
A controversial investigative journalist in England, William Thomas Stead, 62, was traveling to attend a peace conference at Carnegie Hall, at the request of President William Howard Taft. The journalist penned an eerily notable article in 1886 entitled “How the Mail Steamer Went Down in the Mid-Atlantic, by a Survivor,” a fictional story about two ships colliding, resulting in high loss of life, due to a lack of lifeboats. Stead wrote, “This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are sent to sea short of boats.” Real life did not imitate fiction, however, as Stead did not survive the sinking. He was last seen reading in the first class smoking room.