Cornelis Drebbel built the world's first working submarine in 1620 and successfully tested it by rowing a modified, leather-covered wooden rowboat submerged under the River Thames for three hours.

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Cornelis Drebbel built the world's first working submarine in 1620 and successfully tested it by rowing a modified, leather-covered wooden rowboat submerged under the River Thames for three hours. This aquatic death trap was powered by twelve terrified oarsmen who had to blindly paddle underwater while relying on a mysterious chemical mixture Drebbel invented just to keep them from suffocating. King James I reportedly watched this bizarre spectacle from the safety of the riverbank, presumably thrilled that his subjects were willing to risk drowning in raw sewage purely for his entertainment. The fact that anyone voluntarily climbed into a sealed wooden coffin and voluntarily sank to the bottom of seventeenth-century London blows my mind. Modern commuters will complain if the train air conditioning is slightly too cold, but these absolute lunatics rowed through literal plague water breathing synthetic oxygen just to impress a monarch