On April 15, 1912, more than 1,500 passengers of the 2,223 passengers on board of the “ship that could not sink” had perished. One of these 1,500 passengers was John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthy socialite behind the Astoria Hotel, which in 1897 combined with the Waldorf Hotel to give us The Waldorf Astoria; but John Jacob Astor is not our only connection to this event. In fact, President Taft and members of the United States Senate convened at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel days later to investigate this tragic event and made changes to ensure that something like this would never happen again.

The Titanic hearings were conducted by a special subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee and chaired by Senator William A. Smith (R-MI). The hearings began on April 19, 1912, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. 

A total of 82 witnesses testified about ice warnings that were ignored, the inadequate number of lifeboats, the ship’s speed, the failure of nearby ships to respond to the Titanic’s distress calls, and the treatment of passengers of different classes.