Other notables nominated by local people for the honour are toymaker Frank Hornby, trade union activist Bessie Bradock, and shipping magnate and founder of the White Star Line, Henry Ishmay.

BBC: News | Entertainment | Blue plaque to honour Lennon

This claim that the White Star Line chose aesthetics over lives hinges on a crucial conversation between Alexander Carlisle, the managing director of the shipyard where Titanic was built, and his customer Bruce Ismay, head of White Star Line, in 1910.

WSJ: The Real Reason for the Tragedy of the Titanic

Less than a year after the White Star Line-owned vessels left the city, the Nomadic was employed to transport first and second class passengers from the French port of Cherbourg to the Titanic ahead of its ill-fated maiden Atlantic voyage.

BBC: Titanic's tender ship celebrates its centenary

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the White Star Line's most infamous ship was built, a new museum opened last month complete with interactive, hands-on exhibits, adding to a growing list of museums dedicated to the disaster, including one in Southampton, the point from which the ship set sail.

CNN: 100 years later, Titanic's allure still strong

Other pieces include white ceramic dishes stamped with the ship's red "White Star Line" logo and leather handbags that some of the ship's pursers stuffed with money from safe-deposit boxes.

WSJ: Titanic Shipwreck Is Up for Sale at Guernsey's

He saw things he recognized but his brain, befuddled with chemicals released by fear, couldn't locate the words to describe them: the twin stacks spewing plumes of dirty white smoke, the abandoned custom's station with a faded red star painted above the door, the line of white-washed bee hives on a slope near a copse of stunted apple trees.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Legends'

Premier Exhibitions is cashing in on the centennial of the Titanic disaster with an April auction to offload some 5, 500 artifacts raised from the wreck, everything from chunks of the ship's hull to White Star Line teacups and passengers' possessions.

WSJ: Titanic Centennial Commemorations Sink to New Lows | Postmodern Times by Eric Felten