down here to washington and held the very first major hearing held in this room, sinking of the titan aic. a huge crowd showed up. so many a resist cats in england and united states had gone down on this ship. it frightened senators so many people were here. the next hearing was in a smaller committee room. they didn't want the big show in this room. it certainly drew a lot of attention to the issue. the hearings are fascinating. when the movie titanic came out, they reprinted the excerpts from the hearings. they may influence how hollywood depicted many scenes in movies about the titanic. the senate and house have had standing committees since 1816. the way in which committees gather information is to take testimony. so through the 19th and 20th century, hearings were held in which senators, representatives would interrogate cabinet officers, citizens or anyone that had knowledge about the issue to be able to draft legislation. in some cases, they held investigations to find out what went wrong. that went back to 1792 when there had been a great defeat of the army by native americans in