The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. More than 1,500 people died when the ship, which was carrying 2,224 passengers and crew, sank under the command of Captain Edward Smith. Some of the wealthiest people in the world were on board, including property tycoon John Jacob Astor IV, great grandson of John Jacob Astor, founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, heir to his family's mining business, also perished, along with Isidor Straus, the German-born co-owner of Macy's department store. The ship was the largest afloat at the time and was designed in such a way that it was meant to be'unsinkable'.

Despite the relative precision of this computer tool, however, Broussard notes that "our statistical prediction of who survived and who died on the Titanic will never be 100 percent accurate--no statistical prediction can or will ever be 100 percent accurate--because human beings are not and never will be statistics." For example, she recounts the actions of two passengers whose fates had nothing to do with gender, age, or passenger fare, but, rather, how far they jumped when fleeing the sinking vessel.