Do you know how deep 20,000 leagues actually is? You'd be surprised!

One of the biggest literary misconceptions—and way to tell if someone isn't a nautical enthusiast—is believing the book “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” actually took place 20,000 leagues down under the surface of the ocean.

In reality, that's a little too deep.

It may be science fiction, especially when it was written by Jules Verne back in 1870, but traveling 20,000 metric leagues down would actually make you more of an astronaut than a deep sea explorer.

Traveling that distance straight down would put you all the way through the Earth and out the other side, a fifth of the way to the Moon's orbit.

The 20,000 leagues referred to in the title actually means the distance traveled while under water, thought the sentence structure is enough to make anyone confused, especially if you don't know the metric system.

Even if they didn't reach impossible depths, that is still a very long way to go in a submarine. Good thing it was fiction!

(Source)