The Atlantic Ocean

Timezone: UTC-4.

Parting time, again. But the New World awaits.

For 100 years the Western world had been at peace. For 100 years technology had steadily improved. For 100 years the benefits of peace and industry seemed to be filtering satisfactorily through society. In retrospect, there may seem less grounds for confidence, but at the time most articulate people felt life was all right.
The Titanic woke them up. Never again would they be quite so sure of themselves. In technology especially, the disaster was a terrible blow. Here was the “unsinkable ship” – perhaps man's greatest engineering achievement – going down the first time it sailed.
But it went beyond that. If this supreme achievement was so terribly fragile, what about everything else? If wealth meant so little on this cold April night, did it mean so much the rest of the year? Scores of ministers preached that the Titanic was a heaven-sent lesson to awaken people from their complacency, to punish them for top-heavy faith in material progress. If it was a lesson, it worked – people have never been sure of anything since.
As the cries died away the night became strangely peaceful. The Titanic, the agonizing suspense, was gone. The shock of what had happened, the confusion and excitement ahead, the realization that close friends were lost forever had not yet sunk in. A curiously tranquil feeling came over many of those in the boats.
Walter Lord, “A Night to Remember”