-a story that will resonate in the hearts of rational human beings for generations to come
On the night of January 13, 2012 the cruise ship Costa Concordia partially sank after hitting a reef off the Italian coast and running aground at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, requiring the evacuation of the 4,252 people on board.. Thirty people were known to have died; 64 others were injured (at least two seriously) and two are still missing.
Two passengers and a crewmember trapped inside were rescued in the days after the incident.
Captain Francesco Schettino left the ship during the evacuation and did not re-board despite orders by maritime officials.
After the event, Schettino was arrested on preliminary charges of multiple manslaughter, in connection with causing a shipwreck, failing to assist 300 passengers, and failing to be the last to leave the wreck.
He was subsequently also charged with failing to describe to maritime authorities the scope of the disaster (for which seven other officers and managers of Costa Cruises are under investigation) and with abandoning incapacitated passengers..
One of the features of the disaster that provoked a great deal of comment was the stream of reports from angry survivors of how, in the chaos, men refused to put women and  children first, and instead pushed themselves forward to escape; and how the Italian crew ignored passengers and reportedly shouldered their way past mothers and pregnant women to get into lifeboats.
Contrast this with the story of the sinking of the Titanic.
Yesterday April 15, 2012,marks 100 years since the RMS Titanic,  a British passenger liner  sank in the North Atlantic Ocean  after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City.
Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time.
It was her maiden voyage and she was being publicised as being unsinkable.
The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
The ship hit an iceberg about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, Canada at 11:40 pm.
The glancing collision caused Titanic’s hull plates to buckle inwards in a number of locations on her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea.
As it became obvious that the ship would be lost its Captain, Captain Edward John Smith ordered that the lifeboats should be loaded, not with the many wealthy persons who were one board, but with women and children first.
Although this  order  was never part of maritime law, it was adhered to so strictly on the Titanic that men were stopped from boarding lifeboats, many of which went to sea only three-quarters full.
There were reportedly only a few exceptions to the unvarying tales of heroism: three men in steerage (the lowest decks of the ship) who disobeyed the rule were shot.
The chivalry was reflected in survival rates: 74 per cent of the women were saved; 52 per cent of the children; and just 20 per cent of the men.
The chivalry of the males on board the Titanic made its final moments   the stuff of legends.
In the final moments the ship’s band struck up the tune “Nearer my god to thee.”
Captain   Edward John Smith went down with his ship.
The men who survived the sinking of the Titanic were reviled as cowards.
The behavior of the Captain and Crew of the 2012 Costa Concordia disaster contrasts strikingly with the behavior of the Captain, crew and males aboard the Titanic in 1912.
“Women and children first!” was according to all reports rejected by the Captain and crew of the Costa Concordia.
It was every man (and every woman) for themselves.
Generally, there is a longing among most men to protect women and children.
Chivalry is simply a manifestation of that longing.
The story of the sinking of the Titanic has been told in numerous books and movies.
The last three survivors of the Titanic tragedy, Babara West Dainton, Milvina Dean, both English, and the last US survivor Milvina Gertrud Dean have all passed away. Ms. West who lived in Truro, England died on October 16, 2007 at the age of 96. Ms. Dean who lived in Southampton, England died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 95, while Ms. Asphund who lived in Massachusetts passed away on May 8, 2006 at the age of 99.
It is a story that will resonate in the hearts of rational human beings for many generations to come, because of the adherence of the males on board to that simple edict:”Women and children first.”