High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The first automotive torpedo was developed in 1866, and the torpedo boat was developed soon after. In 1898, while the Spanish–American War was being fought in the Caribbean and the Pacific, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt wrote that torpedo boats were the only threat to the American navy, and pushed for the acquisition of torpedo boat destroyers. On 4 May 1898, the US Congress authorized the first sixteen torpedo boat destroyers and twelve seagoing torpedo boats for the United States Navy.