On May 29th, 1914, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Empress of Ireland sank in just 14 minutes taking with her all but 465 of her 1,477 passengers and crew, many of them women and children. The sinking of the Empress and the consequent huge loss of life made headlines around the world. The Titanic disaster, just two years prior, was still fresh in people's minds. Aboard the Empress, 1,012 lost their lives, including 840 passengers, eight more than had perished on the Titanic. In some respects the tragedy of the Empress was more poignant than that of the White Star liner. The tragic sinking, however, was soon forgotten with the outbreak of World War I and the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat a year later. The horrors of trench warfare and the cataclysmic loss of life made the public quickly forget the story of one of the 20th century's biggest sea disasters. Today the Empress decays quietly under 140 feet of water - a tomb to more than 600 victims. But her story is anything but quiet. Dark Descent will not only explore the fatal accident and its place in history, it will also be an inside look into the failed salvage attempts, from the first hard-hat diver sent down to recover bodies to the most recent adrenaline junkies.