On this date in 1912, one of the richest men in the world dined sumptuously aboard the White Star line’s newest and proudest ocean-going vessel on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Later that evening, he would guide his young wife Madeline to lifeboat No. 4 and be told he could not join her until all women were safely aboard. He would later be glimpsed on the ship’s starboard bridge wing, speaking with another passenger.
This was the last anyone saw of John Jacob Astor IV until his remains were plucked from the icy Atlantic waters a full week later, one of just 333 bodies recovered of the more than 1,500 lives lost in the April 15, 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
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