On September 1st, 1985, American oceanographer Robert Ballard with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts discovered the wreck of the Titanic. The Titanic sank 73 years earlier in 1912. She was found 400 miles east of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic and some 13,000 feet below the surface. Ballard first searched for the Titanic in 1977 and was unsuccessful. In 1985, along with French oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel, Ballard and his team began to use an unmanned submersible called the Argo which was developed by the U.S. Navy. In the early morning hours of September 1st, the Argo was investigating debris on the ocean floor when it suddenly passed over one of the Titanic’s boilers. The next day the ship was discovered nearby. It had split in two, but many of its features were preserved. The wreck has been explored since then by manned and unmanned submersibles which have shed new light on the 1912 sinking.
