On the anniversary of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, it's a good day to note Baltimore's literary connections to the disaster. The closest link is "A Night to Remember," Baltimorean Walter Lord's gripping account of the sinking. His work can be considered a prototype for Sebastian Junger, Jon Krakauer and other authors who have written narratives about historic events.
"I think small boys get interested in things the way they catch colds or get chicken pox," Lord said to a Baltimore Sun reporter in 1957, the University of Baltimore notes in its summary of his life. "Nobody knows why or how they do it...I suppose if there is anything more exciting to a young boy than an ocean liner, it is an ocean liner sinking."
The sinking marked an embarrassing day for the Sunpapers -- or at least for the Evening Sun. The front page of the April 15 edition read: "All Titanic Passengers Are Safe; Transferred in Lifeboats at Sea." That reflected the shipping line's early reports, which turned out to be wildly optimistic. Remember, communications were different in those days. Now, we'd have folks tweeting non-stop: "band's really swinging tonite. excellent cod and baked alaska. what was that noise?"