

Photograph by Emory Kristof and Alvin Chandler, National Geographic
As made interactively evident by a retro-futuristic Google doodle, Tuesday would have been the 183rd birthday of Jules Verne. Had he lived to see 2011, the French science fiction writer also would have seen many of his fanciful inventions made real—more or less.
In perhaps his most famous novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne's Captain Nemo travels the world's oceans in a giant electric submarine, the Nautilus—the inspiration for the portholed Jules Verne Google doodle.
Aside from its organ, formal dining room, and other luxuries, the Nautilus isn't all that different from some modern subs, such as the circa-1964, three-passenger Alvin (pictured), which is powered by lead-acid batteries.
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