document_title: The Firm (1993 film)

question_text: who played tom cruises wife in the firm

question_tokens: who played tom cruises wife in the firm

text: The Firm (1993 film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2018)

text: Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) is a young man from an impoverished background, but with a promising future as a lawyer. About to graduate from Harvard Law School near the top of his class, he receives a generous job offer from  Bendini, Lambert & Locke, a small boutique firm in Memphis specializing in accounting and tax law. He and his wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), move to Memphis and Mitch sets to work studying to pass the Tennessee bar exam. Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman), one of the firm's senior partners, becomes his mentor and begins introducing Mitch to BL&L's professional culture, which demands complete loyalty, strict confidentiality, and a willingness to charge exceptional fees for their services. Seduced by the money and perks showered on him, including a house and car, he is at first totally oblivious to the more sinister side of his new employer, although Abby has her suspicions due to the Firm's desire for stability in the family.

text: Mitch passes the bar exam and begins working long hours that put a strain on his marriage. Working closely with Avery, Mitch learns that most of the firm's work involves helping wealthy clients hide large amounts of money in off-shore shell corporations and other dubious tax-avoidance schemes. While on a trip to the Cayman Islands Mitch listens to Avery talk to client Sonny Caps about taxes and hears Capps state how the firm's clients in Chicago break people's legs. Later on, Mitch is seduced by a local woman and cheats on Abby. Unbeknownst to Mitch, this encounter has been arranged by the firm's sinister security chief, Bill DeVasher (Wilford Brimley), who later uses photos of Mitch's beach tryst with the woman as blackmail to keep him quiet about the firm's questionable, even illegal, activities.

text: Mitch realizes he is now trapped, but after two associates of the firm die under mysterious circumstances, he is approached by FBI agents who inform him that while some of BL&L's business is legitimate, their biggest client is the Morolto Mafia family from Chicago. The firm's partners, as well as most of the associates, are all complicit in a massive tax fraud and money-laundering scheme. The two associates who died had learned about the firm's dark side and were killed to keep them from talking. The FBI agents warn Mitch that his house, car, and office have probably all been bugged. The FBI pressures Mitch to provide the Bureau with evidence they can use to go after the Moroltos and bring down BL&L.

text: Mitch knows he faces a stark choice. If he works with the FBI, he believes that even if he stays alive, he will have to disclose information about the firm's legitimate clients—thus breaking the attorney–client privilege and risking disbarment. However, the FBI warns him that if he stays with the firm, he will almost certainly go to jail when the FBI takes down both the firm and the Moroltos. Either way, his life as he knows it is over, and he agrees to cooperate with the FBI in return for $1.5 million and the release of his imprisoned brother Ray in Arkansas.  The FBI release Ray but plan to return him to the slammer once Mitch hands the Feds the files.  They also give him half the money before they receive the files.

text: Desperate to find a way out, Mitch inadvertently stumbles on a solution when one of his clients complains that he was billed for extra several hours of fees, as part of the firm's money-laundering services for the Moroltos. Mailing these padded bills to the firm's clients is considered to be mail fraud, which would expose the firm to RICO charges. Mitch begins secretly copying the firm's billing records with help from Lomax's secretary Tammy, but he is unmasked when a prison guard on the Moroltos' payroll alerts DeVasher after Mitch's brother Ray is transferred to FBI custody without the usual formalities being followed.  Tolar is killed by the Morolto hitmen after Abby and Tammy steal client files from his Cayman house and he allows Abby to go.

text:
Evading DeVasher and his thugs, Mitch meets with the Morolto brothers and, presenting himself as a loyal attorney looking out for his clients' best interests, tells them that his contact with the FBI and his copying of the firm's files were merely an attempt to expose the firm's illegal overbilling. Mitch asks the Moroltos for permission to turn over their billing invoices in order to help the FBI make their case against the firm. He reveals that he has made his own copies of the files, but assures them that as long as he is alive, any other information he knows about their legal affairs is covered under attorney-client privilege and will never be revealed. Convinced thus, the Moroltos agree to guarantee Mitch's safety and let him give the FBI all the evidence it needs to prosecute the firm. Since the attorney-client privilege doesn't apply when a lawyer knows about ongoing criminal activity, Mitch is able to keep his status as a lawyer.
The film ends as the McDeeres leave their house in Memphis and return to Boston, driving the same well-used car in which they arrived in Memphis.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere, a promising recent Harvard Law graduate.
Jeanne Tripplehorn as Abigail "Abby" McDeere, Mitch's wife.
Gene Hackman as Avery Tolar, Mitch's mentor at the Firm.
Holly Hunter as Tamara "Tammy" Hemphill, Eddie's chain-smoking secretary and lover who aids Mitch in copying and stealing the files in Memphis and the Cayman Islands.
Ed Harris as Agent Wayne Tarrance, the agent in charge of the investigation into the Firm; Mitch's primary contact with the FBI.
Hal Holbrook as Oliver Lambert, senior partner at the Firm.
Jerry Hardin as Royce McKnight, managing partner at the Firm.
David Strathairn as Ray McDeere, Mitch's brother who was in jail for a manslaughter conviction
Terry Kinney as Lamar Quinn, Mitch's friend who works at the Firm.
Wilford Brimley as Bill DeVasher, officially the head of security at the Firm—unofficially the Firm's main hitman.
Sullivan Walker as Thomas Abanks, the owner of a scuba diving business.
Gary Busey as Eddie Lomax, a private investigator and former cell-mate of Ray McDeere.
Steven Hill as F. Denton Voyles, FBI director
Margo Martindale as Nina Huff, Mitch's secretary
Paul Sorvino as mob boss Tommy Morolto
Joe Viterelli as mob boss Joey Morolto
Jerry Weintraub as businessman Sonny Capps
Tobin Bell as the Nordic Man, Morolto hitman
Dean Norris as the Squat Man, Morolto hitman
Karina Lombard as a girl who seduces McDeere

text: Production[edit]

text: Gene Hackman's name did not appear on the film's release poster. Hackman joined the film late, when it was already well into production, because the producers had originally wanted to change the gender of the character and cast Meryl Streep, until author John Grisham objected and Hackman was eventually cast. Tom Cruise's deal with Paramount already stated that only his name could appear above the title. Hackman also wanted his name to appear above the credits, but when this was refused he asked for his name to be removed completely from the poster.[2] Hackman's name does appear in the end credits.

text: This is also the final film for Steven Hill and John Beal.

text: Principal photography began on November 9, 1992 and ended on March 20, 1993.

text: The soundtrack is almost exclusively solo piano by Dave Grusin.

text: Differences from the novel[edit]

text: The film accords with the book in most respects, but the ending is significantly different. Mitch does not end up in the Caribbean, as in the book; he and Abby simply get into their car and drive back to Boston, as the ending narration, "Do you think [the car] will make it?...to Boston?..."

text: A more fundamental difference from the book is the motives and manner in which Mitch solves his predicament. In the book, Mitch acknowledges to himself that he is breaking the attorney-client privilege by copying information and giving it to the FBI. In most US states this privilege only applies to crimes that have already been committed. The privilege does not apply if a lawyer knows that his client either is committing or will commit a crime.  However, Mitch must disclose information about his legitimate clients as well.  Accepting that he will likely not be allowed to practice law anywhere again, he swindles $10 million from the Firm, along with receiving $1 million of a promised $2 million from the FBI for his cooperation. After an extended manhunt involving the police, the firm's lawyers, and hired thugs from the Morolto family, Mitch escapes with Abby (and his brother Ray) to the Caymans.  Before fleeing, he leaves behind detailed records of the firm's illegal activities, as well as a recorded deposition.  Mitch's information gives federal prosecutors enough evidence to indict half of the Firm's active lawyers right away, as well as several retired partners.  The documents also provide the FBI with circumstantial evidence of the Firm's involvement in money laundering and tax fraud, and thus probable cause for a search warrant for the firm's building and files.  This additional evidence is enough to smash both the firm and the Morolto family with a massive RICO indictment.

text: In the film, apparently in order to preserve the protagonist's personal integrity, Mitch exposes a systematic overbilling scheme by the firm, thus driving a wedge between the Moroltos (who in essence become complicit with Mitch) and their law firm (in the book, overbilling only received a brief mention). He receives a smaller amount of money from the FBI, which he gives to Ray, allowing him to disappear.  Rather than capitalizing on his circumstances by stealing money from the Firm, as in the book, the movie's McDeere ends up battered and bruised, but with his integrity and professional ethics intact. Mitch also makes the FBI have to work in order to bring down the firm by having to argue that each instance of excessive billing is a federal offense (by virtue of the excessive bills being sent through the mail).  The volume and frequency meets the criteria for RICO, thereby enabling the FBI to effectively put the Firm out of business by seizing its property and equipment and freezing its bank accounts. From here the Moroltos would then need to find another law firm willing to take them on as clients, and if they couldn't, charges for non-lodgment of tax returns could be brought.  Since Mitch is exposing only illegal activity, he is able to retain his law license.

text: Instead of a BMW, Mitch gets a Mercedes-Benz for joining the firm.

text: Avery Tolar was originally Avery Tolleson; the latest version of the novel uses the film's surname. Tolar is portrayed as a sort of reluctant villain in the film, while in the novel he has no such moral conflicts.

text: The surname of the second man killed on Grand Cayman is Joe Hodges, instead of Hodge as in the novel.

text: Mitch's confession to Abby about his sexual infidelity was also unique to the film. In the novel, McDeere never tells Abby about his infidelity. In the book, Abby's not knowing about Mitch's infidelity is a major "suspense" piece. Mitch comes home one evening and finds an envelope addressed to Abby, that has "Photos – Do Not Bend" written on it. The photos were surreptitiously given to DeVasher by Art Germain. Mitch thinks it is the pictures he was shown of his infidelity overseas. Abby is in the bedroom when he sees the open package. He enters the bedroom and learns that Abby opened the package, but it was empty. Mitch realizes DeVasher is toying with him, and this incident in the book causes Mitch to cooperate with the FBI.  In the film, Mitch's confession prompts Abby to seriously consider leaving him, but she ultimately helps him bring down the firm.

text: Also, in the book, Eddie's old secretary, Tammy, seduces and drugs Avery.  In the movie, however, it is Abby who seduces Avery.  This also changes the character development because in the movie Abby is portrayed as risking herself for Mitch. In the book, Abby is simply an accomplice to Tammy.

text: Filming locations[edit]

text:
Elmwood Cemetery – funeral scene
Owen Brennan's – Lunch scene in cocktail/bar area. Owen Brennan's commemorated the filming by placing plaques on the two cocktail chairs where Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman sat.
Peabody Hotel – BBQ roof scene overlooking Mississippi River Bridge and downtown Memphis.
Beale Street – Scene where Mitch and Abby see young tumblers as street performers
Lausanne Collegiate School – Playground scene and others.
Front Street Deli – Meeting at diner.
Mud Island
Memphis Suspension Railway
Blues City Cafe – FBI first meeting with Mitch.
Scates Hall, University of Memphis – legal deliberations

text: The Marion Hotel – Apartment room on top floor for a scene.

text: Release[edit]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: Critical reaction to The Firm has been mostly positive, with the film earning a 75% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[3] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[4]

text: Roger Ebert gave The Firm three stars out of four, remarking: "The movie is virtually an anthology of good small character performances. [...] The large gallery of characters makes The Firm into a convincing canvas [... but] with a screenplay that developed the story more clearly, this might have been a superior movie, instead of just a good one with some fine performances."[5]

text: The film earned some negative reviews as well, notably from James Berardinelli, who said that "[v]ery little of what made the written version so enjoyable has been successfully translated to the screen, and what we're left with instead is an overly-long [and] pedantic thriller."[6] Grisham enjoyed the film, remarking: "I thought [Tom Cruise] did a good job. He played the innocent young associate very well."[7]

text: Box office[edit]

text: The film was released while Grisham was at the height of his popularity. That week, Grisham and Michael Crichton evenly divided the top six paperback spots on The New York Times Best Seller list.[8] It opened on June 30, 1993 in 2,393 theatres, and landed at #1 at the box office, grossing $25.4 million over the 4th of July weekend. It remained in the #1 spot at the box office for 3 weeks. After 12 weeks in theatres, the film was a huge success, making over $158 million domestically and $111 million internationally ($270 million worldwide).[9][10] Additionally, it was the largest grossing R-rated movie of 1993 and of any film based on a Grisham novel.[11]

text: Awards[edit]

text: The film earned two Academy Award nominations including Best Supporting Actress for Holly Hunter (losing to Anna Paquin for The Piano, though she did win an Oscar at that year's ceremony for Best Actress in the same film as Paquin) and Best Original Score for Dave Grusin (losing to John Williams for Schindler's List).

text: Home media[edit]

text: The film was released on VHS in December 1993, the cassettes were specially made of blue plastic. The DVD was released on May 23, 2000. The special features include only the teaser and theatrical trailers. The Blu-ray was released on September 11, 2012.

text: In other media[edit]

text: TV sequel[edit]

text: In April 2011 Entertainment One announced that a sequel to The Firm was being produced with Sony Pictures Television and Paramount Pictures. The series picked up the story of Mitch and his family ten years after the events of the novel and film. The first season was 22 episodes long and began production in Canada in July 2011. In May 2011, NBC confirmed that they had acquired the U.S. broadcast rights to the show and that they planned to début it in January 2012.[12] The show was cancelled after its first season.


document_title: Wreck of the RMS Titanic

question_text: when was the resting place of the titanic discovered

root

text: Wreck of the RMS Titanic

text: Salvaging Titanic

text: Almost immediately after Titanic sank on 15 April 1912, proposals were advanced to salvage her from her resting place in the North Atlantic Ocean, despite her exact location and condition being unknown. The families of several wealthy victims of the disaster – the Guggenheims, Astors, and Wideners – formed a consortium and contracted the Merritt and Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Company to raise Titanic.[1] The project was soon abandoned as impractical as the divers could not even reach a significant fraction of the necessary depth, where the pressure is over 6,000 pounds per square inch (410 bar). The lack of submarine technology at the time as well as the outbreak of World War I also put off such a project.[2] The company considered dropping dynamite on the wreck to dislodge bodies which would float to the surface, but finally gave up after oceanographers suggested that the extreme pressure would have compressed the bodies into gelatinous lumps.[3] (In fact, this was incorrect. Whale falls, a phenomenon not discovered until 1987 – coincidentally, by the same submersible used for the first manned expedition to Titanic the year before[4] – demonstrate that water-filled corpses, in this case cetaceans, can sink to the bottom essentially intact.[5] The high pressure and cold temperature of the water would have prevented significant quantities of gas forming during decomposition, preventing the bodies of Titanic victims from rising back to the surface.[6])

tag: p

text: In later years, numerous proposals were put forward to salvage Titanic. However, all fell afoul of practical and technological difficulties, a lack of funding and, in many cases, a lack of understanding of the physical conditions at the wreck site. Charles Smith, an architect from Denver, proposed in March 1914 to attach electromagnets to a submarine which would be irresistibly drawn to the wreck's steel hull. Having found its exact position, more electromagnets would be sent down from a fleet of barges which would winch Titanic to the surface.[7] An estimated cost of $1.5 million ($35.5 million today) and its impracticality meant that the idea was not put into practice. Another proposal involved raising Titanic by means of attaching balloons to her hull using electromagnets. Once enough balloons had been attached, the ship would float gently to the surface. Again, the idea got no further than the drawing board.[8]

text: Salvage proposals in the 1960s and 1970s

text: In the mid-1960s, a hosiery worker from Baldock named Douglas Woolley devised a plan to find Titanic using a bathyscaphe (like Trieste, used to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960) and raise the wreck by inflating nylon balloons that would be attached to her hull.[9] The declared objective was to "bring the wreck into Liverpool and convert it to a floating museum".[10] The Titanic Salvage Company was established to manage the scheme and a group of businessmen from West Berlin set up an entity called Titanic-Tresor to support it financially.[9] It fell apart when its proponents found they could not overcome the problem of how the balloons would be inflated in the first place. Calculations showed that it could take ten years to generate enough gas to overcome the water pressure.[11]

text: A variety of audacious but equally impractical schemes were put forward during the 1970s. One proposal called for 180,000 tons of molten wax (or alternatively, Vaseline) to be pumped into Titanic, lifting her to the surface.[12] Another proposal involved filling Titanic with ping-pong balls, but overlooked the fact that the balls would be crushed by the pressure long before reaching the depth of the wreck.[13] A similar idea involving the use of Benthos glass spheres,[a] which could survive the pressure, was scuppered when the cost of the number of spheres required was put at over $238 million.[12] An unemployed haulage contractor from Walsall named Arthur Hickey proposed to turn Titanic into an iceberg, freezing the water around the wreck to encase it in a buoyant jacket of ice. This, being lighter than liquid water, would float to the surface and could be towed to shore. The BOC Group calculated that this would require half a million tons of liquid nitrogen to be pumped down to the sea bed.[14] In his 1976 thriller Raise the Titanic!, author Clive Cussler's hero Dirk Pitt repairs the holes in Titanic's hull, pumps it full of compressed air and succeeds in making it "leap out of the waves like a modern submarine blowing its ballast tanks", a scene depicted on the posters of the subsequent film of the book. Although this was an "artistically stimulating" highlight of the film,[15] made using a 55 ft (17 m) model of Titanic, it would not have been physically possible.[16] At the time of the book's writing, it was still believed that she sank in one piece.

text: Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution had long been interested in finding Titanic. Despite early negotiations with possible backers being abandoned when it emerged that they wanted to turn the wreck into souvenir paperweights, more sympathetic backers joined Ballard to form a company named Seasonics International Ltd. as a vehicle for rediscovering and exploring Titanic. In October 1977 he made his first attempt to find the ship with the aid of the Alcoa Corporation's deep sea salvage vessel Seaprobe. This was essentially a drillship with sonar equipment and cameras attached to the end of the drilling pipe. It could lift objects from the seabed using a remote-controlled mechanical claw.[17] The expedition ended in failure when the drilling pipe broke, sending 3,000 feet (910 m) of pipe and $600,000 worth of electronics plunging to the sea bed.[17]

text: In 1978, The Walt Disney Company and National Geographic magazine considered mounting a joint expedition to find Titanic, using the aluminium submersible Aluminaut. Titanic would have been well within the submersible's depth limits, but the plans were abandoned for financial reasons.[9]

text: The following year, the British billionaire financier and tycoon Sir James Goldsmith set up Seawise & Titanic Salvage Ltd. with the involvement of underwater diving and photographic experts. His aim was to use the publicity of finding Titanic to promote his newly established magazine, NOW!. An expedition to the North Atlantic was scheduled for 1980 but was cancelled due to financial difficulties.[9] A year later, NOW! folded after 84 issues with Goldsmith incurring huge financial losses.[18]

text: Fred Koehler, an electronics repairman from Coral Gables, Florida, sold his electronics shop to finance the completion of a two-man deep-sea submersible called Seacopter. He planned to dive to Titanic, enter the hull and retrieve a fabulous collection of diamonds rumored to be contained in the purser's safe. However, he was unable to obtain financial backing for his planned expedition.[19] Another proposal involved using a semi-submersible platform mounted with cranes, resting on two watertight supertankers, that would winch the wreck off the seabed and carry it to shore. A proponent was quoted as saying, "It's like the Great Wall of China – given enough time and money and people, you can do anything." Time, money and people were not forthcoming and the proposal got no further than any of its predecessors.[20]

text: Jack Grimm's expeditions, 1980–1983

text: On 17 July 1980, an expedition sponsored by Texan oilman Jack Grimm set off from Port Everglades, Florida, in the research vessel H.J.W. Fay. Grimm had previously sponsored expeditions to find Noah's Ark, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the giant hole in the North Pole predicted by the pseudoscientific Hollow Earth hypothesis. To raise funds for his Titanic expedition, he obtained sponsorship from friends with whom he played poker, sold media rights through the William Morris Agency, commissioned a book, and obtained the services of Orson Welles to narrate a documentary. He acquired scientific support from Columbia University by donating $330,000 to the Lamont–Doherty Geological Observatory for the purchase of a wide-sweep sonar, in exchange for five years' use of the equipment and the services of technicians to support it. Drs. William B. Ryan of Columbia University and Fred Spiess of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California joined the expedition as consultants.[21] They nearly stayed ashore when Grimm introduced them to a new consultant – a monkey called Titan, which was trained to point at a spot on the map to supposedly indicate where Titanic was. The scientists issued an ultimatum: "It's either us or the monkey." Grimm preferred the monkey, but was prevailed upon to leave it behind and take the scientists instead.[22]

text: The results were inconclusive, as three weeks of surveying in almost continuous bad weather during July and August 1980 failed to find Titanic. The problem was exacerbated by technological limitations; the Sea MARC sonar used by the expedition had a relatively low resolution and was a new and untested piece of equipment. It was nearly lost only 36 hours after it was first deployed when the tail was ripped off during a sharp turn, destroying the magnetometer, which would have been vital for detecting Titanic's hull. Nonetheless it managed to survey an area of some 500 square nautical miles and identified 14 possible targets.[22]

text: Grimm mounted a second expedition in June 1981 aboard the research vessel Gyre, with Spiess and Ryan again joining the expedition. To increase their chances of finding the wreck, the team employed a much more capable sonar device, the Scripps Deep Tow. The weather was again very poor, but all 14 of the targets were successfully covered and found to be natural features. On the last day of the expedition, an object that looked like a propeller was found.[23] Grimm announced on his return to Boston that Titanic had been found, but the scientists declined to endorse his identification.[24]

text: In July 1983, Grimm went back a third time with Ryan aboard the research vessel Robert D. Conrad to have another look at the "propeller". This time nothing was found and very bad weather brought an early end to the expedition. It later turned out that Sea MARC had actually passed over Titanic but had failed to detect it,[24] while Deep Tow passed within 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of the wreck.[25]

text: Discovery

text: D. Michael Harris and Jack Grimm had failed to find Titanic but their expeditions did succeed in producing fairly detailed mapping of the area in which the ship had sunk.[24] It was clear that the position given in Titanic's distress signals was inaccurate, which was a major expedition difficulty because it increased the search area's already-expansive size. Despite the failure of his 1977 expedition, Robert Ballard had not given up hope and devised new technologies and a new search strategy to tackle the problem. The new technology was a system called Argo / Jason. This consisted of a remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle called Argo, equipped with sonar and cameras and towed behind a ship, with a robot called Jason tethered to it that could roam the sea floor, take close-up images and gather specimens. The images from the system would be transmitted back to a control room on the towing vessel where they could be assessed immediately. Although it was designed for scientific purposes, it also had important military applications and the United States Navy agreed to sponsor the system's development,[26] on condition that it was to be used to carry out a number of programmes – many still classified – for the Navy.[27]

text: The Navy commissioned Ballard and his team to carry out a month-long expedition every year for four years, to keep Argo / Jason in good working condition.[28] It agreed to Ballard's proposal to use some of the time to search for Titanic once the Navy's objectives had been met; the search would provide an ideal opportunity to test Argo / Jason. In 1984 the Navy sent Ballard and Argo to map the wrecks of the sunken nuclear submarines USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, lost in the North Atlantic at depths of up to 9,800 feet (3,000 m).[29] The expedition found the submarines and made an important discovery. As Thresher and Scorpion sank, debris spilled out from them across a wide area of the seabed and was sorted by the currents, so that light debris drifted furthest away from the site of the sinking. This "debris field" was far larger than the wrecks themselves. By following the comet-like trail of debris, the main pieces of wreckage could be found.[30]

text: A second expedition to map the wreck of Scorpion was mounted in 1985. Only twelve days of search time would be left at the end of the expedition to look for Titanic.[29] As Harris/Grimm's unsuccessful efforts had taken more than forty days,[24] Ballard decided that extra help would be needed. He approached the French national oceanographic agency, IFREMER, with which Woods Hole had previously collaborated. The agency had recently developed a high-resolution side-scan sonar called SAR and agreed to send a research vessel, Le Suroît, to survey the sea bed in the area where Titanic was believed to lie. The idea was for the French to use the sonar to find likely targets, and then for the Americans to use Argo to check out the targets and hopefully confirm whether they were in fact the wreck.[31] The French team spent five weeks, from 5 July to 12 August 1985, "mowing the lawn" – sailing back and forth across the 150-square-mile (390 km2) target area to scan the sea bed in a series of stripes. However, they found nothing, though it turned out that they had passed within a few hundred yards of Titanic in their first run.[32]

text: Ballard realized that looking for the wreck itself using sonar was unlikely to be successful and adopted a different tactic, drawing on the experience of the surveys of Thresher and Scorpion; he would look for the debris field instead,[33] using Argo's cameras rather than sonar. Whereas sonar could not distinguish man-made debris on the sea bed from natural objects, cameras could. The debris field would also be a far bigger target, stretching a mile (1.6 km) or longer, whereas Titanic itself was only 90 feet (27 m) wide.[34] The search required round-the-clock towing of Argo back and forth above the sea bed, with shifts of watchers aboard the research vessel Knorr looking at the camera pictures for any sign of debris.[35] After a week of fruitless searching, at 12.48 am on Sunday 1 September 1985 pieces of debris began to appear on Knorr's screens. One of them was identified as a boiler, identical to those shown in pictures from 1911.[36] The following day, the main part of the wreck was found and Argo sent back the first pictures of Titanic since her sinking 73 years before.[37] The discovery made headlines around the world.[38]

text: Subsequent expeditions

text: Following his discovery of the wreck site, Ballard returned to Titanic in July 1986 aboard the research vessel RV Atlantis II. Now the deep-diving submersible DSV Alvin could take people back to Titanic for the first time since her sinking, and the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason Jr. would allow the explorers to investigate the interior of the wreck. Another system, ANGUS, was used to carry out photo surveys of the debris field.[39] Jason Jr. descended the ruined Grand Staircase as far as B Deck, and photographed remarkably well preserved interiors, including some chandeliers still hanging from the ceilings.[40]

text: Between 25 July and 10 September 1987, an expedition mounted by IFREMER and a consortium of American investors which included George Tulloch, G. Michael Harris, D. Michael Harris and Ralph White made 32 dives to Titanic using the submersible Nautile. Controversially, they salvaged and brought ashore more than 1,800 objects.[41] A joint Russian-Canadian-American expedition took place in 1991 using the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and its two MIR submersibles. Sponsored by Stephen Low and IMAX, CBS, National Geographic and others, the expedition carried out extensive scientific research with a crew of 130 scientists and engineers. The MIRs carried out 17 dives, spending over 140 hours at the bottom, shooting 40,000 feet (12,000 m) of IMAX film. This was used to create the 1995 documentary film Titanica, which was later released in the US on DVD in a re-edited version narrated by Leonard Nimoy.[42][43]

text: IFREMER and RMS Titanic Inc., the successors to the sponsors of the 1987 expedition, returned to the wreck with Nautile and the ROV Robin in June 1993. Over the course of fifteen days, Nautile made fifteen dives lasting between eight and twelve hours.[44] Another 800 artefacts  were recovered during the expedition including a two-tonne piece of a reciprocating engine, a lifeboat davit and the steam whistle from the ship's forward funnel.[45]

text: In 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000, RMS Titanic Inc. carried out an intensive series of dives that led to the recovery of over 4,000 items in the first two expeditions alone.[46] The 1996 expedition controversially attempted to raise a section of Titanic itself, a section of the outer hull that originally comprised part of the wall of two First Class cabins on C Deck, extending down to D Deck. It weighed 20 tons, measured 15 by 25 feet (4.6 m × 7.6 m) and had four portholes in it, three of which still had glass in them.[47] The section had come loose either during the sinking or as a result of the impact with the sea bed.[48] Its recovery using diesel-filled floatation bags was turned into something of an entertainment event with two cruise ships accompanying the expedition to the wreck site. Passengers were offered the chance, at $5,000 per person, to watch the recovery on television screens in their cabins while enjoying luxury accommodation, Las Vegas-style shows and casino gambling aboard the ships. Various celebrities were recruited to enliven the proceedings, including Burt Reynolds, Debbie Reynolds and Buzz Aldrin, and "Grand Receptions" for VIPs were scheduled on-shore where the hull section would be displayed. However, the lift ended disastrously when rough weather caused the ropes supporting the bags to snap. At the moment the ropes broke, the hull section had been lifted to within only 200 feet (61 m) of the surface. It hurtled 12,000 feet (3,700 m) back down,[49] embedding itself upright on the sea floor. Although the attempt was strongly criticised by marine archaeologists, scientists and historians as a money-making publicity stunt, a second, successful attempt to lift the fragment was carried out in 1998. The so-called "Big Piece" was conserved in a laboratory in Santa Fe for two years before being put on display at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino.[50]

text: In 1995, Canadian director James Cameron chartered the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and the MIRs to make 12 dives to Titanic. He used the resulting footage to considerable effect in his blockbuster 1997 film Titanic.[51] The discovery of the wreck in 1985 and a National Geographic documentary of Ballard's 1986 expedition had inspired Cameron to write a synopsis in 1987 of what eventually became the film Titanic: "Do story with bookends of present day scene of wreck using submersibles intercut with memories of a survivor and re-created scenes of the night of the sinking. A crucible of human values under stress."[52] Cameron's expedition did not salvage anything from the ship.

text: The 2000 expedition by RMS Titanic Inc. carried out 28 dives during which over 800 artefacts were recovered, including the ship's engine telegraphs, perfume vials and watertight door gears.[53] In 2001, an American couple – David Leibowitz and Kimberly Miller[54] – caused controversy when they were married aboard a submersible that had set down on the bow of Titanic, in a deliberate echo of a famous scene from James Cameron's 1997 film. The wedding was essentially a publicity stunt, sponsored by a British company called SubSea Explorer which had offered a free dive to Titanic that Leibowitz had won. He asked whether his fiancée could come too and was told that she could – but only if she agreed to get married during the trip.[55] The same company also brought along Philip Littlejohn, the grandson of one of Titanic's surviving crew members, who became the first relative of a Titanic passenger or crew member to visit the wreck.[56] Cameron himself also returned to Titanic in 2001 to carry out filming for Walt Disney Pictures' Ghosts of the Abyss, filmed in 3D.[56]

text: In 2003 and 2004, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration carried out two expeditions to Titanic. The first, carried out between 22 June and 2 July 2003, performed four dives in two days. Its key aims were to assess the current condition of the wreck site and carry out scientific observations to support ongoing research. The stern section, which had previously received relatively little attention from explorers, was specifically targeted for analysis. The microbial colonies aboard Titanic were also a key focus of investigation.[57] The second expedition, from 27 May – 12 June 2004, saw the return of Robert Ballard to Titanic nearly 20 years after he discovered it. The expedition spent 11 days on the wreck, carrying out high-resolution mapping using video and stereoscopic still images.[58]

text: 2005 saw two expeditions to the Titanic. James Cameron returned for the third and last time to film Last Mysteries of the Titanic. Another expedition searched for previously unseen pieces of wreckage, and led to the documentary Titanic's Final Moments: Missing Pieces.

text: RMS Titanic Inc. mounted further expeditions to Titanic in 2004[59] and 2010, when the first comprehensive map of the entire debris field was produced. Two autonomous underwater vehicles – torpedo-shaped robots – repeatedly ran backwards and forwards across the 3 by 5 miles (4.8 km × 8.0 km) debris field, taking sonar scans and over 130,000 high-resolution images. This enabled a detailed photomosaic of the debris field to be created for the first time, giving scientists a much clearer view of the dynamics of the ship's sinking. The expedition encountered difficulties: several hurricanes passed over the wreck site, and the Remora ROV was caught in a piece of wreckage. This same year saw the discovery of the new bacteria living in the rusticles on the Titanic, Halomonas titanicae.[60]

text: Tourist and scientific visits to Titanic are still continuing; by April 2012, 100 years since the disaster and nearly 25 since the discovery of the wreck, around 140 people had visited.[61]  On 14 April 2012 (the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking), the wreck of the Titanic became eligible for protection under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.[62] In the same month, Robert Ballard, the wreck's discoverer, announced a plan to preserve the wreck of the Titanic by using deep-sea robots to paint the wreck with anti-fouling paint, to help keep the wreck in its current state for all time. The proposed plan that Ballard announced has been outlined in a documentary made to time with the Titanic's 100th sinking anniversary called Save the Titanic With Bob Ballard where Ballard himself talks about how this proposed paint job on the wreck will work. Ballard says that he proposed to robotically clean and repaint the Titanic with a colour scheme mimicking rusticles because he saw "original anti-fouling paint on the ship's hull, which was still working even after 74 years on the seabed" when he visited the Titanic in 1986.[63]

text: Description of the wreck

text: The location of the wreck is a considerable distance from the location transmitted by the ship's wireless operators before she went down. The initial location was given as 41°44′N 50°24′W / 41.733°N 50.400°W / 41.733; -50.400 (RMS Titanic's initial reported position), 20.8 miles (33.5 km) from the wreck. A corrected location was later transmitted as 41°46′N 50°14′W / 41.767°N 50.233°W / 41.767; -50.233 (RMS Titanic's corrected reported position), but this too was inaccurate, by 13.2 miles (21.2 km). Titanic is in two main pieces 370 miles (600 km) south-east of Mistaken Point, Newfoundland. The bow is located at 41°43′57″N 49°56′49″W / 41.73250°N 49.94694°W / 41.73250; -49.94694 (Position of RMS Titanic's bow section)Coordinates: 41°43′57″N 49°56′49″W / 41.73250°N 49.94694°W / 41.73250; -49.94694 (Position of RMS Titanic's bow section) and the stern is about 1,970 feet (600 m) to the south at 41°43′35″N 49°56′54″W / 41.72639°N 49.94833°W / 41.72639; -49.94833 (Position of RMS Titanic's stern section). The boilers found by Argo, which mark the point at which the ship went down,[64] are about 600 feet (180 m) east of the stern at 41°43′32″N 49°56′49″W / 41.72556°N 49.94694°W / 41.72556; -49.94694 (Position of RMS Titanic boilers located by Argo).[65]

text: The two main parts of the wreck of Titanic present a striking contrast. Although fourteen survivors testified that the ship had broken apart as she sank, this testimony was discounted by the official inquiries, and it was supposed that the ship had sunk intact.[66] It is now clear that the stresses on Titanic caused the ship to split apart between the second and third funnels at or just below the surface.[67]

text: Bow section

text: The bow section, which measures about 470 feet (140 m) long, is thought to have descended at an angle of about 45°. Its distance from the stern was caused by its planing forward horizontally by about 1 foot (0.30 m) for every 6 feet (1.8 m) of its descent.[68] During the descent to the sea bed, the funnels were swept away, taking with them the rigging and large lengths of cables. These dragged along the boat deck, tearing away many of the davits and much of the other deck equipment.[69] The foremast was also torn down, falling onto the port bridge area. The ship's wheelhouse was swept away, possibly after being hit by the falling foremast.[67]

text: The bow hit the bottom at a speed of about 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h), digging about 60 feet (18 m) deep into the mud, up to the base of the anchors. The impact bent the hull in two places and caused it to buckle downwards by about 10° under the forward well deck cranes and by about 4° under the forward expansion joint. When the bow section hit the sea bed, the weakened decks at the rear, where the ship had broken apart, collapsed on top of each other.[68] The forward hatch cover was also blown off and landed a couple of hundred feet in front of the bow, possibly due to the force of water being pushed out as the bow impacted the bottom.[70]

text: The area around the bridge is particularly badly damaged; as Robert Ballard has put it, it looks "as if it had been squashed by a giant's fist".[71] The roof of the officers' quarters and the sides of the gymnasium appear pushed in, railings were bent outwards and vertical steel columns supporting the decks were bent into a C-shape. Charles R. Pellegrino has proposed that this was the result of a "down-blast" of water, caused by a slipstream that had followed the bow section as it fell towards the sea bed. According to Pellegrino's hypothesis, when the bow came to an abrupt halt the inertia of the slipstream caused a rapidly moving column of water weighing thousands of tons to strike the top of the wreck, striking it near the bridge. This, argues Pellegrino, caused large parts of the bow's interior to be demolished by surges of water and violent eddies kicked up by the wreck's sudden halt.[72] The damage caused by the collision with the iceberg is not visible at the bow as it is buried under mud.[73]

text: Interiors

text: Despite the exterior devastation caused by the bow's descent and collision with the ocean floor, there are parts of the interior in reasonably good condition. The bow's slow flooding and its relatively smooth descent to the sea floor mitigated interior damage. The stairwell of the First-Class Grand Staircase between the Boat Deck and E Deck is an empty chasm within the wreck, providing a convenient point of access for ROVs. Dense rusticles hanging from the steel decking combined with the deep layers of silt that have accumulated in the interior make navigating the wreck disorienting.

text: Passenger staterooms have largely deteriorated because they were framed in perishable softwoods such as pine, leaving a warren of hanging electrical wire, light fixtures and debris interspersed with more durable items like brass bed frames, light fixtures, and marble-topped washstands. Woodwork with attachments like doorknobs, drawer-pulls or push-plates survive in better condition because of the small electric charge emitted by metal which repels fish and other harmful organisms. On the whole hardwoods like teak and mahogany, the material for most stateroom furnishings, are more resistant to decay. Lavatories and bathrooms within the passenger quarters survive because they were framed in steel.

text: The only intact public rooms remaining in either the stern or bow sections are the First-Class Reception Room and Dining Saloon, both on D-Deck. Most of the Dining Saloon has collapsed because of its proximity to the break-up point midships, but the very forward part is accessible and the rectangular leaded glass windows, table bases, and ceiling lamps are noticeably preserved. The Reception Room with its leaded glass windows and mahogany paneling remains remarkably intact, although the ceiling is sagging and there is a deep layer of silt obstructing the floor.[74][75] The Turkish Baths on F-Deck were found to be in excellent condition during their rediscovery in 2005, preserving the blue-green tiles, carved teak woodwork, bronze lamps, and inlaid furniture.[76] The Grand Staircase was very likely destroyed during the sinking, but the surrounding First-Class foyers and elevator entrances preserve many of the ormolu and crystal lamps, oak timbers, and oak-framed stanchions.[77]

text: In addition to the passenger areas, crew areas like the Firemen's Mess, dormitories, parts of "Scotland Road" on E-Deck and the cargo holds on the Orlop Deck have also been explored. The Ghosts of the Abyss expedition in 2001 attempted to locate the famed Renault automobile belonging to William Carter, but the cargo was indistinguishable beneath the silt and rusticles.[78]

text: Stern section

text: The stern section, which measures about 350 feet (110 m) long, was catastrophically damaged during the descent and in landing on the sea bed. It had not fully filled with water when it sank and the increasing water pressure caused trapped air pockets to implode, tearing apart the hull. It was loud enough that multiple survivors reported hearing explosions about ten seconds after the stern had sunk beneath the waves. Data from a sonar map made during a 2010 expedition showed that the stern section rotated like a helicopter blade as it sank.[79] The rudder appears to have swung over to an angle of about 30–45° during the stern's descent, causing the section to follow a tight spiral to the bottom.[80] It probably struck rudder-first, burying most of the rudder in the mud up to a depth of 50 feet (15 m).[81] The decks pancaked on top of each other and the hull plating splayed out to the sides of the shattered section.[67] The pancaking is so severe that the combined height of the decks, which are piled up on top of the reciprocating engines, is now generally not more than about 12 to 15 feet (3.7 to 4.6 m) high. No individual deck is more than about 1 foot (30 cm) high.[81]

text: Large sections of the hull plating seem to have fallen off well before the wreck hit the bottom.[82] One such section, thought to have been from the galleys, separated from the stern in one piece and landed nearby.[69] The force of the water tore up the poop deck and folded it back on itself. The center propeller is totally buried, while the force of the impact caused the two wing propellers and shafts to be bent upwards by an angle of about 20°.[82]

text: A large V-shaped section of the ship just aft of midships, running from the keel upwards through Number 1 Boiler Room and upwards to cover the area under the third and fourth funnels, was believed to have disintegrated entirely when the ship broke up. This was one of the weakest parts of the ship as a result of the presence of two large open spaces – the forward end of the engine room and the aft First Class passenger staircase. The rest of this part of the ship are scattered across the seabed at distances of 130 to 260 feet (40 to 79 m) from the main part of the stern.[83] During the 2010 expedition to map the wreck site, a major chunk of the deck house (the base of the third funnel) along with pieces of the third funnel was found. This showed that instead of simply disintegrating into a mass of debris, large sections of the ship broke off in chunks and that the ship broke in half between the second and third funnels, not the third and fourth funnels. Five of the boilers from Number 1 Boiler Room came loose during its disintegration and landed in the debris field around the stern. Experts believe that this tight cluster of the boilers marks the hypocenter of where the ship broke up 12,000 feet above.[84] The rest of the boilers are still presumably located in the bow section.[85]

text: Debris fields

text: As Titanic broke apart, many objects and pieces of hull were scattered across the sea bed.[84] There are two debris fields in the vicinity of the wreck, each between 2,000–2,600 ft (610–790 m) long, trailing in a south-westerly direction from the bow and stern.[6] They cover an area of about 2 square miles (5.2 km2).[86] Most of the debris is concentrated near the stern section of Titanic.[87] It consists of thousands of objects from the interior of the ship, ranging from tons of coal spilled from ruptured bunkers to suitcases, clothes, corked wine bottles (many still intact despite the pressure), bathtubs, windows, washbasins, jugs, bowls, hand mirrors and numerous other personal effects.[88] The debris field also includes numerous pieces of the ship itself, with the largest pieces of debris in the vicinity of the partially disintegrated stern section.[84]

text: Condition and deterioration of the wreck

text: Prior to the discovery of Titanic's wreck, in addition to the common assumption that she had sunk in one piece, it had been widely believed that conditions at 12,000 feet (4 kilometres) down would preserve the ship virtually intact. The water is bitterly cold at only about 1–2 °C (34–36 °F), there is no light and the high pressure was thought to be likely to lower oxygen and salinity levels to the point that organisms would not be able to gain a foothold on the wreck. Titanic would effectively be in a deep freeze.[89] The reality has turned out to be very different, and the ship has increasingly deteriorated since she sank in April 1912. Her gradual decay is due to a number of different processes – physical, chemical and biological.[90] She is situated on an undulating, gently sloping area of seabed in Titanic Canyon which is swept by the Western Boundary Current. Eddies from the current flow constantly across the wreck, scouring the sea bed and keeping sediment from building up over the hull.[73] The current is strong and often changeable, gradually opening up holes in the ship's hull.[91] Salt corrosion eats away at the hull[90] and it is also affected by galvanic corrosion.[91]

text:
The most dramatic deterioration has been caused by biological factors. It used to be thought that the depths of the ocean were a lifeless desert, but research carried out since the mid-1980s has found that the ocean floor is teeming with life and may rival the tropical rainforests for biodiversity.[92] During the 1991 IMAX expedition, scientists were surprised by the variety of organisms that they found in and around Titanic. A total of 28 species were observed, including sea anemones, crabs, shrimp, starfish, and rattail fish up to a yard (1 m) long.[73] Much larger creatures have been glimpsed by explorers.[93] Some of Titanic's fauna has never been seen anywhere else; James Cameron's 2001 expedition discovered a previously unknown type of sea cucumber, lavender with a glowing row of phosphorescent "portholes" along its side.[94] A newly discovered species of rust-eating bacterium found on the ship has been named Halomonas titanicae, which has been found to cause rapid decay of the wreck. Henrietta Mann, who discovered the bacteria, has estimated that the Titanic will completely collapse possibly as soon as 2025.[95] The Canadian geophysicist Steve Blasco has commented that the wreck "has become an oasis, a thriving ecosystem sitting in a vast desert".[73] In mid 2016, the facilities of the Institut Laue-Langevin
used neutron imaging to demonstrate that a molecule called ectoine is used by Halomonas titanicae to regulate fluid balance and cell volume to survive at such pressures and salinities.[96] Analysis by Henrietta Mann and Bhavleen Kaur, both of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in conjunction with other scientists and researchers of the University of Seville in Spain, has determined that the wreck of Titanic will not exist by 2037 and that preservation of Titanic is impossible. "Unfortunately, because Titanic is 2.3 miles down, it is very difficult or impossible to preserve. It is film which will preserve it for history now," says Mann. "It has already lasted for 100 years, but eventually there will be nothing left but a rust stain on the bottom of the Atlantic... I think Titanic has maybe 15 or 20 years left. I don't think it will have too much longer than that."[citation needed] Other scientists have estimated that Titanic will last no longer than 14 years, as of 2017.[97]

text: The soft organic material aboard and dispersed onto the seabed around the hull would have been the first to disappear, rapidly devoured by fish and crustaceans. Wood-boring molluscs such as Teredo colonized the ship's decks and interior in huge numbers, eating away the wooden decking and other wooden objects such as furniture, paneling, doors and staircase banisters. When their food ran out they died, leaving behind calcareous tubes.[6] The question of the victims' bodies is one that has often troubled explorers of the wreck site. When the debris field was surveyed in Robert Ballard's 1986 expedition, pairs of shoes were observed lying next to each other on the sea bed.[98] The flesh, bones, and clothes had long since been consumed but the tannin in the shoes' leather had apparently resisted the bacteria, leaving the shoes as the only markers of where a body had once lain.[6] Ballard has suggested that skeletons may remain deep within Titanic's hull, such as in the engine rooms or third-class cabins. This has been disputed by scientists, who have estimated that the bodies would have completely disappeared by the early 1940s at the latest.[99]

text: In any event, the molluscs and scavengers did not consume everything organic. Some of the wooden objects on the ship and in the debris field have not been consumed, particularly those made of teak, a dense wood that seems to have resisted the borers.[100] The First Class reception area off the ship's Grand Staircase is still remarkably intact and furniture is still visible among the debris on the floor.[101] Although most of the corridors have lost their walls, furniture is still in place in many cabins; in one, a mattress is still on the bed, with an intact and undamaged dresser behind it.[102] Robert Ballard has suggested that areas within the ship or buried under debris, where scavengers may not have been able to reach, may still contain human remains.[103] According to Charles Pellegrino, who dived on Titanic in 2001, a finger bone encircled by the partial remains of a wedding ring was found concreted to the bottom of a soup tureen that was retrieved from the debris field.[104] It was returned to the sea bed on the next dive.[105]

text: The longest-lasting inhabitants of Titanic are likely to be bacteria and archaea which have colonized the metal hull of the ship. They have produced "reddish-brown stalactites of rust [hanging] down as much as several feet, looking like long needle-like icicles", as Robert Ballard has put it. The formations, which Ballard dubbed "rusticles", are extremely fragile and disintegrate in a cloud of particles if touched.[106] The bacteria consume the iron in the hull, oxidizing it and leaving rust particles behind as a waste product. To protect themselves from the seawater, they secrete an acidic viscous slime that flows where gravity takes it, carrying ferric oxides and hydroxides. These form the rusticles.[100] When scientists were able to retrieve a rusticle, it was discovered that it was far more complex than had been imagined, with complex systems of roots infiltrating the metal, interior channels, bundles of fibers, pores and other structures. Charles Pellegrino comments that they seem more akin to "levels of tissue organization found in sponges or mosses and other members of the animal or plant kingdoms."[107] The bacteria are estimated to be consuming Titanic's hull at the rate of 400 pounds (180 kg) per day, which is about 17 pounds (7.7 kg) per hour or 4.4 ounces (120 grams) per minute. Roy Collimore, a microbiologist, estimates that the bow alone now supports some 650 tons of rusticles[91] and that they will have devoured fifty per cent of the hull within 200 years.[90]

text: Since Titanic's wreck was discovered in 1985, radical changes have been observed in the marine ecosystem around the ship. The 1996 expedition recorded 75 per cent more brittle stars and sea cucumbers than Ballard's 1985 expedition, while crinoids and sea squirts had taken root all over the sea bed. Red krill had appeared and an unknown organism had built numerous nests across the seabed from black pebbles. The amount of rusticles on the ship had increased greatly. Curiously, the same thing had happened over about the same timescale to the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck, sunk at a depth of 4,791 metres (15,719 ft) on the other side of the Atlantic. The mud around the ship was found to contain hundreds of different species of animals. The sudden explosion of life around Titanic may be a result of an increased amount of nutrients falling from the surface, possibly a result of human overfishing eliminating fish that would otherwise have consumed the nutrients.[108]

text: Many scientists, including Robert Ballard, are concerned that visits by tourists in submersibles and the recovery of artifacts are causing the wreck to decay faster. Underwater bacteria have been eating away at Titanic's steel and transformed it into rust since the ship sank, but because of the extra damage caused by visitors, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that "the hull and structure of the ship may collapse to the ocean floor within the next 50 years."[109] The promenade deck has deteriorated significantly in recent years, partly because of damage caused by submersibles landing on the ship. The mast has almost completely deteriorated and has been stripped of its bell and brass light. Other damage includes a gash on the bow section where block letters once spelled Titanic, part of the brass telemotor which once held the ship's wooden wheel is now twisted and the crow's nest has completely deteriorated.[110] The Canadian director James Cameron is responsible for some of the more significant damage during his expedition to the ship in 1995 to acquire footage for his film Titanic two years later. One of the MIR submersibles used on the expedition collided with the hull, damaging both and leaving fragments of the submersible's propeller shroud scattered around the superstructure. Captain Smith's quarters were heavily damaged by the collapse of the external bulkhead, which exposed the cabin's interior.[111]

text: Ownership

text: Titanic's discovery in 1985 sparked a debate over the ownership of the wreck and the valuable items inside and on the sea bed around it. Ballard and his crew did not bring up any artifacts from the wreck, considering such an act to be tantamount to grave robbing. Ballard has since argued strongly "that it be left unmolested by treasure seekers".[112] As Ballard has put it, the development of deep-sea submersibles has made "the great pyramids of the deep .... accessible to man. He can either plunder them like the grave robbers of Egypt or protect them for the countless generations which will follow ours."[113] However, within only two weeks of the discovery, a British insurance company[which?] claimed that it owned the wreck, and several more schemes to raise it were announced. A Belgian entrepreneur offered trips to Titanic for $25,000 a head.[20]

text: Spurred by Ballard's appeals for the wreck to be left alone, North Carolina Congressman Walter B. Jones, Sr. introduced the RMS Titanic Maritime Memorial Act in the United States House of Representatives in 1986. It called for strict scientific guidelines to be introduced to govern the exploration and salvage of Titanic and urged the United States Secretary of State to lobby Canada, the United Kingdom and France to pass similar legislation. It passed the House and Senate by an overwhelming majority and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on 21 October 1986.[20] However, the law has been ineffective as the wreck lies outside United States waters, and the Act was set aside by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, in 1998.[114] Although negotiations among the four countries were carried out between 1997 and 2000,[115] the resulting "Agreement Concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel R.M.S. Titanic" has been ratified by only the US and the UK.[116]

text: Litigation and controversy

text: Only a few days after Ballard's discovery of the wreck, Jack Grimm – the author of the unsuccessful early 1980s attempts to find Titanic – claimed ownership of it on the grounds that he had allegedly been the first to find it.[117] He announced that he intended to begin salvaging the wreck. He said that he "[couldn't] see them just lie there and be absorbed by the ocean floor. What possible harm can [salvage] do to this mass of twisted steel?"[113]

text: Titanic Ventures Inc., a Connecticut-based consortium, co-sponsored a survey and salvage operation in 1987 with the French oceanographic agency IFREMER.[41] The expedition produced an outcry, not least because of the damage that it caused to the wreck. When the crow's nest bell was pulled from the mast, the crow's nest itself, where the lookouts first saw the iceberg, collapsed. A Titanic survivor, Eva Hart, was outspoken in her condemnation of what many saw as the looting of a mass grave: "To bring up those things from a mass sea grave just to make a few thousand pounds shows a dreadful insensitivity and greed. The grave should be left alone. They're simply going to do it as fortune hunters, vultures, pirates!"[118]

text: Public misgivings were increased when, on 28 October 1987, a glitzy television program titled Return to the Titanic Live was broadcast from the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris with Telly Savalas hosting.[118] In front of a live TV audience, a valise recovered from the sea bed was opened, revealing a number of personal items apparently belonging to Richard L. Beckwith of New York, who survived the sinking. A safe was also opened, revealing a few items of memorabilia and some soggy banknotes. The tone of the event has been described by one commentator as "unsympathetic, lack[ing] dignity and finesse, and [with] all the superficial qualities of a 'media event'."[41] The TV critic of The New York Times, John Corry, called the event "a combination of the sacred and profane and sometimes the downright silly."[119] Paul Heyer comments that it was "presented as a kind of deep sea striptease" and that Savalas "seemed haggard, missed several cues and at one point almost tripped over a chair". Controversy persisted after the broadcast when claims were made that the safe had been opened beforehand and that the show had effectively been a fraud.[120]

text: In the meantime, Marex-Titanic Inc. was formed in 1992 to launch an expedition to the Titanic. Marex-Titanic's CEO was James Kollar. The company was a subsidiary of Marex International, an international marine salvage firm located in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1992 Marex made a bid to seize control of the artefacts and the wreck itself by suing Titanic Ventures, arguing that the latter had abandoned its claim by not returning to the wreck since the 1987 expedition. It claimed a superior right of salvage based on a "pill bottle" and hull fragment that were said to have been retrieved by Marex.[121] Marex simultaneously sent a vessel, the Sea Mussel, to carry out its own salvage operation.[122] However, the Marex artefacts were alleged to have been illegally retrieved by the 1991 Russian-American-Canadian expedition[121] and Marex was issued with a temporary injunction preventing it from carrying out its plans. In October 1992 the injunction was made permanent and the salvage claims of Titanic Ventures were upheld.[123] The decision was later reversed by an appeals court but Marex's claims were not renewed.[121] Even so, Titanic Ventures' control of the artefacts recovered in 1987 remained in question until 1993 when a French administrator in the Office of Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Equipment, Transportation, and Tourism awarded the company title to the artefacts.[124]

text: In May 1993 Titanic Ventures sold its interests in the salvage operations and artefacts to RMS Titanic Inc., a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc. headed by George Tulloch and Arnie Geller.[121] It had to go through a laborious legal process of having itself legally recognised as the sole and exclusive salvager of the wreck. Its claim was opposed for a while by the Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association, Titanic's former insurer, but was eventually settled. It was awarded ownership and salvaging rights by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on 7 June 1994 in a ruling that declared the company to be the "salvor in possession" of the wreck.[125]

text: Litigation has continued over the artefacts in recent years. In a motion filed on 12 February 2004, RMS Titanic Inc. requested that the United States district court enter an order awarding it "title to all the artifacts (including portions of the hull) which are the subject of this action pursuant to the Law of Finds" or, in the alternative, a salvage award in the amount of $225 million. RMS Titanic Inc. excluded from its motion any claim for an award of title to the objects recovered in 1987, but it did request that the district court declare that, based on the French administrative action, "the artifacts raised during the 1987 expedition are independently owned by RMST." Following a hearing, the district court entered an order dated 2 July 2004, in which it refused to grant comity or recognise the 1993 decision of the French administrator, and rejected RMS Titanic Inc.'s claim that it should be awarded title to the items recovered since 1993 under the Maritime Law of Finds.[126]

text: RMS Titanic Inc. appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In its decision of 31 January 2006 the court recognised "explicitly the appropriateness of applying maritime salvage law to historic wrecks such as that of Titanic" and denied the application of the Maritime Law of Finds. The court also ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the "1987 artifacts", and therefore vacated that part of the court's 2 July 2004 order. In other words, according to this decision, RMS Titanic Inc. has ownership title to the objects awarded in the French decision (valued $16.5 million earlier) and continues to be salvor-in-possession of the Titanic wreck. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court to determine the salvage award ($225 million requested by RMS Titanic Inc.).[127]

text: On 24 March 2009, it was revealed that the fate of 5,900 artefacts retrieved from the wreck would rest with a U.S. District Judge's decision.[128] The ruling was later issued in two decisions on 12 August 2010 and 15 August 2011. As announced in 2009, the judge ruled that RMS Titanic Inc. owned the artefacts and her decision dealt with the status of the wreck as well as establishing a monitoring system to check future activity upon the wreck site.[129] On 12 August 2010, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith granted RMS Titanic, Inc. fair market value for the artefacts but deferred ruling on their ownership and the conditions for their preservation, possible disposition and exhibition until a further decision could be reached.[130] On 15 August 2011, Judge Smith granted title to thousands of artefacts from the Titanic, that RMS Titanic Inc. did not already own under a French court decision concerning the first group of salvaged artefacts, to RMS Titanic Inc. subject to a detailed list of conditions concerning preservation and disposition of the items.[131] The artefacts can be sold only to a company that would abide by the lengthy list of conditions and restrictions.[131] RMS Titanic Inc. can profit from the artefacts through exhibiting them.[131]

text: RMS Titanic Inc. has also attempted to secure exclusive physical access to the wreck site. In 1996, it obtained a court order finding that it had "the exclusive right to take any and all types of photographic images of the Titanic wreck and wreck site." It obtained another order in 1998 against Deep Ocean Expeditions and Chris Haver, a British Virgin Islands corporation that aimed to run tourist trips to Titanic at a cost of $32,000 per person[132] (it now charges $60,000[133]). This was overturned in March 1999 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled that the law of salvage did not extend to obtaining exclusive rights to view, visit and photograph a wreck. The court pointed out that Titanic is "located in a public place" in international waters, rather than in a private or controllable location to which access could be restricted by the owner. Granting such a right would also create a perverse incentive; since the aim of salvage is to carry out a salvage operation, leaving property in place so that it could be photographed would run counter to this objective.[134]

text: Conservation issues

text: RMS Titanic Inc. has attracted considerable controversy for its approach to Titanic. Two rival camps have formed following the wreck's discovery: the "conservationists", championed by RMS Titanic Inc.'s George Tulloch (who died in 2004), and the "protectionists", whose most prominent advocate is Robert Ballard. The first camp has argued that artefacts from around the wreck should be recovered and conserved, while the latter camp argues that the entire wreck site should have been left undisturbed as a mass grave. Both camps agree that the wreck itself should not be salvaged – though RMS Titanic Inc. did not stick to its proclaimed "hands-off" policy when it managed to demolish Titanic's crow's nest in the course of retrieving the bell.[46] Its predecessor Titanic Ventures agreed with IFREMER that it would not sell any of the artefacts but would put them on public display, for which it could charge an entry fee.[135]

text: Tulloch's approach has undoubtedly resulted in outcomes that would not have been possible otherwise. In 1991, he presented Edith Brown Haisman, a 96-year-old survivor of the disaster, with her father's pocket watch which had been retrieved from the sea bed. She had last seen it on 15 April 1912 when he waved goodbye to his wife and daughter as they left aboard lifeboat 14. They never saw him again and he presumably went down with the ship.[136] The watch was loaned to Haisman "for life"; when she died four years later it was reclaimed by RMS Titanic Inc.[137] On another occasion, a steamer trunk spotted in the debris field was found to contain three musical instruments, a deck of playing cards, a diary belonging to one Howard Irwin, and a bundle of letters from his girlfriend Pearl Shuttle.[138] It was first thought that Irwin, a musician and professional gambler, had boarded the ship under a false identity. There was no record of him being among the passengers, even though a ticket had been purchased for him. It turned out that he had stayed ashore but his trunk had been brought aboard the ship by his friend Henry Sutehall, who was among the victims of the disaster.[139] The fragile contents of the trunk were preserved due to the interior being starved of oxygen, which prevented bacteria from consuming the paper. Very few other shipwrecks have yielded readable paper.[140]

text: On the other hand, the heavily commercialised approach of RMS Titanic Inc. has caused repeated controversy and many have argued that salvaging Titanic is an inherently disrespectful act. The wreck site has been called a "tomb and a reliquary", a "gravestone for the 1,500 people who died" and "hallowed ground".[141] Titanic historians John Eaton and Charles Haas argue that the salvagers are little more than "plunderers and armchair salvage experts" and others have characterised them as "grave robbers".[142] The Return to Titanic... Live! television show in 1987 was widely condemned as a "circus",[143] though the 1987 expedition's scientific and financial leaders had no control over the show.[41] In a particularly controversial episode, RMS Titanic Inc. sold some 80,000 lumps of coal retrieved from the debris field in order to fund the rumoured $17 million cost of lifting the "Big Piece" of the ship's hull.[46] It attempted to get around the no-sale agreement with IFREMER by charging the new owners a $25 "fee" to act as "conservators", in order to claim that the coal lumps had not actually been sold.[143] This attracted strong criticism from all sides.[46] Nonetheless, in 1999 Tulloch was ousted by the company's shareholders and was replaced by Arnie Geller, who promised a more aggressive approach to making a profit. The company declared that it had an "absolute right" to sell recovered gold, coins and currency. It was prevented from doing this by a court order in the United States and IFREMER withdrew its cooperation and its submersibles, threatening a lawsuit.[143]

text: Exhibitions of Titanic artifacts

text: Objects from Titanic have been exhibited for many years, though only a few were retrieved before the discovery of the wreck in 1985. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia has a collection of wooden fragments and an intact deckchair plucked from the sea by the Canadian search vessels that recovered the victims' bodies.[144] Various other museums, including the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the SeaCity Museum in Southampton, have objects donated by survivors and relatives of victims, including some items that were retrieved from the bodies of victims. More donated Titanic artifacts are to be found in the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool and the Titanic Historical Society's museum in Indian Orchard, Springfield, Massachusetts.[145] The latter's collection includes items such as the life jacket of Madeleine Astor, the wife of millionaire Titanic victim John Jacob Astor IV, a rivet which was removed from the hull before Titanic went to sea, an ice warning which never reached the bridge, a restaurant menu and a sample square of carpet from a First Class stateroom.[146]

text: RMS Titanic Inc. organizes large-scale exhibitions around the world of artifacts retrieved from the wreck site. After minor exhibitions were held in Paris and Scandinavia, the first major exhibition of recovered artifacts was held at the National Maritime Museum in 1994–95.[147] It was hugely popular, drawing an average of 21,000 visitors a week during the year-long exhibition.[148] Since then, RMS Titanic Inc. has established a large-scale permanent exhibition of Titanic artifacts at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) exhibit is the home of the "Big Piece" of the hull retrieved in 1998 and features conserved items including luggage, Titanic's whistles, floor tiles and an unopened bottle of champagne.[149] The exhibit includes a full-scale replica of the ship's Grand Staircase and part of the Promenade Deck, and even a mock-up of the iceberg. It also runs a traveling exhibition called Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition which has opened in various cities around the world and has been seen by over 20 million people. The exhibition typically runs for six to nine months featuring a combination of artifacts, reconstructions and displays of the ship, her passengers and crew and the disaster itself. In a similar fashion to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., visitors are given a "boarding pass" in the name of an individual passenger at the start of the exhibition. They do not discover the fate of their assigned passenger until the end.[150]


document_title: Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

question_text: where did the dutch royal family go during ww2

text: Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

text: Early life[edit]

text: Princess Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, was born on 31 August 1880 at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. She was the only child of King William III and his second wife, Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont. Her childhood was characterised by a close relationship with her parents, especially with her father, who was 63 years of age when she was born.

text: King William III had three sons with his first wife, Sophie of Württemberg. However, when Wilhelmina was born, William had already outlived two of them and only the childless Prince Alexander and the King's uncle Prince Frederick of the Netherlands were alive, so under the Semi-Salic system of inheritance that was in place in the Netherlands until 1887, she was third in line to the throne from birth. When Prince Frederick died a year later in 1881, she became second in line. When Wilhelmina was four, Alexander died and the young girl became heir presumptive.

text: King William III died on 23 November 1890. Although 10-year-old Wilhelmina became queen of the Netherlands instantly, her mother, Emma, was named regent.

text: In 1895, Queen Wilhelmina visited Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who penned an evaluation in her diary:

text: The young Queen ... still has her hair hanging loose. She is slender and graceful, and makes an impression as a very intelligent and very cute girl. She speaks good English and knows how to behave with charming manners.[1]

text: Inauguration and marriage[edit]

text: Wilhelmina was sworn-in and inaugurated at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on 6 September 1898.[2] On 7 February 1901 in The Hague, she married Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Nine months later, on 9 November, Wilhelmina suffered a miscarriage, and on 4 May 1902 she gave birth to a premature stillborn son. Her next pregnancy ended in another miscarriage on 23 July 1906.[3] During this time period, Wilhelmina's heir presumptive was her first cousin once removed William Ernest, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and next in line was his aunt (and Wilhelmina's cousin) Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. As it was assumed that the former would renounce his claim to the Dutch throne, and that the latter was too elderly and sickly to become Queen, Marie Alexandrine's eldest son Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz stood in line to succeed Wilhelmina, assuming she had no surviving children. Heinrich was a German prince with close associations with the Imperial family and the military; and there were fears that were the Queen to remain childless, the Dutch Crown "was bound to pass into the possession of a German prince, whose birth, training, and affiliations would naturally have led him to bring Holland [sic] within the sphere of the German Empire, at the expense of her independence, both national and economic", according to one contemporary publication.[4] The birth of Juliana, on 30 April 1909, was met with great relief after eight years of childless marriage.[5] Wilhelmina suffered two further miscarriages on 23 January and 20 October 1912.[3]

text: Reign[edit]

text: Wilhelmina was well aware what was expected of her by the Dutch people and their elected representatives. At the same time, she was a strong-willed and forceful personality who spoke and acted her mind. These qualities showed up early in her reign when, at the age of 20, Queen Wilhelmina ordered a Dutch warship, HNLMS Gelderland, to South Africa to evacuate Paul Kruger, the embattled President of the Transvaal.

text: Wilhelmina had a stern dislike of the United Kingdom partly as a result of the annexation of the republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State in the Boer War. The Boers were descendants of early Dutch colonists, to whom Wilhelmina and the people of the Netherlands felt very closely linked. In conversation with her former governess Elisabeth Saxton Winter, she once teasingly referred to the Boer soldiers as "excellent shots". She was not amused to hear that a Dutch medical relief team was planning to accommodate the needs of both Boer and British wounded soldiers.[6] Nevertheless, in 1940, King George VI sent the warship HMS Hereward, to rescue Wilhelmina, her family and her Government and bring them to safety to the United Kingdom, which offered the Netherlands facilities including broadcasting time on the BBC.

text: Queen Wilhelmina also had a keen understanding of business matters and her investments made her the world's richest woman, as well as the world's first female billionaire (in United States dollars).

text: Before the First World War started, the young Wilhelmina visited the powerful German Emperor Wilhelm II. The Emperor thought he could impress the queen of a relatively small country by telling her, "My guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder-high to them." Wilhelmina smiled politely and replied, "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!"[7]

text: World War I[edit]

text: The Netherlands remained neutral during World War I. However, the Allies included the Netherlands in their blockade of Germany, intercepting all Dutch ships and severely restricting Dutch imports to ensure goods could not be passed on to Germany.

text: Wilhelmina was a "soldier's queen"; being a woman, she could not be Supreme Commander, but she nevertheless used every opportunity she had to inspect her forces. On many occasions she appeared without prior notice, wishing to see the reality, not a prepared show. She loved her soldiers, and was very unhappy with most of her governments, which were always eager to cut the military budget. Wilhelmina wanted a small but well trained and equipped army.

text: In the war, she felt she was a "Queen-On-Guard". She was always wary of a German attack, especially in the beginning. However, the chief violation of Dutch sovereignty was the Allied blockade.

text: In June 1917, as she returned from a two-day visit to Zaltbommel, she was on the train that derailed at Houten. Wilhelmina was unharmed and helped take care of the injured.[8]

text: Civil unrest gripped the Netherlands after the war, spurred by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Socialist leader Pieter Jelles Troelstra wanted to abolish the existing government and the monarchy. Instead of a violent revolution, he hoped to do this by winning control of Parliament in an election, supported by the working class. However, the popularity of the young Queen helped restore confidence in the government. Wilhelmina brought about a mass show of support by riding with her daughter through the crowds in an open carriage.

text: Furthermore the Russian revolution cost her almost 20% of her financial assets, forcing her to entertain at a quite different level than before the war.

text: At the end of World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm fled to the Netherlands, where he was granted political asylum, partly owing to his familial links with Queen Wilhelmina. In response to Allied efforts to get their hands on the deposed Kaiser, Wilhelmina called the Allies' ambassadors to her presence and lectured them on the rights of asylum.[9]

text: Between the wars[edit]

text: During the 1920s and 1930s, the Netherlands began to emerge as an industrial power. Engineers reclaimed vast amounts of land that had been under water by building the Zuiderzee Works. In 1934, both Wilhelmina's mother Queen Emma and her husband, Prince Hendrik, died.

text: Most of the 1930s were also occupied by the need to find a suitable husband for Juliana. This was a difficult task since Wilhelmina was very religious, and insisted that her daughter's hand be given to a Protestant of royal birth. Several prospects from the United Kingdom and Sweden either declined or were turned down by Juliana. Finally, Wilhelmina found a suitable match for her daughter in Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, a German aristocrat. The marriage initially drew some controversy due to rumours that Bernhard was pro-Nazi. It was subsequently confirmed that he had indeed been a member of the Nazi Party and of the so-called Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps), as was proved by the Dutch national institute for war documentation, NIOD.

text: In 1939, the government proposed a refugee camp near the city of Apeldoorn for German Jews fleeing the Nazi regime. Wilhelmina intervened, as she felt the planned location was "too close" to her summer residence. If indeed spies were to be among the fugitives, they would be within walking distance of Het Loo Palace. The camp was finally erected about 10 km from the village of Westerbork.

text: World War II[edit]

text: On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. There is an ongoing debate about the departure of the Queen and the royal family. Some say that an evacuation to the United Kingdom of the royal family had been planned some time in advance, since at least the end of 1939.[10] Wilhelmina and her family fled The Hague, and she boarded HMS Hereward, a British destroyer which was to take her across the North Sea. Others say she boarded the destroyer with the intent of going to the Dutch province of Zeeland, which had not yet been conquered. However, along the journey, it became clear that due to advancing German forces, Zeeland was not safe either, forcing the destroyer to sail for the United Kingdom. In any case, she arrived in the United Kingdom on May 13, planning to return to the Netherlands as soon as possible.[11]

text: The Dutch armed forces in the Netherlands, apart from those in Zeeland, surrendered on 15 May. In Britain, Queen Wilhelmina took charge of the Dutch government in exile, setting up a chain of command and immediately communicating a message to her people.

text: Relations between the Dutch government and the Queen were tense, with mutual dislike growing as the war progressed. Wilhelmina went on to be the most prominent figure, owing to her experience and knowledge. She was also very popular and respected among the leaders of the world. The government did not have a parliament to back them and had few employees to assist them. The Dutch prime minister, Dirk Jan de Geer, believed the Allies would not win and intended to open negotiations with Germany for a separate peace. Therefore Wilhelmina sought to remove De Geer from power. With the aid of a minister, Pieter Gerbrandy, she succeeded.

text: During the war her photograph was a sign of resistance against the Germans. Like Winston Churchill, Queen Wilhelmina broadcast messages to the Dutch people over Radio Oranje.

text: The Queen called Adolf Hitler "the arch-enemy of mankind". Her late-night broadcasts were eagerly awaited by her people, who had to hide in order to listen to them illegally. An anecdote published in her New York Times obituary illustrates how she was valued by her subjects during this period:

text: Although celebration of the Queen's birthday was forbidden by the Germans, it was commemorated nevertheless. When churchgoers in the small fishing town of Huizen rose and sang one verse of the Dutch national anthem, Wilhelmus van Nassauwe, on the Queen's birthday, the town paid a fine of 60,000 guilders.[1]

text: Queen Wilhelmina visited the United States from 24 June to 11 August 1942 as guest of the U.S. government. She vacationed in Lee, Massachusetts, and visited New York City, Boston, and Albany, New York. In the latter city she attended the 300th anniversary celebration of the First Church in Albany, the city's oldest, established by Dutch settlers in the 17th century. She addressed the U.S. Congress on 5 August 1942, and was the first queen to do so.

text: Queen Wilhelmina went to Canada in 1943 to attend the christening of her grandchild Princess Margriet on 29 June 1943 in Ottawa and stayed awhile with her family before returning to the United Kingdom.

text: During the war, the Queen was almost killed by a bomb that took the lives of several of her guards and severely damaged her country home near South Mimms in England (during Operation Steinbock). In 1944, Queen Wilhelmina became the first woman since the 15th century, other than Queens of the United Kingdom, to be inducted into the Order of the Garter. Churchill described her as the only real man among the governments-in-exile in London.[12]:146[13]:193

text: In England, she developed ideas about a new political and social life for the Dutch after the liberation. She wanted a strong cabinet formed by people active in the resistance. She dismissed De Geer during the war and installed a prime minister with the approval of other Dutch politicians. The Queen "hated" politicians, instead stating a love for the people. When the Netherlands was liberated in 1945 she was disappointed to see the same political factions taking power as before the war. In mid-March 1945 she travelled to the liberated areas of the southern Netherlands, visiting the region of Walcheren and the city of Eindhoven where she received a rapturous welcome from the local population.[14] On 2 May 1945 she returned to the Netherlands, coming to live in a small country estate called Anneville located just south of Breda. She arrived in the company of Princess Julia and adjuncts Peter Tazelaar, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema and fellow Engelandvaarder Rie Stokvis.[15] Anneville was the scene of a number of processions where the residents of Breda and the surrounding communities came to greet their queen.[16] She remained there for a little over 6 weeks.

text: Shortly after the war, Queen Wilhelmina wanted to give an award the Polish Parachute Brigade for their actions during Operation Market Garden and wrote the government a request. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eelco van Kleffens, opposed the idea, as he thought an award for the Poles would upset the relations with the 'Big Three' and harm national interests.[17] The Polish Parachute Brigade was awarded the Military Order of William on 31 May 2006 after 61 years.

text: Following the end of World War II, Queen Wilhelmina made the decision not to return to her palace but to move into a mansion in The Hague, where she lived for eight months. She travelled through the countryside to motivate people, sometimes using a bicycle instead of a car. However, in 1947, while the country was still recovering from World War II, the revolt in the oil-rich Dutch East Indies saw sharp criticism of the Queen by the Dutch economic elite.

text: Around the same time, Wilhelmina's health started failing her, forcing her to cede her monarchial duties to Juliana temporarily towards the end of 1947 (14 October through 1 December). She considered abdication, but Juliana pressed her to stay on for the stability of the nation, urging her to stay on the throne until 1950 so she could celebrate her diamond jubilee. Wilhelmina had every intention of doing so, but exhaustion forced her to relinquish monarchial duties to Juliana again on 12 May 1948. The timing was unfortunate, as it left Juliana to deal with the early elections caused by the ceding of the Indonesian colonies.

text: Dismayed by the return to pre-war politics and the pending loss of Indonesia, Wilhelmina abdicated on 4 September 1948.

text: Later years[edit]

text: By 1948, Wilhelmina was the only survivor of the 16 European kings and one queen who were sitting on their thrones at the time of her coronation in 1898. The Dutch Royal Family was also one of seven European royal houses remaining in existence.[18]

text: On 4 September 1948, after a reign of 57 years and 286 days, Wilhelmina abdicated in favour of her daughter Juliana, because of advancing age and illness which had already caused two regencies, and the strain of the war years. She was thenceforward styled "Her Royal Highness Princess Wilhelmina of the Netherlands". After her reign, the influence of the Dutch monarchy began to decline but the country's love for its royal family continued. No longer queen, Wilhelmina retreated to Het Loo Palace, making few public appearances until the country was devastated by the North Sea flood of 1953. Once again she travelled around the country to encourage and motivate the Dutch people.

text: During her last years she wrote her autobiography entitled Eenzaam, maar niet alleen (Lonely but Not Alone), in which she gave account of the events in her life, and revealed her strong religious feelings and motivations.

text: Wilhelmina died in Het Loo Palace at the age of 82 on 28 November 1962, and was buried in the Dutch Royal Family crypt in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, on 8 December. The funeral was, at her request and contrary to protocol, completely in white to give expression to her belief that earthly death was the beginning of eternal life.[19] She was the last surviving grandchild of William II of the Netherlands.

text: According to German Salic law, the House of Orange-Nassau-Dietz became extinct upon her death, but this rule is not recognised by royal Dutch succession laws.

text: Titles, styles, and honours[edit]

text: Titles[edit]

text:
1880–1884: Her Royal Highness Princess Pauline of Orange-Nassau[20]
1884–1890: Her Royal Highness Princess Wilhelmina of the Netherlands[20]
1890–1948: Her Majesty The Queen of the Netherlands
1948–1962: Her Royal Highness Princess Wilhelmina of the Netherlands[20]

tag: ul

text: Wilhelmina's full regnal title from her accession to her marriage was: "Wilhelmina, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, Duchess of Limburg, etc." She adopted her husband's ducal title upon marriage as customary, becoming also a Duchess of Mecklenburg.[21]

text: Honours[edit]

text: National honours[edit]

text:
Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross and Grand Master of the Military William Order[22][23][24][25][26]
 Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross and Grand Master of the Order of the Netherlands Lion[27][28][29][30][31]
 Netherlands: Grand Master of the Order of Orange-Nassau[32][33][34]
 Netherlands: Co-Grand Master of the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau
 Netherlands: Grand Master of the Order of the House of Orange

text: Foreign honours[edit]

text:
Belgium:

Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold[35][36]
Recipient of the Croix de Guerre Medal

 Brazil: Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross
 Czech Republic: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the White Lion
 Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant[37][38][39]
 Ethiopia: Knight Grand Cordon of the Order of Solomon
 Finland: Collar with Star of the Order of the White Rose of Finland
 France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
 Guatemala: Grand Cross of the Order of the Quetzal
 Luxembourg:

Knight of the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau
Grand Cross of the Order of the Oak Crown

 Norway: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of St. Olav[40]
 Peru: Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru
 Poland: Knight of the Order of the White Eagle[41]
 Romanian Royal Family: Grand Collar of the Order of Carol I
 Spanish Royal Family:

Dame of the Collar of the Order of Charles III
Dame of the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic[42]
897th Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa[43]

 Sweden: Member of the Order of the Seraphim
 United Kingdom:

Stranger Lady of the Order of the Garter[44][45][46][47][48]
Member First Class of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert[49]

text: Wilhelmina Mints[edit]

text: In 1892 the company Fortuin celebrated its 50th anniversary by producing mints with the image of the 12-year-old Princess Wilhelmina, which have continued in production since then.[50] Among Dutch sweets, these mints have become the "most Dutch of all".[51]

text: Ancestry[edit]

text:
[show]Ancestors of Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

16. William V, Prince of Orange

8. William I of the Netherlands

17. Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia

4. William II of the Netherlands

18. Frederick William II of Prussia

9. Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia

19. Landgravine Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

2. William III of the Netherlands

20. Peter III of Russia

10. Paul I of Russia

21. Princess Sophie Friederike of Anhalt-Zerbst
Catherine II of Russia

5. Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia

22. Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg

11. Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg

23. Margravine Friederike Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt

1. Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

24. George I, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont

12. George II, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont

25. Princess Auguste Albertine of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

6. George Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont

26. Victor II, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym

13. Princess Emma of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym

27. Princess Amelia Charlotte of Nassau-Weilburg

3. Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont

28. Frederick William, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg

14. William, Duke of Nassau

29. Burgravine Louise Isabelle of Kirchberg

7. Princess Helena of Nassau

30. Prince Paul of Württemberg

15. Princess Pauline of Württemberg

31. Princess Charlotte Georgina of Saxe-Hildburghausen

tag: table

text: After Wilhelmina had taken office in 1890, rumours were spread by Socialist satirical magazine De Roode Duivel ("The Red Devil") that William III was not her real father, but Emma's confidant S.M.S. de Ranitz. This would undermine the legitimacy of Wilhelmina's reign. Although no hard evidence exists for the allegations, and the consensus amongst historians is that they are false,[52][53][54] the rumours were stubborn, and still feature in conspiracy theories circulating in republican circles.[55][56][note 1] The author of the rumour, the later parliamentarian and senator Louis Maximiliaan Hermans, was sentenced to six months imprisonment for lèse-majesté in 1895 for a different article and cartoon in De Roode Duivel, mocking the two queens.[59][60]