Divers discover sunken 1907 experimental submarine in Long Island Sound.
Divers in Connecticut discovered a 100-year-old experimental submarine, the Defender, that was built by naval architect Simon Lake in the early 1900s. The submarine was equipped with wheels to move along the ocean floor and a door that gave divers the option to exit the vessel underwater. The vessel was abandoned and later scuttled by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1946. The Defender was found more than 150 feet beneath the water's surface by a team of divers led by Richard Simon, who had spent months analyzing sonar and underwater mapping surveys of the bottom of the sound. The ship is protected under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act.