John Philip Holland, born in Liscannor (County Clare, Ireland), designs the USS Holland (SS-1), the first submarine officially acquired by the US Navy, on 11 April 1900. The design combines gasoline propulsion on the surface and electric propulsion submerged, a bow torpedo, and a functional periscope. Isaac Peral (Spain, 1888) built the first fully operational electric submarine with a torpedo — a contribution of greater technical purity already present in the corpus. Holland's entry documents a different milestone: the first institutional adoption of a submarine by a first-rank navy, which fixed the standard design of 20th-century submarines. Holland was an Irish nationalist; the irony that his inventions were bought by the British Empire and the US Navy is documented by himself in letters.