Calle de Isaac Peral

The name recalls Isaac Peral y Caballero, a naval officer born in Cartagena in 1851, who gave shape to the idea of sailing underwater with electric propulsion. His submarine was launched in San Fernando on 8 September 1888. It measured twenty-two meters, reached eight knots, and carried a torpedo tube in the bow: it was the first in the world driven by electricity and armed for combat. In night drills it surprised its evaluators. By day, however, a cruiser spotted it at a thousand meters, and the naval commission ultimately rejected the prototype for its range. Peral died in Berlin in 1895. The hull lay abandoned for decades; today it is displayed as a museum ship in Cartagena. The street took its name in 1922; it was formerly calle de Ataúlfo. It runs through Chamberí and Moncloa, and along it rose the San Carlos Clinical Hospital.