The only one left

I was watching the Rangers bullpen on display last night, which reminded me that today is the 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Nearly a century later, the sinking of this "unsinkable" luxury liner still fascinates.

It took three years to build, and three hours to sink, going down at 2:45 a.m. April 15, 1912 some 400 miles south of Newfoundland after an iceberg ripped her asunder. The Titanic left from Southampton, England headed for New York.

There were 2,228 on board -- 1,343 passengers and 885 in the crew. There were lifeboats for only 1,178, a big reason there were only 705 survivors.

Millvina Dean, 97, is the only remaining survivor, and has been since October 2007. She was two months old when she left with her parents to emigrate from England to Wichita, Kansas where her father had family living and where he hoped to open a tobacco shop.

The Deans were not supposed to be aboard the Titanic, but owing to a coal strike, they were transferred to the ship and boarded it as third-class passengers. Dean's father felt the ship's collision with the iceberg that night, and after investigating, returned to his cabin telling his wife to dress the children and go up on deck. Dean, her mother, and brother were placed in Lifeboat 10 and were among the first steerage passengers to escape the sinking liner. Her father, however, did not survive, and his body, if recovered, was never identified.