10 Ways You Think About The Titanic All Wrong

4. The Third Class Passengers Weren’t Locked Below

Much of it may be accurate, but one moment of complete and utter fabrication in James Cameron's movie is the steerage passengers getting locked down in third class. Why he included it should, from a cinematic perspective, be obvious - it adds tension, installs a couple of action beats and hammers home the class divide the ship is known to personify - but there isn't a single piece of factual evidence to back it up.

Yes, there were gates that divided the different class of passenger, but that was only adhere with American immigration laws regarding health and safety and had nothing to do with company policy or emergency procedure. Crucially, at no point were they used during the sinking.

The myth no doubt caught on because the proportion of third class passengers who survived compared to first class is so low; there must be some reason for it, right? Well there was, just not in a conscious, and definitely not vindictive, sense: the boats were all kept on the aptly named Boat Deck, which were a winding collection of hallways and stairwells away from the steerage accommodation below decks on the ship, meaning many people struggled to get out (remember there was a high proportion of non-English speakers in third class) and those who did got there too late.

So White Star didn't exactly make it easy for third class passengers to make it to the lifeboats through the design of the ship, but they definitely didn't try and stop them escaping.