Timeline Of Diving Technology
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The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater
diving equipment Diving equipment, or underwater diving equipment, is equipment used by underwater divers to make diving activities possible, easier, safer and/or more comfortable. This may be equipment primarily intended for this purpose, or equipment intended ...
. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment. Primary constraints are: * the provision of breathing gas to allow endurance beyond the limits of a single breath, * safely decompressing from high underwater pressure to surface pressure, * the ability to see clearly enough to effectively perform the task, * and sufficient mobility to get to and from the workplace.


Pre-industrial

* Ancient
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
and
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
era: There have been many instances of men swimming or diving for combat, but they always had to hold their breath, and had no diving equipment, except sometimes a hollow plant stem used as a snorkel. * About 500 BC: (Information originally from
Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
): During a naval campaign the Greek Scyllis was taken aboard ship as prisoner by the Persian King
Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...
. When Scyllis learned that Xerxes was to attack a Greek flotilla, he seized a knife and jumped overboard. The Persians could not find him in the water and presumed he had drowned. Scyllis made his way among all the ships in Xerxes's fleet, cutting each ship loose from its moorings; he used a hollow reed as snorkel to remain unobserved. Then he swam nine miles (15 kilometers) to rejoin the Greeks off Cape Artemisium. * The use of
diving bell A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...
s was recorded by the Greek philosopher
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
in the 4th century BC: "...they enable the divers to respire equally well by letting down a
cauldron A cauldron (or caldron) is a large cookware and bakeware, pot (kettle) for cooking or boiling over an open fire, with a lid and frequently with an arc-shaped hanger and/or integral handles or feet. There is a rich history of cauldron lore in r ...
, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the water." * 1300 or earlier: Persian divers were using diving
goggles Goggles, or safety glasses, are forms of protective eyewear that usually enclose or protect the area surrounding the eye in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes. They are used in chemistry laboratories and ...
with windows made of the polished outer layer of
tortoiseshell Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced from the shells of the larger species of tortoise and turtle, mainly the hawksbill sea turtle, which is a critically endangered species according to the IUCN Red List largely because of its ...
. * 15th century:
Konrad Kyeser Konrad Kyeser (26 August 1366 – after 1405) was a German military engineer and the author of '' Bellifortis'' (), a book on military technology that was popular throughout the 15th century. Originally conceived for King Wenceslaus, Kye ...
, illustrated his manual of military technology ''
Bellifortis ''Bellifortis'' (, 'War Fortifications') is the first fully illustrated manual of military technology, written by Konrad Kyeser and dating from the start of the 15th century. It summarises material from classical writers on military technolog ...
'' with a
diving suit A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply (such as for a standard diving dress or atmospheric diving suit), but in most cases th ...
fitted with a hose to the surface. This diving suit drawing can also be seen in the manuscript Ms.Thott.290.2º, written by
Hans Talhoffer Hans Talhoffer (Dalhover, Talhouer, Thalhoffer, Talhofer; – after 1482) was a German fencing master. His martial lineage is unknown, but his writings make it clear that he had some connection to the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer, th ...
, which reproduces sections of ''Bellifortis''. * 15th century:
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
made the first known mention of air tanks in Italy: he wrote in his Atlantic Codex (Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
) that systems were used at that time to artificially breathe under water, but he did not explain them in detail. Some drawings, however, showed different kinds of snorkels and an air tank (to be carried on the breast) that presumably should have no external connections. Other drawings showed a complete immersion kit, with a plunger suit which included a sort of mask with a box for air. The project was so detailed that it included a
urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and many other animals. In placental mammals, urine flows from the Kidney (vertebrates), kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder and exits the urethra through the penile meatus (mal ...
collector. * 1535: Guglielmo de Lorena and Francesco de Marchi dived on a Roman vessel sunk in
Lake Nemi Lake Nemi (, , also called Diana's Mirror, ) is a small circular volcanic lake in the Alban Hills south of Rome in the Lazio region of Italy. It takes its name from Nemi, the largest town in the area, which overlooks it from a height. It was ...
using a one-man
diving bell A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...
invented by de Lorena. * 1602:
Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont (1553 – 23 March 1613) was a Spanish soldier, painter, astronomer, musician and inventor. He pioneered the use and design of the steam engine, as well as mining ventilation systems, improved scientific instru ...
built an air-renovated diving suit that allowed a man to remain underwater in the
Pisuerga The Pisuerga is a river in northern Spain, the Duero's second largest tributary. It rises in the Cantabrian Mountains in the province of Palencia, autonomous region of Castile and León. Its traditional source is called Fuente Cobre, but it has ...
river on August 2. The diver passed an hour underwater before being ordered to return by King Philip III. * 1616:
Franz Kessler Franz Kessler (c. 1580–1650) was a portrait painter, scholar, inventor and alchemist living in the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries. Writing He wrote a number of books and pamphlets: a book on stoves, on making sundials, ...
built an improved diving bell. * Around 1620:
Cornelis Drebbel Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel (; 1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, opti ...
may have made a crude
rebreather A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen is a ...
. * 1650:
Otto von Guericke Otto von Guericke ( , , ; spelled Gericke until 1666; – ) was a German scientist, inventor, mathematician and physicist. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental methods and repeatable demonstrations on the physics of ...
built the first air pump. * 1715: ** the ''
chevalier Chevalier may refer to: Honours Belgium * a rank in the Belgian Order of the Crown * a rank in the Belgian Order of Leopold * a rank in the Belgian Order of Leopold II * a title in the Belgian nobility France * a rank in the French Legion d'h ...
'' Pierre Rémy de Beauve, a French aristocrat who served as '' garde de la marine'' in Brest, built one of the oldest known diving dresses. De Beauve's dress was equipped with a metal helmet and two hoses, one of them air-supplied from the surface by a
bellows A bellows or pair of bellows is a device constructed to furnish a strong blast of air. The simplest type consists of a flexible bag comprising a pair of rigid boards with handles joined by flexible leather sides enclosing an approximately airtig ...
and the other one for evacuation of the exhaled air. ** the Englishman
John Lethbridge John Lethbridge (1675–1759) invented the first underwater diving machine in 1715. He lived in the county of Devon in South West England and reportedly had 17 children. He is the subject of the Fisherman's Friends song "John in the Barrel". J ...
, a wool merchant, invented a diving suit built like a barrel with armholes and a viewport, and successfully used it to salvage valuables from wrecks.


Industrial era


Start of modern diving

* 1772: the first diving dress using a compressed-air reservoir was successfully designed and built in 1772 by ''Sieur'' Fréminet, a Frenchman from
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. Fréminet conceived an autonomous breathing machine equipped with a helmet, two hoses for inhalation and exhalation, a suit and a reservoir, dragged by and behind the diver, although Fréminet later put it on his back. Fréminet called his invention ''machine hydrostatergatique'' and used it successfully for more than ten years in the harbours of
Le Havre Le Havre is a major port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy (administrative region), Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the Seine, river Seine on the English Channel, Channe ...
and Brest, as stated in the explanatory text of a 1784 painting. * 1774: John Day became the first person known to have died in an underwater accident while testing a "diving chamber" in
Plymouth Sound Plymouth Sound, or locally just The Sound, is a deep inlet or sound in the English Channel near Plymouth in England. Description Its southwest and southeast corners are Penlee Point in Cornwall and Wembury Point in Devon, a distance of abo ...
. * 1776:
David Bushnell David Bushnell may refer to: * David Bushnell (inventor) (1740 – 1824), American inventor, inventor of the ''Turtle'' submersible * David Bushnell (historian) (1923 – 2010), American historian * David P. Bushnell (1913 – 2005), American en ...
invented the ''Turtle'', first submarine to attack another ship. It was used in the
American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
. * 1797: Karl Heinrich Klingert designed a full diving dress which consisted of a large metal helmet and similarly large metal belt connected by a leather jacket and pants. * 1798: in June, F. W. Joachim, employed by Klingert, successfully completed the first practical tests of Klingert's armor. * 1800: Captain Peter Kreeft of Germany dived several times with his helmet diving equipment to show it to King
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden Gustav IV Adolf or Gustav IV Adolph (1 November 1778 – 7 February 1837) was List of Swedish monarchs, King of Sweden from 1792 until he Coup of 1809, was deposed in a coup in 1809. He was also the last Swedish monarch to be the ruler of Fin ...
. * 1800:
Robert Fulton Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the (also known as ''Clermont''). In 1807, that steamboat ...
built a
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
, the "
Nautilus A nautilus (; ) is any of the various species within the cephalopod family Nautilidae. This is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and the suborder Nautilina. It comprises nine living species in two genera, the type genus, ty ...
". * 1825: Johan Patrik Ljungström demonstrated his diving bell built of
tinned Tinning is the process of thinly coating sheets of wrought iron or steel with tin, and the resulting product is known as tinplate. The term is also widely used for the different process of coating a metal with solder before soldering. It is most ...
copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
with space for a crew of 2-3 persons, equipped with
compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with No ...
and methods of communication to the surface, successfully diving down to about 16 meters with Ljungström and an assistant on board, and wrote a book on the organization of private underwater diving * c. 1831: American Charles Condert built an autonomous diving suit, using a copper pipe curved in the form of a horseshoe, displacing about 50 pounds of water, and worn at the waist, as an air reservoir which fed compressed air through a manually operated valve and a hose into an airtight rubberised hip length tunic with integral hood. Air escaped from a small hole in the hood. The buoyancy of the set required about 200 pounds of weight for ballast. Condert made several dives in the East River to about 20 ft, and was drowned on his last dive in 1832. * 1837: Captain William H. Taylor demonstrated his "submarine dress" at the annual American Institute Fair at Niblo's Garden, New York City. * 1839: ** Canadian inventors James Eliot and Alexander McAvity of
Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John () is a port#seaport, seaport city located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is Canada's oldest Municipal corporation, incorporated city, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign ...
patented an "oxygen reservoir for divers", a device carried on the diver's back containing "a quantity of condensed oxygen gas or common atmospheric air proportionate to the depth of water and adequate to the time he is intended to remain below". ** W.H.Thornthwaite of
Hoxton Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. It was Historic counties of England, historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. Hoxton lies north-east of the City of London, is considered to be a part of London's East End ...
in London patented an inflatable lifting jacket for divers. * Around 1842: The Frenchman Joseph-Martin Cabirol (1799–1874) formed a company in Paris and started making
standard diving dress Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, whic ...
. * 1843: Based on lessons learned from the Royal George salvage, the first diving school was set up by the Royal Navy. * 1845 James Buchanan Eads designed and built a diving bell and began salvaging cargo from the bottom of the Mississippi River, eventually working on the river bottom from the mouth of the river at the Gulf of Mexico to Iowa. * 1856:
Wilhelm Bauer Wilhelm Bauer (; 23 December 1822 – 20 June 1875) was a German marine engineer and inventor who built several hand-powered submarines. Biography Wilhelm Bauer was born in Dillingen in the Kingdom of Bavaria. His father was a sergeant in ...
started the first of 133 successful dives with his second submarine ''
Seeteufel ( ''Sea Devil'', also known as the (Elephant)) was a two-man amphibious midget submarine, developed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Only one prototype was built in 1944, although its testing was relatively successful and negotiations beg ...
''. The crew of 12 was trained to leave the submerged ship through a diving chamber (airlock). * 1860:
Giovanni Luppis Giovanni (Ivan) Biagio Luppis Freiherr von Rammer (27 August 1813 – 11 January 1875), sometimes also known by the Croatian name of Vukić, was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy who headed a commission to develop the first prototypes o ...
, a retired engineer of the Austro-Hungarian navy, demonstrated a design for a
self-propelled torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...
to emperor
Franz Joseph Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I ( ; ; 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the Grand title of the emperor of Austria, other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 1848 until his death ...
. * 1864: '' H.L. Hunley'' became the first submarine to sink a ship, the USS ''Housatonic'', during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
. * 1866: ''Minenschiff'', the first
self-propelled torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...
, developed by Robert Whitehead (to a design by Captain Luppis, Austrian Navy), was demonstrated for the imperial naval commission on 21 December. * 1882: Brothers Alphonse and Théodore Carmagnolle of
Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
, France, patented the first properly
anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...
design of ADS (
atmospheric diving suit An atmospheric diving suit (ADS), or single atmosphere diving suit is a small one-person articulated submersible which resembles a suit of armour, with elaborate pressure joints to allow articulation while maintaining an internal pressure of on ...
). Featuring 22 rolling convolute joints that were never entirely waterproof and a helmet with 25 glass viewing ports, it weighed and was never put in service.


Rebreathers

* 1808: on 17 June, ''Sieur''
Pierre-Marie Touboulic Pierre-Marie Touboulic (17 June 1783, Brest, France - 8 June 1859 Paris) was a naval engineer, inventor and writer. Biography Pierre-Marie Touboulic was born in Brest on 17 June 1783. He was the fifth of six children of master locksmith Jean-Lou ...
from Brest, a mechanic in
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
's Imperial Navy, patented the oldest known oxygen rebreather, but there is no evidence of any prototype having been manufactured. This early rebreather design worked with an oxygen reservoir, the oxygen being delivered progressively by the diver himself and circulating in a closed circuit through a
sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...
soaked in
limewater Calcium hydroxide (traditionally called slaked lime) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca( OH)2. It is a colorless crystal or white powder and is produced when quicklime ( calcium oxide) is mixed with water. Annually, approxi ...
. Touboulic called his invention ''Ichtioandre'' (Greek for 'fish-man'). * 1849: Pierre-Aimable de Saint Simon Sicard (a
chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
) made the first practical oxygen rebreather. It was demonstrated in London in 1854. *1853: Professor T. Schwann designed a rebreather in
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
which he exhibited in Paris in 1878. It had a big backpack tank containing oxygen at about 13 bar, and two scrubbers containing
sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...
s soaked in
caustic soda Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions . Sodium hydroxide is a highly corrosive base and alkali t ...
. * 1876: An English merchant seaman,
Henry Fleuss Henry Albert Fleuss (13 June 1851 – 6 January 1933) was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London. Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851. In 1878 he was granted a patent which improved rebr ...
, developed the first workable self-contained diving rig that used compressed oxygen. This prototype of closed-circuit scuba used rope soaked in
caustic potash Potassium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula K OH, and is commonly called caustic potash. Along with sodium hydroxide (NaOH), KOH is a prototypical strong base. It has many industrial and niche applications, most of which utiliz ...
to absorb carbon dioxide so the exhaled gas could be re-breathed.


Diving helmets improved and in common use

* 1808: Brizé-Fradin designed a small bell-like helmet connected to a low-pressure backpack air container. * 1820: Paul Lemaire d'Augerville (a Parisian dentist) invented a diving apparatus with a copper backpack cylinder, a
counterlung A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen is ad ...
to save air, and with an inflatable life jacket connected. It was used down to 15 or 20 meters for up to an hour in salvage work. He started a successful salvage company. * 1825: William H. James designed a self-contained diving suit with compressed air stored in an iron container worn around the waist. * 1827: Beaudouin in France developed a diving helmet fed from an air cylinder pressurized to 80 to 100 bar. The
French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...
was interested, but nothing came of this. * 1829: (1828?) **
Charles Anthony Deane Charles Anthony Deane (1796–1848) was a pioneering diving engineer, inventor of the diving helmet. Life Born in Deptford, Charles and his brother John studied at the Greenwich Hospital School for Boys (the former buildings of which are now ...
and John Deane of
Whitstable Whitstable () is a town on the north coast of Kent, England, at the convergence of the The Swale, Swale and the Greater Thames Estuary, north of Canterbury and west of Herne Bay, Kent, Herne Bay. The town, formerly known as Whitstable-on-Se ...
in
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
in England designed the first
diving helmet A diving helmet is a rigid head enclosure with a breathing gas supply used in underwater diving. They are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface-supplied diving, though some models can be used with scuba equipment. The upper par ...
supplied with airpumped from the surface, for use with a diving suit. It is said that the idea started from a crude emergency rig-up of a fireman's water-pump (used as an air pump) and a knight-in-armour helmet used to try to rescue horses from a burning stable. Others say that it was based on earlier work in 1823 developing a "smoke helmet". The suit was not attached to the helmet, so a diver could not bend over or invert without risk of flooding the helmet and drowning. Nevertheless, the diving system was used in salvage work, including the successful removal of cannon from the British warship HMS ''Royal George'' in 1834–35. This 108-gun fighting ship sank in 65 feet of water at Spithead anchorage in 1783. ** E.K.Gauzen, a Russian naval technician of the Kronshtadt
naval base A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usu ...
in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
, built a "diving machine". His invention was a metallic helmet strapped to a leather suit (an overall) with a pumped air supply. The bottom of the helmet was open, and the helmet strapped to the suit by a metal band. Gauzen's diving suit and its further modifications were used by the
Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...
until 1880. The modified
diving suit A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply (such as for a standard diving dress or atmospheric diving suit), but in most cases th ...
of the Russian Navy, based on Gauzen's invention, was known as " three-bolt equipment". * 1837: Following up
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
's studies, and those of the astronomer
Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...
,
Augustus Siebe Christian Augustus Siebe (known by his middle name; 1788 – 15 April 1872) was a British engineer chiefly known for his contributions to diving equipment. Contribution to diving In the 1830s the John Deane (inventor), Deane brothers as ...
developed
surface-supplied diving Surface-supplied diving is a mode of underwater diving using equipment supplied with breathing gas through a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel, sometimes indirectly via a diving bell. ...
apparatus which became known as
standard diving dress Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, whic ...
. By sealing the Deane brothers' helmet design to a waterproof suit, Augustus Siebe developed the Siebe "Closed" Dress combination diving helmet and suit, considered the foundation of modern diving dress. This was a significant evolution from previous models of "open" dress that did not allow a diver to invert. Siebe-Gorman went on to manufacture helmets continuously until 1975. * 1840: The Royal Navy used Siebe closed dress for salvage and blasting work on the "Royal George", and subsequently the Royal Engineers standardised on this equipment. * 1843: The Royal Navy established the first diving school. * 1855: Joseph-Martin Cabirol patented a new model of standard diving dress, mainly issued from Siebe's designs. The suit was made out of rubberized canvas and the helmet, for the first time, included a hand-controlled tap that the diver used to evacuate his exhaled air. The exhaust valve included a non-return valve which prevented water from entering in the helmet. Until 1855 diving helmets were equipped with only three circular windows (for front, left and right sides). Cabirol's helmet introduced the later well known fourth window, situated in the upper front part of the helmet and allowing the diver to see above him. Cabirol's diving dress won the silver medal at the 1885 ''Exposition Universelle'' in Paris. This original diving dress and helmet are now preserved at the ''
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers The (; ; abbr. CNAM) is an AMBA-accredited French ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement''. It is a member of the '' Conférence des Grandes écoles'', which is an equivalent to the Ivy League schools in the United States, Oxbridge in th ...
'' in Paris.


The first diving regulators

* 1838: Dr. Manuel Théodore Guillaumet invented a twin-hose demand regulator. On 19 June 1838, in London, England, a Mr. William Edward Newton filed a patent (no. 7695: "Diving apparatus") for a diaphragm-actuated, twin-hose demand valve for divers. However, it is believed that Mr. Newton was merely filing a patent on behalf of Dr. Guillaumet. The illustration of the apparatus in Newton's patent application is identical to that in Guillaumet's patent application; furthermore, Mr. Newton was apparently an employee of the British Office for Patents, who applied for patents on behalf of foreign applicants. It is demonstrated in surface-demand use. During the demonstration, use duration was limited to 30 minutes because the dive was in cold water without a diving suit. * 1860: in Espalion (France), mining engineer Benoît Rouquayrol designed a self-contained breathing set with a backpack cylindrical air tank that supplied air through the first demand regulator to be commercialized (as of 1865, see below). Rouquayrol calls his invention ''régulateur'' ('regulator'), having conceived it to help miners avoid drowning in flooded mines. * 1864: Benoît Rouquayrol met navy officer
Auguste Denayrouze August Denayrouze (1 October 1837 – 1 January 1883) was a French engineer and inventor. He was the inventor of a demand valve for control of breathing air supply, and one of the inventors of a diving suit, along with Benoît Rouquayrol. Biog ...
for the first time, in Espalion, and on Denayrouze's initiative, they adapted Rouquayrol's invention to diving. After having adapted it, they called their recently patented device ''appareil plongeur Rouquayrol-Denayrouze'' ('Rouquayrol-Denayrouze diving apparatus'). The diver still walked on the seabed and did not swim. The air pressure tanks made with the technology of the time could only hold 30 atmospheres, allowing dives of only 30 minutes at no more than ten meters deep; during surface-supplied configuration the tank was also used for
bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global syst ...
in the case of a hose failure. * 1865: on August the 28th the French Navy Minister ordered the first Rouquayrol-Denayrouze diving apparatus and large scale production started.


Gas and air cylinders appear

* Late 19th century:
Industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...
began to be able to make high-pressure air and
gas cylinder A gas cylinder is a pressure vessel for storage and containment of gases at above atmospheric pressure. Gas storage cylinders may also be called ''bottles''. Inside the cylinder the stored contents may be in a state of compressed gas, vapor ov ...
s. That prompted a few inventors down the years to design open-circuit compressed air breathing sets, but they were all constant-flow, and the demand regulator did not come back until 1937.


Underwater photography

* 1856
William Thompson
and his friend Mr Kenyon take the first under water photograph using a camera sealed in a metal box. * 1893: Louis Boutan makes the first under water camera becoming the first underwater photographer and produces the first clear underwater photographs. * 1900: Louis Boutan published ''La Photographie sous-marine et les progrès de la photographie'' (''The Underwater Photography and the Advances in Photography''), the first book about underwater photography.


Decompression sickness recognised as a problem

* 1841: Jacques Triger constructs the first caisson for mining work in France. First two cases of decompression sickness in caisson workers are reported by Triger in 1845, consisting of joint and extremity pains. * 1846-1855: Several cases of decompression sickness, some with fatal outcome, reported in caisson workers during bridge construction first in France, then in England. Recompression is reported to help alleviate symptoms by Pol and Wattelle in 1847, and a gradual compression and decompression is advocated by Thomas Littleton in 1855. * From 1870 to 1910 all prominent features of decompression sickness were established, but theories over the pathology ranged from cold or exhaustion causing reflex spinal cord damage; electricity caused by
friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. Types of friction include dry, fluid, lubricated, skin, and internal -- an incomplete list. The study of t ...
on compression; or organ congestion and vascular stasis caused by decompression. * 1870: Louis Bauer, a professor of surgery from St. Lous, publishes an initial report on the outcomes of 25 paralyzed caisson workers involved in the construction of the
St Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...
Eads Bridge The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River connecting the cities of St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois. It is located on the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, St. Louis, Lacled ...
. The construction project eventually employed 352 compressed air workers including Dr. Alphonse Jaminet as the physician in charge. There were 30 seriously injured and 12 fatalities. Dr. Jaminet himself suffered a case of decompression sickness when he ascended to the surface in four minutes after spending almost three hours at a depth of 95 feet in a caisson, and his description of his own experience was the first such recorded. While obviously caused by the increased pressure, both Bauer and Jaminet theorized that the symptoms were caused by a hypermetabolic state caused by the increase in oxygen, with inability to remove waste products in normal pressure. Gradual compression and decompression, shorter shifts with longer intervals, and complete rest after decompression were advocated. Actual cases were treated with rest, beef tea, ice, and alcohol. * 1872: The similarity between decompression sickness and
iatrogenic Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence." Iatrogenic", ''Merriam-Webster.com'', Merriam-Webster, Inc., accessed 27 ...
air embolism as well as the relationship between inadequate decompression and decompression sickness were noted by Hermann Friedberg. He suggested that intravascular gas was released by rapid decompression and recommended: slow compression and decompression; four-hour working shifts; limit to maximum depth 44.1
psig The pound per square inch (abbreviation: psi) or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch (symbol: lbf/in2), is a unit of measurement of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units and used primarily in the United States. It is the pres ...
(4 ATA); using only healthy workers; and recompression treatment for severe cases. * 1873: Dr. Andrew Smith first used the term "caisson disease" to describe 110 cases of decompression sickness as the physician in charge during construction of the
Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It w ...
. The project employed 600 compressed air workers. Recompression treatment was not used. The project chief engineer
Washington Roebling Washington Augustus Roebling (May 26, 1837 – July 21, 1926) was an American civil engineer who supervised the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, designed by his father John A. Roebling. He served in the Union Army during the American Civ ...
suffered from caisson disease. (He took charge after his father John Augustus Roebling died of
tetanus Tetanus (), also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'' and characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually l ...
.) Washington's wife, Emily, helped manage the construction of the bridge after his sickness confined him to his home in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
. He battled the after-effects of the disease for the rest of his life. According to different sources, the term "The Bends" for decompression sickness was coined by workers of either the Brooklyn or the Eads bridge, and was given because afflicted individuals characteristically arched their backs in a manner similar to a then-fashionable posture known as the
Grecian Bend The Grecian bend was a term applied first to a stooped posture which became fashionable c. 1820, named after the gracefully-inclined figures seen in the art of ancient Greece. It was also the name of a dance move introduced to polite society in ...
. * 1878:
Paul Bert Paul Bert (17 October 1833 – 11 November 1886) was a French zoologist, physiologist and politician. He is sometimes given the nickname "Father of Aviation Medicine". Life Bert was born at Auxerre ( Yonne). He studied law, earning a doctorate ...
published ''La Pression barométrique'', providing the first systematic understanding of the causes of DCS.


Twentieth century

* 1900: John P. Holland built the first
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
to be formally commissioned by the U.S. Navy, ''Holland'' (also called ''A-1''). ** Leonard Hill used a frog model to prove that decompression causes bubbles and that recompression resolves them. * 1903:
Siebe Gorman Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augu ...
started to make a submarine escape set in England; in the years afterwards it was improved, and later was called the Davis Escape Set or
Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus (also referred to as DSEA), was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Robert Davis (inventor), Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman, Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss ...
. * from 1903 to 1907: Professor Georges Jaubert, invented Oxylithe, a mixture of peroxides of sodium (Na2O2) and potassium with a small amount of salts of copper or nickel, which produces oxygen in the presence of water. * 1905: ** Several sources, including the 1991
US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
Dive Manual (pg 1–8), state that the MK V Deep Sea Diving Dress was designed by the Bureau of Construction & Repair in 1905, but in reality, the 1905 Navy Handbook shows British Siebe-Gorman helmets in use. Since the earliest known MK V is dated 1916, these sources are probably referring to the earlier MK I, MK II, MK III & MK IV
Morse Morse may refer to: People * Morse (surname) * Morse Goodman (1917-1993), Anglican Bishop of Calgary, Canada * Morse Robb (1902–1992), Canadian inventor and entrepreneur Geography Antarctica * Cape Morse, Wilkes Land * Mount Morse, Churchi ...
and Schrader helmets. ** The first rebreather with metering valves to control the supply of oxygen was made. * 1907: Draeger of
Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...
made a
rebreather A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen is a ...
called the ''U-Boot-Retter.'' (submarine rescuer). * 1908: ** Arthur Boycott, Guybon Damant, and John Haldane published "The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness", detailed studies on the cause and symptoms of decompression sickness, and proposed a table of
decompression stop To prevent or minimize decompression sickness, divers must properly plan and monitor decompression. Divers follow a decompression model to safely allow the release of excess inert gases dissolved in their body tissues, which accumulated as ...
s to avoid the effects. ** The Admiralty Deep Diving Committee adopted the Haldane tables for the Royal Navy, and published Haldane's diving tables to the general public. * 1910: the British Robert Davis invented his own submarine rescuer rebreather, the
Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus (also referred to as DSEA), was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Robert Davis (inventor), Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman, Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss ...
, for the Royal Navy submarine crews. * 1912: ** US Navy adopted the decompression tables published by Haldane, Boycott and Damant. Driven by Chief Gunner George Stillson, the navy set up a program to test tables and staged decompression based on the work of Haldane. ** Maurice Fernez introduced a simple lightweight underwater breathing apparatus as an alternative to helmet diving suits. ** Dräger started the commercialization of his rebreather in both configuration types, mouthpiece and helmet. * 1913: The US Navy began developing the future MK V, influenced by Schrader and
Morse Morse may refer to: People * Morse (surname) * Morse Goodman (1917-1993), Anglican Bishop of Calgary, Canada * Morse Robb (1902–1992), Canadian inventor and entrepreneur Geography Antarctica * Cape Morse, Wilkes Land * Mount Morse, Churchi ...
designs. * 1914: Modern swimfins were invented by the Frenchman
Louis de Corlieu Louis Marie de Corlieu (born 23 November 1888 in Bourges; died 19 October 1967 or 1971) in Paris, was a French naval officer and inventor of the swimfin. Military service He served as Capitaine de corvette (lieutenant commander) in the French na ...
, ''capitaine de corvette'' ( Lieutenant Commander) in the
French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...
. In 1914 De Corlieu made a practical demonstration of his first
prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...
for a group of navy officers. * 1915: The submarine was salvaged from 304 feet establishing the practical limits for air diving. Three US Navy divers, Frank W. Crilley, William F. Loughman, and Nielson, reached 304 fsw using the MK V dress. * 1916: ** The basic design of the MK V dress was finalized by including a battery-powered telephone, but several more detail improvements were made over the next two years. ** The Draeger model DM 2 became standard equipment of the
Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for ...
. * 1917: The Bureau of Construction & Repair adopted the MK V helmet and dress, which remained the standard for US Navy diving until the introduction of the MK 12 in the late seventies. * 1918: the " Ohgushi's Peerless Respirator" was first patented. Invented in 1916 by Riichi Watanabi and the blacksmith Kinzo Ohgushi, and used with either surface-supplied air or a 150 bar steel scuba cylinder holding 1000 litres free air, the valve-supplied air to a mask over the diver's nose and eyes and the demand valve was operated by the diver's teeth. Gas flow was proportional to bite force and duration. The breathing apparatus was used successfully for fishing and salvage work and by the military Japanese Underwater Unit until the end of the Pacific War. * Around 1920: Hanseatischen Apparatebau-Gesellschaft made a 2-cylinder breathing apparatus with double-lever single-stage demand valve and single wide corrugated breathing tube with mouthpiece, and a "duck's beak" exhalent valve in the regulator. It was described in a
mine rescue Mine rescue or mines rescue is the specialised job of rescuing miners and others who have become trapped or injured in underground mines because of mining accidents, roof falls or floods and disasters such as explosions. Background Mining la ...
handbook in 1930. They were successors to Ludwig von Bremen of
Kiel Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...
, who had the licence to make the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus in Germany. * 1924: ** De Corlieu left the French Navy to fully devote himself to his invention. ** Experimental dives using helium-oxygen mixtures sponsored by the US Navy and Bureau of Mines. * 1925: ** Maurice Fernez introduced a new model of his underwater surface-supplied apparatus at the
Grand Palais The (; ), commonly known as the , is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, France. Construction of the began in 1897 following the demolitio ...
.
Yves le Prieur Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur (23 March 1885 – 1 June 1963) was an officer of the French Navy and an inventor. Adventures in the Far East Le Prieur followed his father in joining the French navy. As an officer he served in Asia and used traditio ...
, an assistant at the exhibition, decided to meet Fernez in person and asked him to transform the equipment into a manually controlled constant-flow
self-contained underwater breathing apparatus A scuba set, originally just scuba, is any breathing apparatus that is entirely carried by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. ''Scuba'' is an anacronym for self-contained underwater breathing ...
. ** Due to post World War I cutbacks, the US Navy found it had only 20 divers qualified to dive deeper than 90 feet when salvaging the submarine S-51. * 1926: ** Fernez-Le Prieur self-contained underwater breathing apparatus was demonstrated to the public in Paris, and adopted by the French Navy. ** Dräger introduced a rescue breathing apparatus that the wearer could swim with. Previous devices served only for submarine escape and were designed to provide buoyancy so that the wearer was lifted to the surface without effort, the diving set had weights, which made it possible to dive for search and rescue after an accident. *1927: US Navy School of Diving and Salvage was re-established at Washington Navy Yard, and the Experimental Diving Unit brought from Pittsburgh to Washington Navy Yard. *1928: Davis invented the Submersible Decompression Chamber (SDC) diving bell. *1929: Lieutenant C.B."Swede" Momsen, a submariner and diver, developed and tested the submarine escape apparatus named the
Momsen Lung The Momsen lung was a primitive underwater rebreather used before and during World War II by American submariners as emergency escape gear. It was invented by Charles Momsen, who worked on it from 1929 to 1932. Submariners trained with this appar ...
. * The 1930s: **In France, Guy Gilpatric started swim diving with waterproof goggles, derived from the swimming goggles which were invented by Maurice Fernez in 1920. **Sport
spearfishing Spearfishing is fishing using handheld elongated, sharp-pointed tools such as a spear, gig, or harpoon, to impale the fish in the body. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been deployed in artisanal fishi ...
became common in the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
, and spearfishers gradually developed the
diving mask A diving mask (also half mask, dive mask or scuba mask) is an item of diving equipment that allows Underwater diving, underwater divers, including scuba diving, scuba divers, free-diving, free-divers, and snorkeling, snorkelers, to see clearly u ...
, fins and snorkel, with Georges Beuchat in Marseille, France, who created the
speargun A speargun is a ranged underwater fishing device designed to launch a tethered spear or harpoon to impale fish or other marine animals and targets. Spearguns are used in sport fishing and underwater target shooting. The two basic types are ' ...
. Italian sport spearfishers started using oxygen
rebreathers A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Ox ...
. This practice came to the attention of the
Italian Navy The Italian Navy (; abbreviated as MM) is one of the four branches of Italian Armed Forces and was formed in 1946 from what remained of the ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) after World War II. , the Italian Navy had a strength of 30,923 active per ...
, which developed its frogman unit
Decima Flottiglia MAS The ''Decima Flottiglia MAS'' (''Decima Flottiglia Motoscafi Armati Siluranti'', also known as ''La Decima'' or Xª MAS) (Italian for "10th Torpedo-Armed Motorboat Flotilla") was an Italian flotilla, with marines and commando frogman unit, of ...
. * 1933: ** In April
Louis de Corlieu Louis Marie de Corlieu (born 23 November 1888 in Bourges; died 19 October 1967 or 1971) in Paris, was a French naval officer and inventor of the swimfin. Military service He served as Capitaine de corvette (lieutenant commander) in the French na ...
registered a new patent (number 767013, which in addition to two fins for the feet included two spoon-shaped fins for the hands) and called this equipment ''propulseurs de natation et de sauvetage'' (which can be translated as "swimming and rescue propulsion device"). ** In
San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
, the first sport diving club was started by Glenn Orr, Jack Prodanovich and Ben Stone, called the San Diego Bottom Scratchers. As far as it is known, it did not use breathing sets; its main aim was
spearfishing Spearfishing is fishing using handheld elongated, sharp-pointed tools such as a spear, gig, or harpoon, to impale the fish in the body. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been deployed in artisanal fishi ...
. ** More is known of
Yves Le Prieur Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur (23 March 1885 – 1 June 1963) was an officer of the French Navy and an inventor. Adventures in the Far East Le Prieur followed his father in joining the French navy. As an officer he served in Asia and used traditio ...
's constant-flow open-circuit breathing set. It is said that it could allow a 20-minute stay at 7 meters and 15 minutes at 15 meters. It has one cylinder feeding into a circular fullface mask. Its air cylinder was often worn at an angle to get its on/off valve in reach of the diver's hand. * 1934: ** In France,
Beuchat Beuchat International, better known as Beuchat, is a company that designs, manufactures and markets underwater equipment. It was established in 1934 in Marseille, France, by Georges Beuchat, who descended from a Swiss watchmaking family. Geor ...
established a
scuba diving Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...
and
spearfishing Spearfishing is fishing using handheld elongated, sharp-pointed tools such as a spear, gig, or harpoon, to impale the fish in the body. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been deployed in artisanal fishi ...
equipment manufacturing company. ** In France a sport diving club was started, called the ''Club des Sous-l'Eau'' = "club of those ho areunder the water". It did not use breathing sets as far as is known. Its main aim was
spearfishing Spearfishing is fishing using handheld elongated, sharp-pointed tools such as a spear, gig, or harpoon, to impale the fish in the body. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been deployed in artisanal fishi ...
. ("''Club des Sous-l'Eau''" was later realized to be a
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
of "''club des soulôts''" = "club of the drunkards", and was changed to ''Club des Scaphandres et de la Vie Sous L'Eau'' = "Club of the diving apparatuses and of underwater life".) **
Otis Barton Frederick Otis Barton Jr. (June 5, 1899 – April 15, 1992) was an American deep-sea diver, inventor and actor. Early life and career Born in New York, the independently wealthy Barton designed the first bathysphere and made a dive with W ...
and
William Beebe Charles William Beebe ( ; July 29, 1877 – June 4, 1962) was an American natural history, naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New Y ...
dived to 3028 feet using a
bathysphere The ''Bathysphere'' () was a unique spherical deep sea, deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. The ''Bathysphere'' wa ...
. * 1935: The
French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...
adopted the Le Prieur breathing set. ** On the
French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...
, the first known sport scuba diving club Club Des Scaphandres et de la Vie Sous L'eau (The club for divers and life underwater) was started by Le Prieur & Jean Painleve. It used Le Prieur's breathing sets. * 1937: US Navy published its revised diving tables based on the work of O.D. Yarbrough. * 1937: The American Diving Equipment and Salvage Company (now known as DESCO) developed a heavy bottom-walking-type diving suit with a self-contained mixed-gas helium and oxygen rebreather. * 1939: After floundering for years, even producing his fins in his own flat in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, De Corlieu finally started
mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...
of his invention in France. The same year he rented a licence to Owen P. Churchill for mass production in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. To sell his fins in the USA Owen Churchill changed the French De Corlieu's name (''propulseurs'') to "swimfins", which is still the English name. Churchill presented his fins to the US Navy, who decided to acquire them for its
Underwater Demolition Team The Underwater Demolition Team (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized missions. They were predecessors of the Navy's current United States Navy SEAL, SEAL teams. Their pri ...
(UDT). **
Hans Hass Hans Hass (23 January 1919 – 16 June 2013) was an Austrian biologist and underwater diving pioneer. He was known mainly for being among the first scientists to popularise coral reefs, stingrays, octopuses and sharks. He pioneered the making o ...
and Hermann Stelzner of Dräger, in Germany made the M138 rebreather. It was developed from the 1912 escape set, a type of rebreather used to exit sunken submarines. The M138 sets were oxygen rebreathers with a 150 bar, 0.6 liter tank and appeared in many of his
movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
s and books. * 1941: The Italian Navy's
Decima Flottiglia MAS The ''Decima Flottiglia MAS'' (''Decima Flottiglia Motoscafi Armati Siluranti'', also known as ''La Decima'' or Xª MAS) (Italian for "10th Torpedo-Armed Motorboat Flotilla") was an Italian flotilla, with marines and commando frogman unit, of ...
using oxygen
rebreathers A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Ox ...
and manned torpedoes, attacked the British fleet in Alexandria harbor. * 1944: American UDT and
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
COPP
frogmen A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...
(COPP: Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) used the "Churchill fins" during all prior underwater
demining Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By cont ...
s, allowing this way in 1944 the
Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...
. During years after
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
had ended, De Corlieu spent time and efforts struggling with
civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and regulations along with some standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or ca ...
s for
patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
.


The demand regulator reappears

* 1934: René Commeinhes, from
Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
, invented a breathing set working with a demand valve and designed to allow
firefighter A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as hazardous material incidents, medical in ...
s to breathe safely in smoke-filled environments. * 1937:
Georges Commeinhes Georges may refer to: Places *Georges River, New South Wales, Australia * Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses * Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 19 ...
, son of René, adapted his father's invention to diving and developed a two-cylinder open-circuit apparatus with demand regulator. The regulator was a big rectangular box between the cylinders. Some were made, but
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
interrupted development.


World War II

* 1939:
Georges Commeinhes Georges may refer to: Places *Georges River, New South Wales, Australia * Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses * Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 19 ...
offered his breathing set to the French Navy, which could not continue developing uses for it because of
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. * 1940-1944:
Christian J. Lambertsen Christian James Lambertsen (May 15, 1917 – February 11, 2011) was an American medical researcher. He was a environmental medicine and diving medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the United States Navy frogmen' ...
of the United States designed a
rebreather A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen is a ...
'Breathing apparatus' for the U.S. military. * 1942: Georges Commeinhes patented a better version of his scuba set, now called the GC42 ("G" for Georges, "C" for Commeinhes and "42" for 1942). Some are made by the Commeinhes' company. * 1942: with no relation with the Commeinhes family,
Émile Gagnan Émile Gagnan (1900 – 1984) was a French engineer and, in 1943, co-inventor with French Navy diver Jacques-Yves Cousteau of the Aqua-Lung, the diving regulator (a.k.a. demand-valve) used for the first Scuba equipment. The demand-valve, or re ...
, an engineer employed by the
Air Liquide Air Liquide S.A. ( , ; literally " liquid air") is a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries including medical, chemical and electronic manufacturers. Founded in 1902, after Linde it is ...
company, obtained a Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus (property of the Bernard Piel company in 1942) in Paris. He miniaturized and adapted it to
gas generator A gas generator is a device for generating gas. A gas generator may create gas by a chemical reaction or from a solid or liquid source, when storing a pressurized gas is undesirable or impractical. The term often refers to a device that uses a ...
s, since the Germans occupy France and confiscated the French fuel for war purposes. Gagnan's boss and owner of the Air Liquide company, Henri Melchior, decided to introduce Gagnan to
Jacques-Yves Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the A ...
, his
son-in-law In law and in cultural anthropology, affinity is the kinship relationship created or that exists between two people as a result of someone's marriage. It is the relationship each party in the marriage has to the family of the other party in th ...
, because he knows that Cousteau is looking for an efficient and automatic demand regulator. They met in Paris in December 1942 and adapted Gagnan's regulator to a diving cylinder. * 1943: after fixing some technical problems, Cousteau and Gagnan patented the first modern demand regulator. ** Air Liquide built two more aqualungs: these three are owned by Cousteau but also at the disposal of his first two diving companions Frédéric Dumas and Taillez. They use them to shoot the film ''Épaves'' (''Shipwrecks''), the first underwater film shot using scuba sets. ** In July Commeinhes reached 53 metres (about 174 feet) using his GC42 breathing set off the coast of Marseille. ** In October, and not knowing about Commeinhes's exploit, Dumas dived with a Cousteau-Gagnan prototype and reached 62 metres (about 200 feet) off Les Goudes, not far from Marseille. He experienced what is now called
nitrogen narcosis Nitrogen narcosis (also known as narcosis while diving, inert gas narcosis, raptures of the deep, Martini effect) is a reversible alteration in consciousness that occurs while diving at depth. It is caused by the anesthetic effect of certain gas ...
. * 1944: Commeinhes died in the liberation of
Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
in
Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
. His invention was overtaken by Cousteau's invention. * Various nations use
frogmen A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...
equipped with
rebreather A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen is a ...
s for war actions: see
Human torpedo Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes are a type of diver propulsion vehicle on which the diver rides, generally in a seated position behind a fairing. They were used as secret naval weapons in World War II. The basic concept is still in use. ...
. *
Hans Hass Hans Hass (23 January 1919 – 16 June 2013) was an Austrian biologist and underwater diving pioneer. He was known mainly for being among the first scientists to popularise coral reefs, stingrays, octopuses and sharks. He pioneered the making o ...
later said that during
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the German diving gear firm Dräger offered him an open-circuit
scuba set A scuba set, originally just scuba, is any breathing apparatus that is entirely carried by an underwater diving, underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. ''Scuba'' is an anacronym for self-contained un ...
with a demand regulator. It may have been a separate invention, or it may have been copied from a captured Commeinhes-type set. * Early 1944: the USA government, to try to stop men from being drowned in sunken army
tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...
s, asked the company
Mine Safety Appliances Mine Safety Appliances, or MSA Safety Incorporated, is an American manufacturer and supplier of safety equipment designed for use in a variety of hazardous conditions in industries such as construction, the military, fire service, and chemical, ...
(MSA) for a suitable small escape breathing set. MSA provided a small open-circuit breathing set with a small (5 to 7 liters) air cylinder, a circular demand regulator with a two-lever system similar to Cousteau's design (connected to the cylinder by a nut and cone nipple connection), and one corrugated wide breathing tube connected to a mouthpiece. This set was stated to be made from "off-the-shelf" items, which shows that MSA already had that regulator design; also, that regulator looks like the result of development and not a
prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...
; it may have arisen around 1943. In an example recovered in 2003 from a submerged
Sherman tank The M4 Sherman, officially medium tank, M4, was the medium tank most widely used by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. I ...
in the
Bay of Naples A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
, the cylinder was bound round in tape and tied to a
lifejacket A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suit that is worn by a u ...
. These sets were too late for the
D-day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
landings in June 1944, but were used in the invasion of the south of France and in the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...
. * 1944: Cousteau's first aqualung was destroyed by a stray
artillery Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch Ammunition, munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and l ...
shell in an Allied landing on the
French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...
: that leaves two.


Postwar

* The public first heard about
frogmen A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...
. * 1945: In
Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...
, Cousteau showed the film ''Épaves'' to the Admiral Lemonnier. The Admiral then made Cousteau responsible for the creation of the underwater research unit of the French Navy (the GRS, Groupe de Recherches Sous-marines, nowadays called the CEPHISMER). GRS' first mission was to clear of mines the French coasts and harbours. While creating the GRS, Cousteau only had at his disposal the two remaining Aqua-Lung prototypes made by l'Air Liquide in 1943. * 1946: **Air Liquide created La Spirotechnique and started to sell Cousteau-Gagnan sets under the names of ''scaphandre Cousteau-Gagnan'' ('Cousteau-Gagnan scuba set'), CG45 ("C" for Cousteau, "G" for Gagnan and "45" for 1945, year of their first postwar patent) or Aqua-Lung, the latter for commercialization in English-speaking countries. This word is correctly a tradename that goes with the Cousteau-Gagnan patent, but in Britain it has been commonly used as a generic and spelt "aqualung" since at least the 1950s, including in the BSAC's publications and training manuals, and describing scuba diving as "aqualunging". ** Henri Broussard founded the first post-
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
scuba diving club, the Club Alpin Sous-Marin. Broussard was one of the first men who Cousteau trained in the GRS. **
Yves Le Prieur Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur (23 March 1885 – 1 June 1963) was an officer of the French Navy and an inventor. Adventures in the Far East Le Prieur followed his father in joining the French navy. As an officer he served in Asia and used traditio ...
invented a new version of his breathing set. Its fullface mask's front plate was loose in its seating and acted as a very big, and therefore, very sensitive diaphragm for a demand regulator: see Diving regulator#Demand valve. ** The first known underwater diving club in Britain, "The Amphibians Club", is formed in
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
by Ivor Howitt (who modified an old civilian
gas mask A gas mask is a piece of personal protective equipment used to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft ...
) and some friends. They called underwater diving "
fathom A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to , used especially for measuring the depth of water. The fathom is neither an international standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally accepted non-SI unit. H ...
eering", to distinguish from jumping into water. ** The
Cave Diving Group The Cave Diving Group (CDG) is a United Kingdom-based diver training organisation specialising in cave diving. The CDG was founded in 1946 by Graham Balcombe, making it the world's oldest continuing diving club. Graham Balcombe and Jack Sh ...
(CDG) is formed in Britain. * 1947:
Maurice Fargues Maurice Fargues (April 23, 1913 – September 17, 1947) was a diver with the French Navy and a close associate of commander Philippe Tailliez and deputy commander Jacques Cousteau. In August 1946, Fargues saved the lives of Cousteau and Frédé ...
became the first diver to die using an aqualung while attempting a new depth record with Cousteau's Undersea Research Group near
Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...
. * 1948: **
Auguste Piccard Auguste Antoine Piccard (28 January 1884 – 24 March 1962) was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer known for his record-breaking hydrogen balloon flights, with which he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere and became the first person to ...
sent the first
bathyscaphe A bathyscaphe () is a free-diving, self-propelled deep-sea submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a '' Bathysphere'', but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic ''Bathysphere'' design. The floa ...
, ''FNRS-2'', on unmanned dives. **
Siebe Gorman Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augu ...
and/or Heinke started making Cousteau-type aqualungs in England. Siebe Gorman made those first patented aqualungs at
Chessington Chessington is an area in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames within Greater London, which was historically part of Surrey. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census it had a population of 18,973. The Bonesgate Stream, a tributary of ...
from 1948 to 1960, popularly known as ''tadpole sets''. Siebe Gorman and the Royal Navy expected aqualungs to be used with weighted boots for bottom-walking for light commercial diving: see Aqua-lung#"Tadpoles". ** Ted Eldred in Australia started developing the first open-circuit single-hose scuba set known: see Porpoise (make of scuba gear). ** Georges Beuchat in France created the first surface buoy. * 1948 or 1949: Rene's Sporting Goods shop in
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
imported aqualungs from France. Two graduate students, Andy Rechnitzer and Bob Dill obtained a set and began to use it for underwater research. * 1949:
Otis Barton Frederick Otis Barton Jr. (June 5, 1899 – April 15, 1992) was an American deep-sea diver, inventor and actor. Early life and career Born in New York, the independently wealthy Barton designed the first bathysphere and made a dive with W ...
made a record dive to 4,500 feet in the
Benthoscope The Benthoscope was a deep sea submersible designed by Otis Barton after the Second World War. He hired the Watson-Stillman Company, who had earlier constructed his and William Beebe's bathysphere, to produce the new design of deep diving vessel, ...
. * 1950: a British naval diving manual printed soon after this said that the aqualung is to be used for walking on the bottom with a heavy diving suit and weighted boots, and did not mention Cousteau. ** A report to Cousteau said that only 10 aqualung sets had been sent to the USA because the market there was saturated. ** The first camera housing called Tarzan is released by Georges Beuchat, * 1951: ** The movie " The Frogmen" was released. It was set in the Pacific Ocean in
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. In its last 20 minutes, it shows US
frogmen A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...
, using bulky 3-cylindered aqualungs on a combat mission. This equipment use is
anachronistic An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common typ ...
(in reality they would have used
rebreathers A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Ox ...
), but it shows that aqualungs were available (even if not widely known of) in the US in 1951. ** The
US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
started to develop
wetsuit A wetsuit is a garment worn to provide thermal protection while wet. It is usually made of foamed neoprene, and is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports and other activities in or on the water. ...
s, but not known to the public. ** In December 1951 the first issue of ''Skin Diver Magazine'' (USA) appeared. The magazine ran until November 2002. ** Cousteau-type aqualungs went on sale in Canada. * 1952: **
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
and subsequent
UC San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Sc ...
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma. Founded in 1903 and incorpo ...
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
Hugh Bradner Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and sur ...
, invented the modern wetsuit. ** Cousteau-type aqualungs went on sale in the USA. ** Ted Eldred in Melbourne, Australia started making for public sale the Porpoise (make of scuba gear). This was the world's first commercially available single-hose scuba unit and was the forerunner of most sport SCUBA equipment produced today. Only about 12,000 were made. ** After World War II Lambertsen called his 1940-1944 rebreather LARU (for
Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU) is an early model of closed circuit oxygen rebreather used by military frogmen. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the US in 1940 (patent filing date: 16 Dec 1940) and in 1944 ( ...
) but as of 1952 Lambertsen renamed his invention and coined the acronym SCUBA (for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus"). During the following years this acronym was used, more and more, to identify the Cousteau-Gagnan apparatus, taking the place of its original name (Aqualung). In Britain the word ''aqualung'', used for any demand-valve-controlled open-circuit scuba set, still continues to be used.


Public interest in scuba diving takes off

* 1953: ''
National Geographic Magazine ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' published an article about Cousteau's underwater archaeology at Grand Congloué island near Marseille. This started a massive public demand for aqualungs and diving gear, and in France and America the diving gear makers started making them as fast as they could. But in Britain
Siebe Gorman Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augu ...
and Heinke kept aqualungs expensive, and restrictions on exporting
currency A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific envi ...
stopped people from importing them. Many British sport divers used home-made constant-flow breathing sets and ex-armed forces or ex-industrial rebreathers. In the early 1950s,
diving regulator A diving regulator or underwater diving regulator is a pressure regulator that controls the pressure of breathing gas for underwater diving. The most commonly recognised application is to reduce pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and ...
s made by
Siebe Gorman Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augu ...
cost £15, which was an average week's
salary A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. ...
. ** After the supply of war-surplus
frogman A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...
's drysuits ran out, free-swimming diving suits were not readily available to the general public, and as a result many scuba divers dived with their skin bare except for swimming trunks. That is why scuba diving used often to be called skindiving. Others dived in homemade drysuits, or in thick layers of ordinary clothes. ** After the supply of war-surplus frogman's fins dried up, for a long time fins were not available to the public, and some had to resort to such things as gluing marine ply to plimsolls. **
Captain Trevor Hampton (Captain) Trevor Hampton Air Force Cross (United Kingdom), AFC (28 November 1912 – 21 February 2002) was one of the United Kingdom's first scuba divers and helped to develop sport diving in the UK. Early years Trevor Arthur Hampton was born in ...
founded the British Underwater Centre at Dartmouth in
Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
in England. ** False Bay Underwater Club founded in Cape Town, South Africa (1950). ** Rene's Sporting Goods shop (now owned by La Spirotechnique) became U.S. Divers, now a leading maker of diving equipment. ** 15 October 1953: The
British Sub-Aqua Club The British Sub-Aqua Club or BSAC has been recognised since 1954 by UK Sport as the national governing body of recreational diving in the United Kingdom. The club was founded in 1953 and at its peak in the mid-1990s had over 50,000 members ...
(BSAC) was founded. * 1954: USS ''Nautilus'', the first nuclear-powered submarine, was launched. ** The first manned dives in the bathyscaphe ''FNRS-2'' were made. ** The first scuba certification course in the USA was offered by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. The training program was created by Albert Tillman and Bev Morgan now known as LA County Scuba. ** In the US, MSA advertised (in
Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (often abbreviated as ''PM'' or ''PopMech'') is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do it yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation an ...
magazine) a two-cylinder aqualung-like open-circuit diving set using the MSA regulator. **
Underwater hockey Underwater hockey (UWH), also known as Octopush in the United Kingdom, is a globally played limited-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team's goal by propelling ...
(octopush) was invented by four navy sub-aqua divers in Southsea who got bored swimming up and down and wanted a fun way to keep fit. * 1955: In Britain, "'' Practical Mechanics''" magazine published an article on "Making an Aqualung". ** Jacques-Yves Cousteau and assistant director
Louis Malle Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a filmmaker difficult to pin down", Malle made document ...
, a young film maker of 23, shot ''
The Silent World ''The Silent World'' () is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle. One of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color, its title derives from Cousteau's 1953 book ' ...
'', one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color. **
Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins The (FFESSM) is a French sports federation specialized in recreational and competition underwater sports, like scuba diving and freediving. It is the main diver training organization in France. The historical ancestor of the federation was cre ...
(FFESSM) was formed. * 1956: ** US Navy published decompression tables that allowed for repetitive diving. ** Around this time, some British scuba divers started making homemade diving demand regulators from industrial parts, including
Calor Gas Calor is a brand of bottled butane and propane which is available in Britain and Ireland. It comes in cylinders, which have a special gas regulator. The company was formed in 1935, and is one of the UK's largest suppliers of liquefied petrole ...
regulators. (Since then, Calor Gas regulators have been redesigned, and this conversion is now impossible.) ** Later, Submarine Products Ltd in
Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administra ...
in
Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
, England designed round the Cousteau-Gagnan patent and marketed recreational diving breathing sets at an accessible price. This forced
Siebe Gorman Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augu ...
's and Heinke's prices down and started them selling to the sport diving trade. (Siebe Gorman gave its drysuit the tradename "Frogman".) Because of this better availability of aqualungs, BSAC adopted a policy that rebreathers were unacceptable for recreational diving. In the US, some oxygen diving clubs developed down the years. Eventually, the term of the Cousteau-Gagnan patent expired, and it could be legally copied. ** ''
The Silent World ''The Silent World'' () is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle. One of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color, its title derives from Cousteau's 1953 book ' ...
'' received an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
for Best Documentary Feature, and the
Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...
award at the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
. * 1958: ** The U.S.
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
series ''
Sea Hunt ''Sea Hunt'' is an American action adventure television series that aired in syndication from 1958 to 1961 and was popular for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced. It stars Lloyd Bridges ...
'' began. It introduced scuba diving to the television audience. It ran until 1961. ** USS ''Nautilus'' completed the first ever voyage under the polar ice to the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
and back. ** The
Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS; known in English as the World Underwater Federation) is an international federation that represents underwater activities in underwater sport and underwater sciences, and oversees an ...
(CMAS) (World Underwater Federation) was founded in Brussels. * August 1959: YMCA SCUBA Program was founded. * 1960:
Jacques Piccard Jacques Piccard (28 July 19221 November 2008) was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed submarines for studying ocean currents. In the Challenger Deep, he and Lieutenant Don Walsh of the United States Navy were the fi ...
and Lieutenant
Don Walsh Don Walsh (November 2, 1931 – November 12, 2023) was an American oceanographer, U.S. Navy officer and marine policy specialist. While aboard the bathyscaphe ''Trieste'', he and Jacques Piccard made a record maximum descent in the Challeng ...
, USN, descended to the bottom of the
Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the List of submarine topographical features#List of oceanic trenches, deepest known point of the seabed of Earth, located in the western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, in the ocean territory o ...
, the deepest known point in the ocean (about 10900 m or 35802 ft, or 6.78 miles) in the bathyscaphe ''Trieste''. ** USS ''Triton'' completes the first ever underwater
circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first circumnaviga ...
of the world. ** In Italy, sport diving oxygen rebreathers continued to be made well into the 1960s. * 1961 **The patent for the PA 61 horse-collar buoyancy compensator is filed by Fenzy. **The Italian made SOS analog decompression meter is released. **The Mistral regulator is equipped with non-return valves in the breathing hoses. * 1962: ** Robert Sténuit lives aboard a tiny one-man cylinder at 200 feet for over 24 hours off
Villefranche-sur-Mer Villefranche-sur-Mer (, ; ; ) is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera and is located southwest of the Principality of Monaco, which is just west of the French-Italian ...
on the
French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...
, becoming the world's first
aquanaut An aquanaut is any person who remains underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as sat ...
. ** Swiss diver Hannes Keller reaches over depth off California. ** Edward A. Link's Man-in-the-Sea program had one man breathing helium-oxygen at 200 fsw for 24 hours in the first practical saturation dive. * 1964: ** In France, Georges Beuchat creates the Jetfins, first vented fins. ** The U.S. Navy's Sealab 1
underwater habitat Underwater habitats are underwater structures in which people can live for extended periods and carry out most of the Circadian rhythm, basic human functions of a 24-hour day, such as working, resting, eating, attending to personal hygiene, and ...
project directed by Captain George F. Bond, keeps four divers in saturation underwater at an average depth of 193 feet for 11 days. * 1965: ** Robert D. Workman of the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) publishes an algorithm for computing decompression requirements suitable for implementing in a
dive computer A dive computer, personal decompression computer or decompression meter is a device used by an underwater diver to measure the elapsed time and depth during a dive and use this data to calculate and display an ascent profile which, according to ...
, rather than a pre-computed table. ** Bob Kirby and Bev Morgan formed Kirby-Morgan. ** Three teams of ten men each spent 15 days under saturation at 205 fsw in Sealab II. Astronaut
Scott Carpenter Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 – October 10, 2013) was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury ...
stayed for 30 days. ** The action/adventure movie '' Thunderball'', which used both sorts of open-circuit scuba, was released and helped make single-hose regulators popular. * 1966:
Professional Association of Diving Instructors The Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) is a recreational diving membership and diver training organization founded in 1966 by John Cronin and Ralph Erickson. PADI courses range from entry level to advanced recreational diver ...
(PADI) was founded by John Cronin and Ralph Erickson. * 1968: An excursion dive to 1025 fsw was made from a saturation depth of 825 fsw at NEDU. * 1969: The first known rebreather with electronic monitoring was produced. The Electrolung, designed by Walter Starke, was subsequently bought by Beckman Instruments, but discontinued in 1970 after a number of fatalities. * 1971:
Scubapro Johnson Outdoors Inc. () produces outdoor recreational products such as watercraft, diving equipment, camping gear, and outdoor clothing. It has operations in 24 locations worldwide, employs 1,400 people and reports sales of more than $315 millio ...
introduced the Stabilization Jacket, commonly called
stab jacket STAB or stab or stabs may refer to: *Stabbing, penetration or contact with a sharp object Places *Stab, Kentucky, US * St. Anne's-Belfield School, a college preparatory school in Charlottesville, Virginia, US People and characters * Staff capta ...
in England, and Buoyancy Control (or Compensation) Device (BC or BCD) elsewhere. * 1972:
Scubapro Johnson Outdoors Inc. () produces outdoor recreational products such as watercraft, diving equipment, camping gear, and outdoor clothing. It has operations in 24 locations worldwide, employs 1,400 people and reports sales of more than $315 millio ...
introduced the decompression meter (the first analog
dive computer A dive computer, personal decompression computer or decompression meter is a device used by an underwater diver to measure the elapsed time and depth during a dive and use this data to calculate and display an ascent profile which, according to ...
). * 1976: Professor Albert A. Bühlmann published his work extending the formulae to apply to diving at altitude and with complex gas mixes. * 1978: Deeper diving techniques breathing Mixed Gas (Helium/Oxygen) rather than Air were becoming more widely used, due to the requirements of Oil and Gas industry clients in the UK North Sea and elsewhere. The first effective Helium recycling systems where breathed out Heliox diving mix was returned to the surface for CO2 scrubbing and O2 injection were deployed by KD Marine and subsequent Krasberg (Alan Krasberg, gas systems engineer) reclaim systems were used by Commercial Diving operators such as Wharton Williams, Stena Offshore, KD Marine etc. Helium recycling was regularly better than 90% efficient and brought the cost of deeper diving techniques down to a reasonable threshold. * 1981: The "Salvage of the Century" - the recovery of 431 Gold bars from HMS Edinburgh was carried out from the DSV Stephaniturm by Wharton Williams divers from a water depth of around 800 feet. This operation and all subsequent Helium/Oxygen breathing operations by Wharton Williams used Krasberg based Helium recycling. As new diving vessels were constructed Gas Reclaim technology became a standard fitment. * 1983: The Orca Edge (the first commercially viable electronic
dive computer A dive computer, personal decompression computer or decompression meter is a device used by an underwater diver to measure the elapsed time and depth during a dive and use this data to calculate and display an ascent profile which, according to ...
) was introduced. * 1985: ** The wreck of RMS ''Titanic'' was found.
Air India Flight 182 Air India Flight 182 was a passenger flight operating on the Montréal–Mirabel International Airport, Montreal–Heathrow Airport, London–Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi–Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumb ...
, a Boeing 747 aircraft, was found and salvaged off Cork, Ireland during the first large scale deep water (6,200 feet) air crash investigation. ** International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD) was founded * 1986 Apeks Marine Equipment introduced the first dry sealed 1st Stage developed by engineering designer Alan Clarke, later to house a patented electronic pressure sensor named STATUS. * 1989: The film ''
The Abyss ''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery tea ...
'' (including an as-yet-fictional deep-sea
liquid-breathing Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid which is capable of CO2 gas exchange (such as a perfluorocarbon). The liquid involved requires certain physical properties, su ...
set) helped to make scuba diving popular. ** The
Communist Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...
fell apart and the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
ended (''see
Fall of Communism The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...
and
dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
''), and with it the risk of future attack by Communist Bloc forces including by their combat divers. After that, the world's armed forces had less reason to requisition rebreather
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
s submitted by civilians, and sport diving automatic and semi-automatic mixture
rebreathers A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Ox ...
start to appear. * 1990: During operations in the Campos basin of Brazil, saturation divers from the DSV Stena Marianos performed a manifold installation for
Petrobras Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., better known by and Trade name, trading as the portmanteau Petrobras (), is a Brazilian state-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. ...
at depth in February 1990. When a lift bag attachment failed, the equipment was carried by the bottom currents to depth, and the Brazilian diver Adelson D'Araujo Santos Jr. made the recovery and installation. * 1994: ** Divex and Kirby-Morgan developed the Divex UltraJewel 601 gas-reclaim system in response to rising helium costs. ** Technical Diving International was founded to focus on training beyond the contemporary scope of recreational diving. * 1995: BSAC allowed
nitrox Nitrox refers to any gas mixture composed (excepting trace gases) of nitrogen and oxygen. It is usually used for mixtures that contain less than 78% nitrogen by volume. In the usual application, underwater diving, nitrox is normally distinguished ...
diving and introduced nitrox training. * 1996: PADI introduced its Enriched Air Diver Course. * 1997: The film ''Titanic'' helped to make underwater trips onboard
MIR ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...
submersible vehicles popular. * 1998 August: Dives on RMS ''Titanic'' were made using a Remotely Operated Vehicle controlled from the surface (Magellan 725), and the first live video broadcast was made from the ''Titanic''. * 1999 July: The ''
Liberty Bell 7 Mercury-Redstone 4 was the second United States human spaceflight, on July 21, 1961. The suborbital Project Mercury flight was launched with a Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, MRLV-8. The spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was nicknamed ''Liber ...
'' Mercury spacecraft was recovered from of water in the Atlantic Ocean during the deepest commercial search and recovery operation to date.


Twenty-first century

* 2001 December: The BSAC allowed
rebreathers A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantial unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Ox ...
to be used in BSAC dives. * 2006 August 1: A US Navy diver in an ADS 2000 atmospheric suit established a new depth record of . * 2009 June: NAUI approved the first
Standard Diving Dress Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, whic ...
recreational diving course. The course is offered in Australia. * 2012 March: Canadian film director
James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...
piloted the
Deepsea Challenger ''Deepsea Challenger'' (DCV 1) was a deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this go ...
to the bottom of the
Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the List of submarine topographical features#List of oceanic trenches, deepest known point of the seabed of Earth, located in the western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, in the ocean territory o ...
, the deepest known point in the ocean. * 2019:
Victor Vescovo Victor Lance Vescovo (born February 10, 1966) is an American private equity investor, retired naval officer, sub-orbital spaceflight participant, and undersea explorer. He was a co-founder and managing partner of private equity company Insight ...
on the
full ocean depth ''Limiting Factor'', known as ''Bakunawa'' since its sale in 2022, is a crewed deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) manufactured by Triton Submarines and owned and operated since 2022 by Gabe Newell's Inkfish ocean-exploration research organization. It ...
classed DSV Limiting Factor visited the deepest parts of all five oceans. * 2023 June: The fibre composite hulled ''Titan'' submersible, operated by OceanGate, was lost with all on board by implosion on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.


See also

* Timeline of atmospheric diving suits *


References


External links

There are other diving history chronologies at:
Diving Lore
from its origins to the aqualung breakthrough.




Rebreather Diving History



History of Cave Diving
{{Authority control History of underwater diving Diving technology Diving tech sv:Dykning#Historia