Who was the first swimmer that crossed the English channel?

Giovanni Maria Salati (Malesco,1796 - ?, ...) was an Italian soldier.

Son of Domenico and Anna Maria Salati, he was recruited into Napoleonic army. The 16 August 1817, Giovanni Maria Salati had been a prisoner for a few months in Dover, captured by the English and kept in an old ship used as a concentration camp.

That day would have been his last day of captivity: overnight the 21-year-old marine rifleman, wounded and defeated at Waterloo, jumped into the water heading toward the coast of France.

He was the first man in the world to have crossed the Channel by swimming. Captain Matthew Webb was the first. He was killed trying to swim agross the Niagra River in Canada/US He swam the channel in 1875.