"Please rush all possible assistance" [History]

When the RMS Titanic scraped an iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, its wireless operators began sending distress calls on one of the world's most advanced radios: a 5-kilowatt rotary spark transmitter that on a clear night could send signals from the middle of the Atlantic to New York City or London. The equipment was owned by Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. and operated by two of its employees, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride.