The torpedo was invented in Rijeka. In 1866, English engineer Robert Whitehead successfully tested the first self-propelled torpedo off this waterfront site, working from the ideas of an Austrian naval officer named Giovanni Luppis. The invention transformed naval warfare worldwide; within decades every major navy had adopted it.
The original launch station is a small harbourside building that now functions as a museum marking this extraordinary moment in military history. Rijeka takes quiet pride in being the birthplace of a weapon that changed the shape of war — a characteristically Riekan combination of industrial heritage and historical ambiguity.