Robert Fulton the "Nautilus", the first practical submarine in history. Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Royal Navy. Fulton became interested in steam engines and the idea of steamboats in 1777 when he was around age 12 and visited state delegate William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was interested in this topic. Henry had learned about inventor James Watt and his Watt steam engine on an earlier visit to England. Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1765. He had three sisters –
Submarine it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably "H. L. Hunley", the submarine that deployed it. Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was "Nordenfelt I", a 56-tonne, vessel similar to Garrett's ill-fated "Resurgam" (1879), with a range of , armed with a single torpedo, in 1885. A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery