For Scholastic News Interactive

One hundred years after the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic on April 14, 1912, experts are still debating what caused the tragedy. Now, new research by British historian Tom Maltin points to an unusual optical illusion that may have hidden the iceberg that caused the Titanic’s deadly crash.

Maltin read weather records, testimony from survivors, and the ship’s logs to research his theory. The Titanic, he says, sailed from warm Gulf Stream waters into the freezing Labrador Current. There, the air column was cooling from the bottom up, creating layers of cold air below layers of warmer air. This is called a thermal inversion.

The thermal inversion, Maltin says, caused light to refract, or bend, abnormally downward. The refraction created mirages: Objects appeared higher—and therefore nearer—than theydifficulties after alcohol and drug consumption and the cause of death was given as positional asphyxiation.

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But a court heard how the tragic course of events unfolded at Victoria Square, a grade II-listed sheltered housing complex in Ancoats - two days after the UK’s historic vote to leave the European Union.

Dunne has now been jailed for assaulting the late Mr Keating, and another man who he attacked with a hammer in an earlier incident.

Dunne, 62, was locked up for four years and five months at Manchester Crown Court after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Mr Keating.

He also admitted causing grievous bodily harm to a 56-year-old man, and a charge of criminal damage, dating back to July last year.

Disturbing CCTV captured the attack on Mr Keating.

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