fbpx

KidsKonnect

Famous Shipwrecks Facts & Worksheets

About 5,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes have cost the lives of over 30,000 seafarers. Shipwrecks are crucial discoveries that convey stories of the past, letting us connect the dots in history.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /Social Studies /Famous Shipwrecks Facts & Worksheets

Premium
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

A preliminary estimate by the United Nations estimates that at least 3 million shipwrecks are lying across ocean floors. About 5,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes have cost the lives of over 30,000 seafarers. Shipwrecks are crucial discoveries that convey stories of the past, letting us connect the dots in history.

See the fact file below for more information on Famous Shipwrecks, or you can download our 36-page Famous Shipwrecks worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

RECORDED WORLD SHIPWRECKS

  • Several maritime disasters in the past, as shown in famous movies, poetry, and dramas, illustrate the heart-wrenching tales of lost ships, their grieving crew, and hopeless passengers who perished in the depths of oceans and seas.
  • Over numerous years, many ships have fallen prey to mishaps caused by human carelessness. Nonetheless, these shipwrecks attract history specialists and laypeople alike. They are generally considered treasure boxes and cloaked in mystery.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

The luxurious SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American freighter. The ship was launched on June 7, 1958, and was the giant vessel to cruise on the Great Lakes of North America. 

It carried a shipment of Taconite iron ore from mines in Minnesota to the ironworks in Ohio, Michigan, and Detroit.

  • She was a remarkable ship that shattered her former records and set new ones throughout its 17 years of service.
  • She sailed on its final disastrous journey from Wisconsin, near Duluth, on November 9, 1975. She was transporting a shipment of ore pellets and was captained by Captain Ernest M. McSorley. 
  • The ship was bound for a steel facility in Detroit and was traveling when another SS vessel Arthur M. Anderson joined her. 
  • Both ships were trapped in a violent storm with hurricane gusts and over 11 m-high waves the next day. 
  • On the evening of November 10, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank roughly 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The 29-member crew went down with it in what has become the biggest shipping tragedy of the Great Lakes. 
  • She was recovered by an aircraft belonging to the US Navy on November 14, 1975. 
  • After three expeditions and at the request of the family of some of the crew, the ship’s bronze bell was recovered on July 4, 1995. 

HMHS Britannic

  • Belonging to the Olympic class of steamships, the White Star Line vessel, HMHS Britannic, was the most recent sister ship of the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic. 
  • Built as a passenger liner, she served as a hospital ship from 1915 until she eventually sank in November 1916.
  • She joined the service before the First World War started. 
  • She was meticulously planned, and lessons learned from the sinking of the Titanic were used in its construction to make it comfortable and secure. 
  • In 1915-16, she cruised between Britain and the Dardanelles. On November 21, 1916, she was shaken by a blast caused by a naval mine of the German Navy. 
  • The event occurred near the Greek island of Kea in the Aegean Sea. 
  • The ship sunk roughly an hour later and killed 30 passengers. She became the largest ship that sank during World War I and, more so, tragically. Of the 1,066 people, 1,036 survived and were rescued from the ocean and the lifeboats. 
  • Considered the world’s biggest and most well-preserved passenger liner, the wreck was found in 1975.

HMS Curacoa

  • HMS Curacoa was a light cruiser designed for the Royal Navy. She functioned as a flagship much of the time. 
  • Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet in 1919, she was dispatched to the Baltic to reinforce the British soldiers fighting in the Civil War against Russia. 
  • After encountering a naval mine, she was damaged and was transported for repair. 
  • Later she was moved to the Mediterranean fleet in 1922-23 to reinforce British Troops in Turkey. 
  • She was modified to a training ship in 1933, and then in 1939 when the Second World War started, she was turned into an anti-aircraft cruiser. 
  • After 1940, she became an escort ship. In 1942 she accompanied the RMS Queen Mary, the journey culminating in the disaster. 
  • The former carried roughly 15,000 US troops and traveled in a zigzag pattern to escape German aircraft and other hostile warships. 
  • The Queen Mary emerged along with the guarded ship Curacao and was trying to reach her. 
  • One of the seafarers, Ernest Watson, a sailor on the Curacoa, was admiring the Queen Mary.
  • When he spotted its bow swinging toward the cruiser and recognized that the two ships were shortly going to clash.
  • Twenty times bigger, the Queen Mary smashed into Curacao‘s metal plate and split it in half before it sunk in no time. 
  • Out of 430 men onboard, just 99 sailors and 2 officers survived.

The Fleet of Kublai Khan

  • Two Mongolian invasion fleets of Kubla Khan attempting to attack Japan suffered losses in storms in 1274 and 1281, losing thousands of troops.
  • Several relics of these vessels were recovered centuries later on the seafloor of the Imari Gulf. 
  • In October 2001, a well-preserved shipwreck thought to originate from Fujian in south China was discovered by researchers.
  • In 2015, archaeologists found a Mongolian ship in a harbor adjacent to Matsuura in Kyushu.

The Spanish Armada

  • The Spanish Armada, an entourage of 130 ships in an attempt to invade England in 1588, was delayed by storms, and a vast proportion of the Armada’s ships collapsed on the shores of Scotland and Ireland, killing over 5,000 people.
  • Among the drowned were most of the troops and crewmembers of the 32-gun vessel La Juliana, built near Barcelona in 1570.
  • Local divers unearthed the wreckage of three fleet vessels, including La Lavia, La Santa Maria de Vision, and La Juliana, in 1985.
  • In 2015, six cannons from La Juliana were unearthed in the dunes off Streedagh in Co Sligo.

RMS Titanic

  • RMS Titanic, the most renowned ship for failing to reach her destination, was the largest cruise liner of her day. 
  • The Titanic was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Ireland. It was reputed to be the most sophisticated ship of its age.
  • However, the Titanic believed to be ‘unsinkable,’ sadly sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg on its inaugural voyage traveling from Southampton to New York City on April 14, 1912.
  • Around 1,517 persons died in one of the worst marine catastrophes in history.
  • After numerous fruitless excursions, the wreck was ultimately found by a combined French-American expedition in 1985. 
  • Several relics and debris have been retrieved from the wreckage and are displayed in the National Maritime Museum in England.
  • Many strategies were presented to raise the ship. However, the delicate state of the vessel hindered such efforts. The 2001 UNESCO Convention currently preserves the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

RMS Empress of Ireland

  • On May 29, 1914, the Canadian ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River after crashing with the Norwegian collier SS Storstad due to intense fog, killing 1,012.
  • The ship was on the voyage to Liverpool from Quebec City, carrying 1,057 passengers and a crew of 420 when it went down in one of the worst maritime disasters in Canadian history.
  • The wreck of the Empress of Ireland remains in a shallow 130 feet of water.
  • Following the catastrophe, several divers recovered numerous artifacts from the ship, including silver bars, a brass bell, and a stern telemeter.

MS Estonia

  • The Estonia tragedy in the Baltic Sea is one of the largest maritime incidents in recent years. 
  • The MS Estonia cruise ferry was built in the shipyard of Meyer Werft in Germany. It came from the Estonian province of Tallinn and sank en route to Stockholm on September 28, 1994.
  • Over 800 individuals died in this terrible catastrophe, and most remains were never found.
  • The cause of the disaster remains contentious as there are various theories concerning the cause of the sinking. The most frequently recognized explanation for the accident is supposed to be the harsh weather conditions that the ship experienced.
  • However, some publications dismissed this argument and reported that because of the ship’s military participation, explosives planted by competing countries destroyed it.
  • After the disaster, there were calls from the deceased’s family to lift the vessel to grant a land burial. 
  • And at the same time, there were negotiations to lift the ship for a full inspection to know the reason for the catastrophe.
  • However, the Swedish authorities opted to bury the vessel, and hundreds of tons of stones were dropped on the site.
  • As per the Estonia Agreement 1995, the burial location has been declared a marine cemetery and forbidden the wreckage examination.

The Andrea Doria

  • The Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish ship MS Stockholm in July 1956, killing 46 passengers.
  • The vessel had 1,134 passengers and 572 staff members on board; it was en route to New York City when it met with one of the most catastrophic maritime tragedies in history.
  • However, despite the severity of the tragedy, not many lives were lost because of the rapid response by the ship’s officials and remarkable rescue attempts.
  • After the vessel’s sinking, divers Peter Gimbel and Joseph Fox found the wreck of Andrea Doria.
  • Today, lying in approximately 240 feet of the North Atlantic Ocean, the wreck of the Andrea Doria has become a famous spot among scuba divers, nicknamed “Mount Everest of scuba diving.”

HMS Victory

  • HMS Victory, a 100-gun Royal Navy ship, was launched in 1737 and was lost in the English Channel in 1744.
  • More than 1,000 men died in the sinking of HMS Victory, one of the greatest British naval disasters in the English Channel.
  • The ship vanished in the Channel Islands; no trace could be found for over 250 years.
  • The wreckage was finally located in 2008 by the United States Odyssey Marine Expedition, around 43 nautical miles from where it encountered the storm and sank.
  • Under maritime laws, the ruins of HMS Victory are currently the property of the British Government as a military wreck.

MV Doña Paz

  • The Philippine-registered passenger ferry MV Doña Paz was on its way from Leyte Island to Manila when it sank after colliding with the oil tanker M.T. Vector on December 20, 1987.
  • One of the greatest peacetime maritime catastrophes in history, the accident claimed the lives of at least 4,386 people.
  • Reports soon showed that the ferry was overloaded, the ship did not have a radio, and passengers didn’t have rapid access to life jackets.
  • Due to the fire, the ship, currently referred to as ‘Asia’s Titanic,’ was destroyed in the collision.

RMS Carpathia

  • The British passenger liner RMS Carpathia is well-known for rescuing people from the Titanic in 1912 when the cruise ship collided with an iceberg.
  • Carpathia experienced a similar fate when it was destroyed in 1917 by a German submarine during World War I.
  • Three torpedoes from a German U-boat struck the vessel as it was part of a convoy traveling from Liverpool to Boston, and five people were killed in the tragedy.
  • Argosy International Ltd discovered the Carpathia wreck at 600 feet of water, 298 miles west of Land’s End, in 1999, resting upright on the ocean floor.

The Mary Rose

  • The Mary Rose was a Tudor King Henry VIII fleet ship destroyed on July 19, 1545, while fighting a French ship in the Solent on the Isle of Wight.
  • The ship sunk in a strait of the English Channel, taking the lives of hundreds of men.
  • This shipwreck was rescued in 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust, and today the treasures are displayed in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
  • The objects recovered from the Mary Rose were unique, revealing tremendous knowledge about the equipment of naval combat of that age.

The Vasa

  • The Vasa was a Swedish military vessel completed in the 17th century that set sail as the most technologically advanced warship. However, the ship sank during her maiden voyage to Stockholm Harbor in 1628.
  • Many attempts to raise the ship from the seafloor in the ensuing years proved fruitless.
  • Finally, the Vasa was rediscovered in 1961, and the remnants of the ship are housed in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, where it receives more than a million visitors annually.

RMS Rhone

  • The RMS Rhone was a British iron-hulled steamboat managed by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in the United Kingdom. 
  • This ship was lost in a hurricane off the shore of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands in 1867, killing 123 people.
  • The ship’s topmast remained above the waterline long after the accident, but the Royal Navy did not blow up the stern until 1950, citing navigational hazards. 
  • Today, because of how the wreckage is positioned in the sea, the Rhone is the top diving location in the Caribbean.

The Sultana

  • In one of the deadliest and least remembered maritime catastrophes in the history of the US, the explosion and sinking of steamer Sultana on April 27, 1865, ended 1,800 lives on the Mississippi River near Memphis.
  • The ship was used to bring Union prisoners home at the end of the Civil War but suffered an accident when her boiler exploded. 
  • The ship’s wreck was located in 1982 in a soybean field on the Arkansas side, roughly 6 kilometers from Memphis.
  • A temporary Sultana Disaster Museum was erected in 2015 on the 150th anniversary of the catastrophe, featuring a few remnants from the ship.

RMS Republic

  • In 1909 the steam-powered ocean liner RMS Republic was lost at sea after crashing with the Lloyd Italiano ship SS Florida.
  • Six people died when the ferry collided en route from New York City to Gibraltar and a Mediterranean port.
  • Several reports say the Republic transported valuables, including gold, when she left Nantucket, Massachusetts.
  • The Republic wreck, recovered in 1981 by Captain Martin Bayerle, stands upright roughly 80 kilometers south of Nantucket Island, around 250 feet deep.

RMS Lusitania

British ocean liner RMS Lusitania was the world’s largest passenger ship for a brief period when it launched in 1906.

The ship was lost on May 7, 1915, when it was attacked by a German U-boat off Ireland’s southern coast, killing 1,962 passengers and 1191 crew members.

  • The accident happened on its 202nd transatlantic journey. After a few salvage operations, numerous objects were retrieved.
  • The wreck is 11 miles south of the lighthouse at Kinsale, Ireland, with roughly 300 feet of water.

USS Arizona

The USS Arizona was a United States Navy battleship. It was the final vessel of the Pennsylvania class and named after the 48th state. 

  • She was commissioned in 1916 and engaged in vital missions and operations during the First World War.
  • The ship carried President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference and was dispatched to service in the Greco-Turkish War in 1919. 
  • In 1921, she joined the Pacific Fleet. 
  • In the 1920s and 30s, USS Arizona engaged in training exercises and was renovated.
  • Following an earthquake in Long Beach, California, in 1933, it provided relief activities. 
  • The Pacific Fleet’s home port was moved from California to Pearl Harbor in 1940 to counter Japanese influence.
  • On December 7, 1941, the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. Numerous bombs dropped by airplanes struck the USS Arizona. 
  • Hence, the ship sank, taking with it roughly 1,177 navy officers and men. In contrast to the other vessels that were assaulted on the same day, Arizona sustained substantial harm and was incapable of being fixed or brought back.
  • The wreckage of the vessel lies at the depths of Pearl Harbor, in close proximity to the USS Arizona Memorial, which was erected to pay tribute to the individuals who lost their lives in the attack.

USS Indianapolis

  • The USS Indianapolis was a US Navy heavy cruiser. Navy, Portland Class. 
  • It was launched in 1931 and played an important role in the Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII. 
  • It took part in several battles and engagements, including the Battle of the Philippine Sea, a major naval battle.
  • On July 30, 1945, the ship was en route to Leyte from Guam when it was attacked by two torpedoes launched by I-58, a Japanese submarine. The ship was struck in the bow, causing it to sink in under 12 minutes with most of its crew onboard.
  • Unfortunately, there was also a communication problem, and its sinking could not be reported in time. 
  • The crew was stranded in the open water for four days without food and drinking water before a patrolling jet located them and rescued the survivors. 
  • However, several crew members had already died due to dehydration, shark attacks, exposure, and sea illness.
  • The ship was carrying 1,196 people, and just 316 of them survived. The sinking of the USS Indianapolis was one of the worst maritime disasters in the history of the US Navy.
  • In 2017, a search team identified the ship’s wreckage in the Philippine Sea at a depth of roughly 18,000 feet, and in 2018, the crew was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

Famous Shipwrecks Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Famous Shipwrecks across 36 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Famous Shipwrecks. About 5,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes have cost the lives of over 30,000 seafarers. Shipwrecks are crucial discoveries that convey stories of the past, letting us connect the dots in history.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Famous Shipwrecks Facts
  2. Share your Misconceptions
  3. Ship Prefixes
  4. Be Shipwreck Ready
  5. The RMS Titanic
  6. Shipwreck Depths
  7. Ship Detective
  8. Locating Shipwrecks
  9. Mari-timeline Catastrophes
  10. A Tribute Song
  11. Historic Maritime Brochure

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most famous shipwreck of all time?

The most famous shipwreck of all time is the RMS Titanic. On April 15, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean during its maiden voyage, resulting in the loss of over 1,500 lives.

Where did the shipwreck of the Titanic happen?

The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 370 miles (600 kilometers) south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

What is the story behind the shipwreck of the RMS Lusitania?

The RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was sunk by a German submarine during World War I on May 7, 1915. The ship was hit by a torpedo, causing a massive explosion and resulting in the deaths of nearly 1,200 passengers and crew members.

What is the significance of the shipwreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha?

The shipwreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha is significant because it was a Spanish treasure galleon that sank off the coast of Florida in 1622. It carried a vast amount of gold, silver, and other precious treasures from the New World. The wreck was discovered in 1985, and the recovery of its valuable cargo was a major archaeological achievement.

Which famous shipwreck is associated with the term “ship of gold”?

The shipwreck associated with the term “ship of gold” is the SS Central America. The SS Central America was a steamship that sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1857 during a hurricane. It was carrying a substantial amount of gold from the California Gold Rush. The wreck was discovered in 1988, and its recovery yielded one of the most significant treasure hauls in history.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Famous Shipwrecks Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, July 19, 2023

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources