The origins of scubadiving began in the 1930s when Jacques Cousteau - a French engineer - produced the first underwater video. Simone Cousteau and her husband loaded black and white still camera films into a movie camera. The first underwater movie was produced. In 1943, Emile Gagnan (an industrial gas control system engineer at L'Air Liquide et Cie) designs the Aqualung, which is the first commercially viable scuba unit. The Cousteau family tests the prototype units in 1943.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a French native, was born in Marseilles. His childhood included snorkeling in warm waters near his home. After graduating from high school, he decided to enter the navy. He became a naval gunnery teacher and a master diver while serving in the navy. He fell in love with the underwater world after which he began to swim down to investigate the seabed. He also created an underwater camera.
Emile Gagnan
Emile Gagnan is the man behind many of the innovations that are used in modern SCUBA diving. Aqualung, which allows divers to breathe underwater air, was born from his 1950s work. This invention made diving safer and easier for everyone.
Henry Fleuss
Henry Fleuss, a pioneer of scuba dive history, is Henry Fleuss. He developed the first self-contained breathing apparatus and is credited with many other innovations. He worked for several companies, including Siebe, Gorman & Co., and patented his designs in 1878. It was revolutionary in that it allowed the diver work alone without the need for a pump or large crew.
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini is the most common person you associate with scuba diving. After all, the master escape artist performed a series of incredible escapes, including one from a box underwater! He also demonstrated how he could escape from a straitjacket. Locks and suspended objects. His escape skills were immortalized in motion pictures.
Mark V diving helmet
Mark V diving helmets have a long and rich history in scubadiving. It was originally designed for the US Navy in 1916, and it was still used until 1984. It is considered to be the first diving helmet. There are however other helmets which date back to 1820s and even earlier.
William Beebe
William Beebe's story of scuba diving is more than a tale about adventures under the water. He was also an explorer who took many dives to the sea for scientific research. He established a marine laboratory at Nonsuch Island, Bermudas, and studied the aquatic life. He studied the behavior of sea creatures and developed a unique diving helmet and breathing apparatus. Beebe was also the first person to descend into deep sea using a bathysphere. This device lowered people to depths of 3,028 feet (923 metres). This record was held until 1949.