name Olympic, while its damaged older ship would be re-purposed to be the Titanic. Eventually, the true Olympic (now secretly operating as the Titanic) would be scuttled in an accident from which the White Star Line could collect an insurance payment befitting a brand new ship—all while the ship originally built as the Titanic would have lived on.

The conspiracy theory goes deeper when it insists that JP Morgan wanted to get rid of his enemies on this shipwreck as well. Benjamin Guggenheim, Isador Strauss, the head of Macy’s Department Stores, and John Jacob Astor all died on the Titanic.

Here’s an interesting depiction of some of this similarities between the wreckage of the Titanic and The Olympic.

It’s a pretty interesting conspiracy. Interesting enough that there’s a book written about it called Titanic or Olympic: Which Ship Sank by Steve Hall and Bruce Beveridge that aims to debunk it.

[batteredshoes]

Richmond 9 - 5171

[batteredshoes]

"The Maravilla Kid" Ruben Navarro by Theo Ehret

[cavalierpostcards]

#postcard The High Jump, The Olympic Games. London. 1908. via reddit http://dlvr.it/QB0PCf

[fyeahhalocircus]

Listen to a preview of @halocircus’s #BandAidRemix!! Get it free when you pre-order The East Lansing Sessions EP.

[khemsurov]

The Olympic Swim and Racquet Club