British Passenger Ship titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the north atlantic. More than 1500 passengers and crew died. The deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time. After inquiries in the u. S. And the u. K. , major changes in Maritime Safety were made. In the next hour, well learn about the american congresss response. Our guest, elise bean. Shes the director of the d. C. Office of the levin center for oversight and democracy. Rms been how quickly did the u. S. Congress take up the sinking of the titanic in 1912 . Well, its really, really pretty remarkable. They took it up in four days. The ship itself went down on a monday night. 1500 people died, as you mentioned. Over 700 were rescued and transported to new york city harbor. By tuesday, word was out. The media in new york reported on the tragedy. By wednesday, the u. S. Senate decided that they wanted to investigate. They had even though the ship was british owned and it had gone down in international waters, they decided