USS Nautilus (SSN-571) USS Nautilus (SSN-571) USS "Nautilus" (SSN-571) was the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole on 3 August 1958. Sharing names with Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in Jules Verne's classic 1870 science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", and named after another that served with distinction in World War II, the new atomic powered "Nautilus" was authorized in 1951, with laying down for construction in 1952 and launched in January 1954, attended by Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States, wife of 34th President Dwight D.
Jules Verne to follow my own instincts? It's because I know who I am that I realize what I can be one day." Meanwhile, Verne was spending much time at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, conducting research for his stories and feeding his passion for science and recent discoveries, especially in geography. It was in this period that Verne met the illustrious geographer and explorer Jacques Arago, who continued to travel extensively despite his blindness (he had lost his sight completely in 1837). The two men became good friends, and Arago's innovative and witty accounts of his travels led Verne toward a