The USS Alligator: The History of the U.S. Navy's First Submarine

While people often tend to think of submarines as a modern invention, inventors created several prototypes from 1580 onward, and they even attempted to use them. Some of the designs remained theoretical and never got off the drawing board, but as time went on, several Europeans built and tested primitive submarines. Most of these early subs were made of wood and often possessed an awkward shape, but a French priest first proposed the now familiar cylindrical layout in 1634. He determined th...