One of Chrissy’s cousins just sent me this story in the Smithsonian Magazine that tells the story of how one man claimed he had plans to rescue Napoleon from St Helena… WITH A SUBMARINE.

I’ve never heard it before so I thought I’d share it.

In 1820–or so he claimed–he was offered the sum of £40,000 [equivalent to $3 million now] to rescue the emperor Napoleon from bleak exile on the island of St. Helena. This escape was to be effected in an incredible way–down a sheer cliff, using a bosun’s chair, to a pair of primitive submarines waiting off shore. Johnson had to design the submarines himself, since his plot was hatched decades before the invention of the first practical underwater craft.