The RMS Titanic tragically sank on April 15, 1912, during the presidency of William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913. The disaster shocked the world, but it struck Taft on an especially personal level. Among the 119 Americans who perished was Major Archibald Butt—an influential military aide to both Theodore Roosevelt and Taft, and one of Taft's closest and most trusted friends. Butt was reportedly playing cards when the Titanic hit the iceberg, and he sadly never made it off the doomed ship; his body was never recovered.
