The Legend of the SS Titanic Comes Ashore in the Middle of the USA

Even in an age of cheap and easy airline travel, the public fascination with the sea liner Titanic seems never-ending, even though it's been 10 years since the multi-Oscar winning movie "Titanic" and is approaching the 95^th anniversary of the day when the "unsinkable" ship hit the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking over 1500 souls with her.

Last year, several major stories connected to the Titanic hit the headlines, and all were connected with Belfast, Ireland, where the infamous liner and its sister ships were all built, rivet-by-rivet. First there was the story that a Belfast family had finally been reunited with their lost family member, one of the crewmembers. William McQuillan was a stoker, and his family had always thought that he was one of the many lost at sea - until his granddaughter saw his grave on BBC Northern Ireland television documentary.

It was marked number 183, and less than a year later Marjorie Wilson was the first member of her family to pay their respects at his graveside in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The granite stone was simply marked: "William McQuillan, Died 15 April 1912, 183" and after laying flowers on the stone she said: "Well, Grandpa, we've found you".

There was also a story about one of the few remaining lifejackets from the Titanic, which went under the auctioneer's hammer in Devizes, Wiltshire. A private collector paid a price of £43,000 (around $81,000) for this very unique piece of maritime history, as auctioneer Andrew Aldridge explained at the time:

"There are only about six or seven lifejackets left in existence. (At the time) the company did not want souvenir hunters, so a lot of things, including clothing, were put in big piles and burned."