Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat. In 1800, he was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to design the Nautilus, which was the first practical submarine in history. He is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Navy.
Fulton became interested in steamboats in 1777 when he visited William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who had earlier learned about James Watt's steam engine on a visit to England.
Read more about Robert Fulton: Early Life, Education and Work, Posthumous Honors
Famous quotes containing the words robert and/or fulton:
“You can’t build life the way you put blocks together, Toddy.... Did Knox teach you what makes the blood flow? Did he tell you how thoughts come and how they go, and why things are remembered and forgot?... What makes a thought start?... You don’t know and you’ll never know or understand.... Look, look at yourself. Could you be a doctor, a healing man, with the things those eyes have seen? There’s a lot of knowledge in those eyes, but no understanding.”
—Philip MacDonald, and Robert Wise. Gray (Boris Karloff)
“New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)