The Titanic is an iconic, unforgettable part of pop-culture, even though like 20% of kids today don’t even think it was a real, actual thing that happened. But hey, kids are stupid so we’ll let that one slide. Though today we know a whole bunch about the Titanic and its watery resting place, have you ever stopped to think how someone found it in the first place? At this point you’re probably thinking that it was probably part of a deliberate effort on behalf of a research team or something, right? Well that would make sense, but it wouldn’t be awesome enough to warrant a place on this site. No, it was actually found by a guy who was never supposed to be looking for it, using equipment specifically designed and intended for finding sunken warships.
While the US Navy was searching for the wreckage of two of their warships, Robert Ballard casually asked if he could search for the wreckage of the Titanic, you know, to kill two giant steel birds with one stone. Since the mission was kind of hush, hush, and the discovery of one of the most famous lost ships of all time would be the kind of thing that would attract unwanted attention, the Navy ignored Ballard’s request. Which is when he noticed that they never technically said no, so he went right ahead and did it anyway. When he eventually found the Titanic (because of course he did) and told the media, presumably under the guise of the ship-master, the entire world was so preoccupied with his find that absolutely no one, anywhere gave a damn about what he was actually supposed to be trawling the ocean for.
Yes. We pretty much found the Titanic because exactly one guy decided that he didn’t give a shit about ignoring the orders of a Vice Admiral of the freaking US Navy. At this point we’re thinking that Ballard simply carved a Titanic replica out of larger of his two cast iron testicles just to annoy his boss.