History of submarines

The development of submersible vessels, from early experimental craft to modern military and civilian submarines. It traces changes in propulsion, design, and underwater capability.

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Cornelis Drebbel: A Dutch inventor who built and demonstrated a navigable submersible in seventeenth-century England. His submerged boat, tested on the Thames around 1620, is among the earliest documented navigable submersibles.
John Philip Holland: An Irish-American engineer whose submarine designs helped establish the modern military submarine. His boats combined surface combustion engines with electric underwater propulsion.
USS Nautilus (SSN-571): The first operational nuclear-powered submarine, commissioned by the United States in 1954. Its 1958 voyage beneath the North Pole demonstrated nuclear submarines' extraordinary range.
German U-boat campaign: Germany's submarine warfare campaigns against Allied shipping during the two world wars. U-boats made submarines a major threat to maritime supply lines.
Bathyscaphe: A free-diving deep-sea vehicle that uses a buoyant float and ballast to reach great depths. Unlike most military submarines, bathyscaphes were built chiefly for deep-sea exploration.
Turtle submarine: A one-person American submersible built by David Bushnell during the American Revolutionary War. Its 1776 attack on a British ship was the first recorded combat use of a submarine.
USS Holland (SS-1): The United States Navy's first commissioned submarine, entering service in 1900. Its hybrid propulsion and practical design influenced subsequent naval submarines.
Operation Sandblast: The 1960 voyage of USS Triton, the first submerged circumnavigation of Earth. The voyage showcased the endurance made possible by nuclear propulsion.
Battle of the Atlantic: The prolonged World War II campaign to protect Allied shipping from German attacks. Its convoy battles drove advances in submarine detection and antisubmarine warfare.
Alvin (DSV-2): A United States Navy-owned research submersible operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Its scientific missions show how crewed submersibles serve research rather than naval combat.