Walter Lord — American Author born on October 08, 1917, died on May 19, 2002

John Walter Lord, Jr., was an American author, best known for his documentary-style non-fiction account A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic... (wikipedia)

Someone once told me the one thread that runs through them all is a premium on personal courage - not intellectual courage, but just plain physical courage.
Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.
Events alone rarely provide much guide to the future.
It's a funny thing, but today the Titanic is probably much more - that is people are much more aware of it than they were in 1954, when I was doing my research.
I look for something that is highly unusual, involving ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.