This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
As the sun set that April evening, the wireless radio began to crackle.
It was a cold night in the North Atlantic and ships were sending messages to their sisters.
Watch out, they said icebergs.
Ahead.
On board the RM's Titanic, a man named Jack Phillips was working at the wireless radio.
He received word from another ship that pinpointed the location of heavy ice pack and a great number of bergs.
Close to 11:00 p.m.
another ship, the Californian, said it had come to a standstill in a dense field of ice.
Shut up.
The wireless operator is supposed to have responded.
I'm busy.
Busy with what?
Jack Phillips was sending and receiving personal messages over the wireless radio for the ships many wealthy and important passengers.
You know what happened next?
The Titanic struck an iceberg.
Shortly afterwards.
It sank and killed more than 1500 people on board.
Today, we know there were many things that went wrong that night.