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 Navy's first commissioned submarine, christened . Commissioned in June 1900, the French steam and electric employed the now typical double-hull design, with a pressure hull inside the outer shell. These 200-ton ships had a range of over underwater. The French submarine "Aigrette" in 1904 further improved the concept by using a diesel rather than a gasoline engine for surface power. Large numbers of these submarines were built, with seventy-six completed before 1914. The Royal Navy commissioned five s from Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, under licence from the Holland Torpedo Boat Company from 1901 to 1903. Construction of the boats took longer than