Ray Benito, age 11, of Portland, Me., for his question:

WHO INVENTED THE SUBMARINE?

The first submarine that worked was a wooden rowboat covered with waterproof hides. A Dutch scientist named Cornelius van Drebbel built it about 1620.

During the next century designers built many undersea craft. Little use was made of them, however, until the Revolutionary War in America between 1775 and 1783. During that war, a student at Yale College named David Bushnell designed a one man submarine called the Turtle. It was powered by a hand cranked propeller.

In 1776, an attempt was made by the Turtle to sink a British warship in New York Harbor. The mission, which wasn't a success, was the first known attack made by a submarine.