Perhaps the best example of this continuous improvement goes back to the most famous of all accidents: the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The ship was made with what were, at the time, some of the strongest, hardiest steels available. Yet analysis of metals retrieved in recent years from the ship’s hull show that they were made of steel grades that would never pass muster today: high in sulphur, low in manganese and prone to shattering in low temperatures. Many of the rivets that held the steel in place were made of cheap wrought iron rather than steel, which again made them more vulnerable
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