IMAGE OF THE WEEK

The Edmund Fitzgerald, in trouble on Lake Superior.

For me, the two most fascinating shipwrecks in history are that of the Titanic and the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down on November 10, 1975 in a severe storm on Lake Superior. I found this painting on a site devoted to the wreck (the painting links to it), and I just found this one pretty striking.

UPDATE: Darth Swank and Robert in comments remind me of the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, which went down in the St. Laurence River after being rammed by a Norwegian collier. The loss of life was greater than that of the Titanic, but the Empress of Ireland did not have anywhere near the mythic opulence of the earlier wreck, and the ship went down so fast that there was no time for the heartbreaking stories of families bidding each other farewell on the decks to take place as they had on the Titanic. Most fascinating to me, though, is the fact that the Empress of Ireland went down within sight of land (well, it would have, if not for the dense fog that led to the collision in the first place).

Here's a good writeup on the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, and make sure to check the rest of that site out as well, including the Flash-driven "Diagram of a Colossus", an interactive tour of the Lusitania.