It began here in Ireland at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Three thousand men would labor here for more than 2 years. They were building a monster the largest ship the world had ever seen. In the spring of 1909 a mountain of steel began to rise against the sky. The ship would weigh 66,000 tons her hull would span 4 city blocks, each of her colossal steam engines was the size of a 3-story house. The huge scale of these things was a source of delight. It was a scene out of Gulliver's Travels when 20 draft horses were needed to haul the ship's anchor through the streets of Belfast. Some few observers found this giant threatening and wrote of her nightmare scale. But their forebodings fell short of the event, for the fate of this ship still fascinates the world and her name is a synonym for tragedy. In 1910 the huge ship taking shape in Belfast was a supreme wonder in world accustomed to miracles. Every day it seemed something bigger or better was invented.