ATHENS, GREECE—The sinking of the RMS Titanic is perhaps the most famous shipwreck in history, but her sister ship, the lesser-known HMHS Britannic, also suffered a tragic fate. During World War I, the luxury cruise liner was requisitioned as a hospital ship, the largest in the world at the time. As it was sailing through the Aegean Sea on November 21, 1916, it struck a mine and went down off the island of Kea in less than an hour. Thirty of the more than 1,000 people on board perished when their lifeboats were hit by the ship’s whirling propellers. The Associated Press reports that for the first time, a team of divers under the guidance of Greece's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities has recovered artifacts from the wreck site more than a century later. The dive team retrieved the ship’s bell, the port-side navigation light, and observation binoculars, among other items that were still lying on the seafloor 400 feet beneath the surface. After conservation work on these objects is finished, they are slated to go on permanent display in the new Museum of Underwater Antiquities in Piraeus, just outside of Athens. For more, go to "Archaeology of Titanic."
