Futility Closet

Stewardess Violet Jessop was both cursed and blessed -- during the 1910s she met disaster on all three of the White Star Line's Olympic class of gigantic ocean liners, but she managed to escape each time. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll accompany Violet on her three ill-fated voyages, including the famous sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic, and learn the importance of toothbrushes in ocean disasters. We'll also play with the International Date Line and puzzle over the identity of Salvador Dalí's brother. Show notes: University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt discusses his coin-flipping experiment about halfway through this BBC podcast. The associated website is here. We first wrote about Violet Jessop on March 11, 2009. Maritime historian John Maxtone-Graham interviewed her in 1970 for The Only Way to Cross, his 1978 book about the era of ocean liners. When Violet died in 1971 she left a manuscript to her daughters, which, edited by Maxtone-Graham, came to light in 1997 as Titan