Timeline of underwater technology
Encyclopedia
This is a timeline
Timeline
A timeline is a way of displaying a list of events in chronological order, sometimes described as a project artifact . It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labeled with dates alongside itself and events labeled on points where they would have happened.-Uses of timelines:Timelines...

 of underwater
Underwater
Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river. Three quarters of the planet Earth is covered by water...

 technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

.

The entries marked ## are about decompression tables.

Pre-industrial

  • Several centuries BC: (Relief carvings made at this time show Assyria
    Assyria
    Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

    n soldiers crossing rivers using inflated goatskin floats. Several modern authors have wrongly said that the floats were crude breathing sets and that they show frogmen in action.)
  • Ancient Roman
    Ancient Rome
    Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

     and Greek
    Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

     times, etc.: 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. See this link (in Portuguese).
  • About 500 BC: (Information originally from Herodotus
    Herodotus
    Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

    ): During a naval campaign the Greek Scyllis was taken aboard ship as prisoner by the Persian King Xerxes I
    Xerxes I of Persia
    Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...

    . 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 surfaced at night and 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
    Diving bell
    A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers to depth in the ocean. The most common types are the wet bell and the closed bell....

    s is recorded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle
    Aristotle
    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

     in the 4th century BC: "...they enable the divers to respire equally well by letting down a cauldron, 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
    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 in woodworking. They are often used in snow sports as well,...

     with windows made of the polished outer layer of tortoiseshell
    Tortoiseshell material
    Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced mainly from the shell of the hawksbill turtle, an endangered species. It was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s in the manufacture of items such as combs, sunglasses, guitar picks and knitting needles...

    .
  • 15th century: Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

     made the first known mention of air tanks in Italy: he wrote in his Atlantic Codex (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan
    Milan
    Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

    ) that systems were used at that time to artificially breathe under water, but he did not explain them in detail due to what he described as "bad human nature", that would have taken advantage of this technique to sink ships and even commit murder
    Murder
    Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

    s. 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
    Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...

     collector, too.
  • 1531: Guglielmo de Lorena dives on two of Caligula
    Caligula
    Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...

    's sunken galleys
    Nemi ships
    The Nemi Ships were ships built by the Roman emperor Caligula in the 1st century AD at Lake Nemi. Although the purpose of the ships is only speculated on, the larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace, which contained quantities of marble, mosaic floors, heating and plumbing such as...

     using a diving bell
    Diving bell
    A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers to depth in the ocean. The most common types are the wet bell and the closed bell....

     from a design by Leonardo da Vinci.
  • 1616: Franz Kessler
    Franz Kessler
    Franz Kessler was a scholar, inventor and alchemist living in the Holy Roman Empire.He wrote a book called Unterschiedliche bisshero mehrern Theils Secreta oder Verborgene, Geheime Kunste , which was published in Oppenheim in September 1616...

     built an improved diving bell.
  • Around 1620: Cornelius Drebbel
    Cornelius Drebbel
    Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel was the Dutch builder of the first navigable submarine in 1620. Drebbel was an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, optics and chemistry....

     may have made a crude rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    : see Rebreather#History of rebreathers.
  • 1650: Otto von Guericke
    Otto von Guericke
    Otto von Guericke was a German scientist, inventor, and politician...

     built the first air pump.
  • 1715: the chevalier (sir) Pierre Rémy de Beauve, a French aristocrat who serves as garde de la marine
    Gardes de la Marine
    In France, under the Ancien Régime, the Gardes de la Marine , or Gardes-Marine were young gentlemen picked and maintained by the king in his harbours to learn the navy service, and to train to be officers. They were organized in companies, divided up between the harbors of Brest, Toulon, and...

    in Brest
    Brest, France
    Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

    , builds one of the oldest known diving dresses
    Standard diving dress
    A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or hose from a surface supplied diving air pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots...

    . De Beauve's dress was equipped with a metal helmet and two hoses, one of them air-supplied from the surface by a bellows
    Bellows
    A bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location.Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet...

     and the other one for evacuation of the exhaled air.
    • the Englishman John Lethbridge
      John Lethbridge
      John Lethbridge invented the first underwater diving machine in 1715. He lived in the county of Devon in South West England and reportedly had 17 children....

      , a wool merchant, invents a diving barrel and successfully salvages valuables from wrecks.
  • 1772: the first diving dress using a compressed-air reservoir is successfully designed and built in 1772 by Sieur (old French for "sir" or "Mister") Fréminet, a Frenchman from Paris
    Paris
    Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

    . Fréminet conceived an autonomous breathing machine equipped with a helmet, two hoses for inhalation and exhalation, a suite 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
    Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

     and Brest
    Brest, France
    Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

    , as states the explaining text of a 1784 painting.
  • 1774: John Day
    John Day (carpenter)
    John Day is the first recorded death in an accident with a submarine. Day was an English carpenter and wheelwright. With the financial support of Christopher Blake, an English gambler, Day built a wooden "diving chamber" without an engine...

     becomes the first person known to have died in a submarine accident while testing a "diving chamber" in Plymouth Sound
    Plymouth Sound
    Plymouth Sound, or locally just The Sound, is a bay at Plymouth in England.Its southwest and southeast corners are Penlee Point in Cornwall and Wembury Point on Devon, a distance of about 3 nautical miles . Its northern limit is Plymouth Hoe giving a north-south distance of nearly 3 nautical miles...

    .
  • 1776: David Bushnell
    David Bushnell
    David Bushnell , of Westbrook, Connecticut, was an American inventor during the Revolutionary War. He is credited with creating the first submarine ever used in combat, while studying at Yale University in 1775. He called it the Turtle because of its look in the water...

     invented the Turtle
    Turtle (submarine)
    The Turtle was the world's first submersible with a documented record of use in combat. It was built in Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1775 by American Patriot David Bushnell as a means of attaching explosive charges to ships in a harbor...

    , first submarine to attack another ship. It was used in the American Revolution
    American Revolution
    The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

    .
  • 1797: Karl Heinrich Klingert designes a full diving dress in 1797. This design consists of a large metal helmet and similarly large metal belt connected by leather jacket and pants.
  • 1798: in June F. W. Joachim, employed by Klingert, successfully completes the first practical tests of Klingert's armor.

19th century

  • 1800: Robert Fulton
    Robert Fulton
    Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat...

     builds a submarine
    Submarine
    A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

    , the "Nautilus"
  • 1839 Canadian inventors James Eliot and Alexander McAvity of Saint John, New Brunswick
    Saint John, New Brunswick
    City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...

     patent 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
      Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...

       in London patented an inflatable lifting jacket for divers.
  • Around 1842: The Frenchman Joseph-Martin Cabirol
    Joseph-Martin Cabirol
    Joseph-Martin Cabirol was a French man. In 1855 he patented a new model of standard diving dress, mainly from Augustus Siebe's designs, and afterwards he made them. The suit is made out of rubberized canvas. The helmet, for the first time, includes a hand-controlled tap that the diver uses to...

     (1799–1874) settles a company in Paris and starts making standard diving dress
    Standard diving dress
    A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or hose from a surface supplied diving air pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots...

    es.
  • 1843: Based on lessons learned from the Royal George salvage, the first diving school is set up by the Royal Navy.
  • 1856: Wilhelm Bauer
    Wilhelm Bauer
    Wilhelm Bauer was the German inventor and engineer, who built several hand-powered submarines.-Biography:...

     starts the first of 133 successful dives with his second submarine Seeteufel. The crew of 12 was trained to leave the submerged ship through a diving chamber.
  • 1860: Giovanni Luppis
    Giovanni Luppis
    Giovanni Biagio Luppis von Rammer was an officer of the Austrian Navy who had the idea of the first self-propelled torpedo.-Early years:...

    , a retired engineer of the Austro-Hungarian navy, demonstrates a design for a self-propelled torpedo
    Torpedo
    The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

     to emperor Franz Joseph.
  • 1863: H.L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to sink a ship, the USS Housatonic, during the American Civil War
    American Civil War
    The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

    .
  • 1866: Minenschiff, the first self-propelled (locomotive) torpedo
    Torpedo
    The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

    , developed by Robert Whitehead
    Robert Whitehead
    Robert Whitehead was an English engineer. He developed the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. His company, located in the Austrian naval centre in Fiume, was the world leader in torpedo development and production up to the First World War.- Early life:He was born the son of a...

     (to a design by Captain Luppis, Austrian Navy), is demonstrated for the imperial naval commission on December 21.
  • 1882: Brothers Alphonse and Théodore Carmagnolle of Marseille
    Marseille
    Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

    , France, patent the first properly anthropomorphic design of ADS (atmospheric diving suit
    Atmospheric diving suit
    An atmospheric diving suit or ADS is a small one-man articulated submersible of anthropomorphic form which resembles a suit of armour, with elaborate pressure joints to allow articulation while maintaining an internal pressure of one atmosphere...

    ). Featuring 22 rolling convolute joints that were never entirely waterproof and a helmet that possessed 25 2 inches (50.8 mm) glass viewing ports, it weighed 380 kilogram and was never put in service.

Rebreathers appear

  • 1808: on June 17, Sieur Touboulic from Brest
    Brest, France
    Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

    , mechanic
    Mechanic
    A mechanic is a craftsman or technician who uses tools to build or repair machinery.Many mechanics are specialized in a particular field such as auto mechanics, bicycle mechanics, motorcycle mechanics, boiler mechanics, general mechanics, industrial maintenance mechanics , air conditioning and...

     in the Napoleon's Imperial Navy, patents 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 soaked in lime water
    Lime water
    Limewater is the common name for saturated calcium hydroxide solution. It is sparsely soluble. Its chemical formula is Ca2. Since calcium hydroxide is only sparsely soluble, i.e. ca. 1.5 g per liter at 25 °C, there is no visible distinction to clear water. Attentive observers will notice a slightly...

    . Touboulic called his invention Ichtioandre (Greek for 'fish-man').
  • 1849: Pierre-Aimable de Saint Simon Sicard (a chemist
    Chemist
    A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

    ) makes the first practical oxygen rebreather. It was demonstrated in London in 1854.
  • 1853: Professor T. Schwann designed a rebreather in Belgium
    Belgium
    Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

    ; he exhibited it in Paris in 1878. It had a big backpack oxygen tank at pressure about 13.33333 bars, and two scrubbers containing sponges soaked in caustic soda.
  • 1876: An English merchant seaman, Henry Fleuss
    Henry Fleuss
    Henry Albert Fleuss was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London.Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851....

    , develops the first workable self-contained diving rig that uses compressed oxygen. This prototype of closed-circuit scuba uses rope soaked in caustic potash to absorb carbon dioxide so the exhaled gas can be re-breathed.

Diving helmets get improved and commonly used

  • 1808: Brizé-Fradin designed a small bell-like helmet connected to a low-pressure backpack air container.
  • 1820: Paul Lemaire d'Augerville (a Paris
    Paris
    Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

    ian dentist) invented and made a diving apparatus with a copper backpack cylinder, and with a counter-lung to save air, and with an inflatable lifejacket 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 that had compressed air 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 bars. The French Navy
    French Navy
    The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

     was interested, but nothing came of this.
  • 1829: Charles Anthony Deane
    Charles Anthony Deane
    Charles Anthony Deane was a pioneering diving engineer.Born in Deptford, Charles and his brother John and studied at the Greenwich Hospital School for Boys to become merchant seamen, going to sea at the age of 14 for a period of 7 years before returning to Deptford.Charles Deane then took up...

     and John Deane of Whitstable
    Whitstable
    Whitstable is a seaside town in Northeast Kent, Southeast England. It is approximately north of the city of Canterbury and approximately west of the seaside town of Herne Bay. It is part of the City of Canterbury district and has a population of about 30,000.Whitstable is famous for its oysters,...

     in Kent
    Kent
    Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

     in England design the first air-pumped diving helmet
    Diving helmet
    Diving helmets are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface supplied diving, though many models can be adapted for use with scuba equipment....

     for use with a diving suit. It is said that the idea started from a crude emergency rig-up of a fireman
    Firefighter
    Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...

    '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". However 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 is 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
      Technician
      A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skills and techniques, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Experienced technicians in a specific tool domain typically have intermediate understanding of theory and expert...

       of Kronshtadt naval base
      Naval base
      A naval base is a military base, where warships and naval ships are deployed when they have no mission at sea or want to restock. Usually ships may also perform some minor repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usually stay on the ships but are undergoing maintenance while...

       (a district
      District
      Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

       of Saint Petersburg
      Saint Petersburg
      Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

      ), offers a "diving machine
      Machine
      A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

      ". His invention was an air-pumped metallic helmet
      Helmet
      A helmet is a form of protective gear worn on the head to protect it from injuries.Ceremonial or symbolic helmets without protective function are sometimes used. The oldest known use of helmets was by Assyrian soldiers in 900BC, who wore thick leather or bronze helmets to protect the head from...

       strapped to a leather
      Leather
      Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

       suit (an overall). The bottom of the helmet is open. The helmet is strapped to the leather suit by metallic tape. Gauzen's diving suit and its further modifications were used by the Russian Navy
      Navy
      A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...

       until 1880. The modified diving suit
      Diving suit
      A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit typically also incorporates an air-supply .-History:...

       of the Russian Navy, based on Gauzen's invention
      Invention
      An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...

      , was known as "three-bolt equipment".
  • 1837: Following up Leonardo's studies, and those of Halley
    Edmond Halley
    Edmond Halley FRS was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.-Biography and career:Halley...

     the astronomer, Augustus Siebe
    Augustus Siebe
    Augustus Siebe was a German-born British engineer chiefly known for his contributions to diving equipment.- Contribution to diving :...

     develops standard diving dress
    Standard diving dress
    A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or hose from a surface supplied diving air pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots...

    , a sort of surface supplied diving
    Surface supplied diving
    Surface supplied diving refers to divers using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel sometimes indirectly via a diving bell...

     apparatus.
    • By attaching the Deane brothers helmet to a suit, Augustus Siebe develops 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).
  • 1855: Joseph-Martin Cabirol
    Joseph-Martin Cabirol
    Joseph-Martin Cabirol was a French man. In 1855 he patented a new model of standard diving dress, mainly from Augustus Siebe's designs, and afterwards he made them. The suit is made out of rubberized canvas. The helmet, for the first time, includes a hand-controlled tap that the diver uses to...

     patents a new model of standard diving dress, mainly issued from Siebe's designs. The suit is made out of rubberized canvas and the helmet, for the first time, includes a hand-controlled tap that the diver uses to evacuate his exhaled air. The tap includes on its turn a safety valve which prevents 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 for the first time the later well known fourth window, situated in the upper front part of the helmet and allowing the diver to watch above him. Having been presented to the Exposition Universelle in Paris
    Exposition Universelle (1855)
    The Exposition Universelle of 1855 was an International Exhibition held on the Champs-Elysées in Paris from May 15 to November 15, 1855. Its full official title was the Exposition Universelle des produits de l'Agriculture, de l'Industrie et des Beaux-Arts de Paris 1855.The exposition was a major...

     Cabirol's diving dress won the silver medal. These original diving dress and helmet are now preserved at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
    Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
    The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers , or National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, is a doctoral degree-granting higher education establishment operated by the French government, dedicated to providing education and conducting research for the promotion of science and industry...

    in Paris.


The first diving regulators

  • 1838: Dr. Manuel Théodore Guillaumet invented a twin-hose demand regulator. It was demonstrated used as surface-demand. Use duration was limited to 30 minutes by diving in cold water without a diving suit.
  • 1860: in Espalion
    Espalion
    Espalion is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France.-Main sights:*Château de Calmont d'Olt*The Pont-Vieux is part of the World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France....

     (France), mining engineer Benoît Rouquayrol designs a self contained breathing set with a backpack cylindrical air tank that supplied air through the first demand regulator
    Diving regulator
    A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in scuba or surface supplied diving equipment that reduces pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and delivers it to the diver. The gas may be air or one of a variety of specially blended breathing gases...

     to be commercialized (as of 1865, see below). Rouquayrol called his invention régulateur ('regulator'), he conceived it to help miners to escape from dying drowned in flooded mines.
  • 1864: Benoît Rouquayrol meets navy officer Auguste Denayrouze for the first time, in Espalion, and both, on Denayrouze's initiative, adapt 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 metres deep; during surface-supplied configuration the tank was also used for bailout in the case of a hose failure. The durations of 6 to 8 hours on a tankful without external supply recorded for the Rouquayrol set in the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
    Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
    Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870. It tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax...

    by Jules Verne
    Jules Verne
    Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

    , are wildly exaggerated fiction.
  • 1865: on August the 28th the French Navy Minister orders the first Rouquayrol-Denayrouze diving apparati and mass-production starts.

Gas and air cylinders appear

  • Late 19th century: Industry
    Industry
    Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

     begins to be able to make high-pressure air and gas cylinder
    Gas cylinder
    A gas cylinder is a pressure vessel used to store gases at above atmospheric pressure. High pressure gas cylinders are also called bottles. Although they are sometimes colloquially called "tanks", this is technically incorrect, as a tank is a vessel used to store liquids at ambient pressure and...

    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
    Diving regulator
    A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in scuba or surface supplied diving equipment that reduces pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and delivers it to the diver. The gas may be air or one of a variety of specially blended breathing gases...

     did not come back until 1937.


Underwater photography appears

  • 1893: Louis Boutan invents the first underwater camera and makes the first underwater photographs.
  • 1900: Louis Boutan publishes 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 becomes a problem

  • 1841: First documented case of decompression sickness occurs, reported by a mining engineer who observed pain and muscle cramps among coal miners working in mine shafts air-pressurized to keep water out.
  • 1870: Bauer publishes outcomes of 25 paralyzed caisson
    Caisson (engineering)
    In geotechnical engineering, a caisson is a retaining, watertight structure used, for example, to work on the foundations of a bridge pier, for the construction of a concrete dam, or for the repair of ships. These are constructed such that the water can be pumped out, keeping the working...

     workers.
  • From 1870 to 1910 all prominent symptoms/causes will be established: explanations at the time included: cold or exhaustion causing reflex spinal cord damage; electricity caused by friction
    Friction
    Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...

     on compression; or organ congestion and vascular stasis caused by decompression.
  • 1871: The St Louis Eads Bridge
    Eads Bridge
    The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois....

     employs 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
    Caisson (engineering)
    In geotechnical engineering, a caisson is a retaining, watertight structure used, for example, to work on the foundations of a bridge pier, for the construction of a concrete dam, or for the repair of ships. These are constructed such that the water can be pumped out, keeping the working...

    , and his description of his own experience was the first such recorded.
  • 1872: The similarity between decompression sickness and iatrogenic air embolism as well as the relationship between inadequate decompression and decompression sickness is noted by Friedburg. 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
    Pounds per square inch
    The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units...

     (4 ATA
    Atmosphere (unit)
    The standard atmosphere is an international reference pressure defined as 101325 Pa and formerly used as unit of pressure. For practical purposes it has been replaced by the bar which is 105 Pa...

    ); using only healthy workers; and recompression treatment for severe cases.
  • 1873: Dr. Andrew Smith first utilizes the term "caisson disease" describing 110 cases of decompression sickness as the physician in charge during construction of the Brooklyn Bridge
    Brooklyn Bridge
    The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...

    . The project employed 600 compressed air workers. Recompression treatment was not used. The project chief engineer Washington Roebling
    Washington Roebling
    Washington Augustus Roebling was an American civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was initially designed by his father John A. Roebling.-Education and military service:...

     suffered from caisson disease. (He took charge after his father John Augustus Roebling died of tetanus
    Tetanus
    Tetanus is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, rod-shaped, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani...

    .) Washington's wife, Emily, helped manage the construction of the bridge after his sickness confined him to his home in Brooklyn
    Brooklyn
    Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

    . He battled the after-effects of the disease for the rest of his life. During this project, decompression sickness became known as "The [Grecian] Bends" because afflicted individuals characteristically arched their backs: this is possibly reminiscent of a then fashionable women's dance maneuver known as the Grecian Bend
    Grecian bend
    The Grecian Bend was a dance move introduced to polite society in America just before the American Civil War. The "Bend" was considered very daring at the time....

    .
  • 1878: Paul Bert
    Paul Bert
    Paul Bert was a French zoologist, physiologist and politician. He is sometimes given the sobriquet "Father of Aviation Medicine".-Life:Bert was born at Auxerre...

     publishes La Pression barométrique, providing the first systematic understanding of the causes of DCS.

20th century

  • 1900: John P. Holland builds the first submarine
    Submarine
    A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

     to be formally commissioned by the U.S. Navy, Holland (also called A-1).
    • ## Leonard Hill
      Leonard Erskine Hill
      Sir Leonard Erskine Hill was a British physiologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1900 and was knighted in 1930. One of his sons was the epidemiologist and statistician Austin Bradford Hill...

       uses a frog model to prove that decompression causes bubbles and that recompression resolves them.
  • 1903: Siebe Gorman
    Siebe Gorman
    Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

     starts to make a submarine escape set
    Escape set
    An escape set is a breathing set, which lets its wearer survive for a time in an environment without breathable air, in particular underwater, primarily or originally intending mainly to survive long enough to reach safety where the air is breathable.The escape set was developed from such...

     in England; in the years afterwards it was improved, and later was called the Davis Escape Set or Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
    Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
    The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus , was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss system...

    .
  • from 1903 to 1907: Professor Georges Jaubert, invents Oxylithe, which is a form of sodium peroxide
    Sodium peroxide
    Sodium peroxide is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2O2. This solid is the product when sodium is burned with oxygen. It is a strong base and a potent oxidizing agent. It exists in several hydrates and peroxyhydrates including Na2O2·2H2O2·4H2O, Na2O2·2H2O, Na2O2·2H2O2, and...

     (Na2O2) or sodium dioxide (NaO2). As it absorbs carbon dioxide
    Carbon dioxide
    Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

     it emits oxygen and can be used in a rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    .
  • 1905 Several sources, including the 1991 US Navy
    United States Navy
    The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

     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 know MK V is dated 1916, these sources are probably referring to the earlier MK I, MK II, MK III & MK IV Morse
    Morse Diving
    Morse Diving is a big USA maker of diving equipment. It started in 1837.Morse Diving is the oldest manufacturer of diving equipment in the world and the 412th oldest company ever, sharing its founding year with Tiffany and Co....

     and Schrader
    August Schrader
    August Schrader was a German-American immigrant who had a shop dealing in rubber products in Manhattan, New York City, USA. His original shop was located at 115 John Street. In 1845, he began supplying fittings and valves for rubber products made by the Goodyear Brothers, including air pillows...

     helmets.
  • 1905: The first rebreather with metering valves to control the supply of oxygen is made.
  • 1907: Draeger of Lübeck
    Lübeck
    The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

     makes a rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

     called the U-Boot-Retter. = "submarine rescuer".
  • 1908: ## Arthur Boycott, Guybon Damant, and John Haldane publish "The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness", detailed studies on the cause and symptoms of decompression sickness, and propose a table of decompression stops to avoid the effects.
    • ## The Admiralty Deep Diving Committee adopts the Haldane tables for the Royal Navy, and publish Haldane's diving tables to the general public.
  • 1910: the British Robert Davis
    Robert Davis (inventor)
    Sir Robert Henry Davis was an English inventor and director of the Siebe Gorman company. His main invention was the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, an oxygen rebreather that Davis patented for the first time in 1910, inspired by the rebreathers that Henry Fleuss patented as of 1876...

     invents his own submarine rescuer rebreather, the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
    Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
    The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus , was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss system...

    , for the Royal Navy submarine crews.
  • 1912: ## US Navy adopts the decompression tables published by Haldane, Boycott and Damant. Driven by Chief Gunner George Stillson, the navy sets up a program to test tables and staged decompression based on the work of Haldane.
    • Maurice Fernez
      Maurice Fernez
      Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparati, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self contained equipment of the twentieth...

       introduces a simple lightweight underwater breathing apparatus as an alternative to helmet diving suits.
    • Draeger starts the commercialization of his rebreather in both configuration types, mouthpiece and helmet.
  • 1913: The Navy also begins developing the future MK V, influenced by Schrader and Morse designs.
  • 1915: The submarine USS F-4 is 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 With the addition of a battery-powered telephone, the design of the MK V is finalized – however, several more design improvements are made over the next two years.
    • The Draeger model DM 2 becomes standard equipment of the German Navy
      German Navy
      The German Navy is the navy of Germany and is part of the unified Bundeswehr .The German Navy traces its roots back to the Imperial Fleet of the revolutionary era of 1848 – 52 and more directly to the Prussian Navy, which later evolved into the Northern German Federal Navy...

      .
  • 1917: The Bureau of Construction & Repair introduces the MK V helmet and dress, which then becomes the standard for US Navy diving until the introduction of the MK 12 in the late seventies
  • 1918: the Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

    ese Ohgushi patents his "Ohgushi's Peerless Respirator". It was a constant-flow diving and industrial open-circuit breathing set
    Scuba set
    A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....

    . The user breathed through his nose and switched the air on and off with his teeth.
  • Around 1920: Hanseatischen Apparatebau-Gesellschaft make a 2-cylinder breathing apparatus with double-lever single-stage demand valve and single wide corrugated breathing tube
    Breathing tube (in breathing apparatus)
    A breathing tube is a flexible tube for breathing through, as part of a scuba set or other breathing apparatus or a medical oxygen apparatus or anaesthetic apparatus They are wide, and usually corrugated to let the user's head move about without the tube pinching at...

     with mouthpiece, and a "duck's beak" exhalent valve in the regulator. It was described in a mine rescue
    Mine rescue
    Mine rescue is the very specialized job of rescuing miners and others who have become trapped or injured underground in mines because of mining accidents and disasters such as explosions caused by firedamp, roof falls or floods.- Expert volunteers :...

     handbook in 1930. They were successors to Ludwig von Bremen of Kiel
    Kiel
    Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

    , who had the licence to make the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus in Germany.
  • 1925: Maurice Fernez
    Maurice Fernez
    Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparati, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self contained equipment of the twentieth...

     exposes, at the Grand Palais
    Grand Palais
    This article contains material abridged and translated from the French and Spanish Wikipedia.The Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, commonly known as the Grand Palais , is a large historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France...

    , a new model of his underwater surface-supplied apparatus. Yves le Prieur
    Yves le Prieur
    Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur 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 traditional deep sea diving equipment...

    , assistant at the exhibition, decides to meet the man in person and asks him to transform Fernez's apparatus into a hand-controlled self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
    Scuba set
    A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....

    . It delivered air at constant pressure without a demand regulator.
  • 1926: Fernez-Le Prieur
    Maurice Fernez
    Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparati, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self contained equipment of the twentieth...

     self contained underwater breathing apparatus demonstrated to the public in Paris, and adopted by the French Navy.
    • Draeger displayed a rescue breathing apparatus that the wearer could swim with. While the previous devices served only for ascending to the surface and were designed also to develop lift so that the wearer arrived at the surface without swimming movements, the diving set had weights, which also made it possible to dive down with it, to search and save after an accident.
  • 1937: US Navy publishes its revised diving tables based on the work of O.D. Yarbrough.

Swim-diving starts

  • 1914: Modern swimfins are invented by the Frenchman Louis de Corlieu, capitaine de corvette (Lieutenant Commander
    Lieutenant Commander
    Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...

    ) in the French Navy
    French Navy
    The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

    . In 1914 De Corlieu made a practical demonstration of his first prototype
    Prototype
    A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

     for a group of navy officers.
  • 1924: De Corlieu leaves the French Navy to fully devote himself to his invention.
  • The 1930s:
    • In France, Guy Gilpatric
      Guy Gilpatric
      John Guy Gilpatric was an American pilot, flight instructor, journalist, short-story writer and novelist, best known for his Mr. Glencannon stories.- Biography :...

       starts swim diving with waterproof goggles, derived from swimming goggles (which were originally invented by Maurice Fernez
      Maurice Fernez
      Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparati, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self contained equipment of the twentieth...

       in 1920).
    • Sport spearfishing
      Spearfishing
      Spearfishing is an ancient method of fishing that has been used throughout the world for millennia. Early civilizations were familiar with the custom of spearing fish from rivers and streams using sharpened sticks....

       became common in the Mediterranean, and spearfishers gradually developed the common sport diving mask
      Diving mask
      A diving mask is an item of diving equipment that allows scuba divers, free-divers, and snorkelers to see clearly underwater. When the human eye is in direct contact with water as opposed to air, its normal environment, light entering the eye is refracted by a different angle and the eye is unable...

       and fins and snorkel, with mostly Georges Beuchat
      Georges Beuchat
      Georges Beuchat was a French inventor, diver, businessman and emblematic pioneer of underwater activities and founder of Beuchat.Throughout his lifetime, Georges Beuchat never ceased developing products which have significantly enhanced underwater activity as we know it today...

       in Marseille, France, which created the speargun
      Speargun
      A speargun is an underwater fishing implement designed to fire a spear at fish.The basic components of a speargun are:A spear, a stock/barrel, and a handle/grip containing a trigger mechanism...

       and the first isothermic wetsuit, and Italian sport spearfishers started using oxygen rebreather
      Rebreather
      A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

      s. This practice came to the attention of the Italian Navy
      Italian Navy
      Italian Navy may refer to:* Pre-unitarian navies of the Italian states* Regia Marina, the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Italy * Italian Navy , the navy of the Italian Republic...

      , which developed its frogman unit Decima Flottiglia MAS
      Decima Flottiglia MAS
      The Decima Flottiglia MAS was an Italian commando frogman unit of the Regia Marina created during the Fascist regime.The acronym MAS also refers to various light torpedo boats used by the Regia Marina during World...

       using oxygen rebreather
      Rebreather
      A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

      s and manned torpedoes, playing a large role in World War II
      World War II
      World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

      .
  • 1933:
    • In April Louis de Corlieu registers a new patent (number 767013, which in addition of two fins for the feet included two spoon-shaped fins for the hands) and calls this equipment propulseurs de natation et de sauvetage (which can be translated as "swimming and rescue impulse device").
    • In San Diego, California
      San Diego, California
      San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

      , the first sport diving club is started, called the Bottom Scratchers. As far as it is known, it did not use breathing sets; its main aim was spearfishing
      Spearfishing
      Spearfishing is an ancient method of fishing that has been used throughout the world for millennia. Early civilizations were familiar with the custom of spearing fish from rivers and streams using sharpened sticks....

      .
    • More is known of Yves Le Prieur
      Yves le Prieur
      Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur 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 traditional deep sea diving equipment...

      '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; this would have caused an awkward skew drag in swimming.
  • 1934:
    • In France, establishment of Beuchat
      Beuchat
      Beuchat International, known as Beuchat, was established in 1934 in Marseille, France and is now a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of underwater equipment.-Business:Beuchat currently has 3 core ranges:...

      , oldest scuba diving
      Scuba diving
      Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

       and spearfishing
      Spearfishing
      Spearfishing is an ancient method of fishing that has been used throughout the world for millennia. Early civilizations were familiar with the custom of spearing fish from rivers and streams using sharpened sticks....

       company in the world,
    • In France a sport diving club is started, called the Club des Sous-l'Eau = "club of those [who are] under the water". It did not use breathing sets as far as is known. Its main aim was spearfishing
      Spearfishing
      Spearfishing is an ancient method of fishing that has been used throughout the world for millennia. Early civilizations were familiar with the custom of spearing fish from rivers and streams using sharpened sticks....

      . ("Club des Sous-l'Eau" was later realized to be a homophone
      Homophone
      A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...

       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
      Otis Barton
      Frederick Otis Barton, Jr. was an American deep-sea diver, inventor and actor.Born in New York, the independently wealthy Barton designed the first bathysphere and made a dive with William Beebe off Bermuda in June 1930. They set the first record for deep-sea diving by descending 600 feet...

       and William Beebe
      William Beebe
      William Beebe, born Charles William Beebe was an American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author...

       dive to 3028 feet using a bathysphere.
  • 1935: The French Navy
    French Navy
    The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

     adopts the Le Prieur breathing set.
  • 1936: On the French Riviera
    French Riviera
    The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...

    , the first known sport scuba diving club started. It used Le Prieur's breathing sets.
  • 1937: The American Diving Equipment and Salvage Company (now known as DESCO) develops a heavy bottom-walking-type diving suit with a self-contained mixed-gas helium and oxygen rebreather.
    • ## US Navy publishes its revised diving tables based on the work of O.D. Yarbrough
      Yarbrough
      Yarbrough is a surname of Lincolnshire origin. In English it originated as a habitational or topographic name from Yarborough and Yarburgh in Lincolnshire, named with Old English eorðburg ‘earthworks’, ‘fortifications’, . People with the surname Yarbrough:*Glenn Yarbrough , American...

      .
  • 1939: After floundering for years, even producing his fins in his own flat
    Apartment
    An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...

     in Paris
    Paris
    Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

    , De Corlieu finally starts mass production
    Mass production
    Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, 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
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    . To sell his fins in the USA Owen Churchill changed the French De Corlieu's name (propulseurs) to "swimfins", which is still nowadays the current English
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

     name. Churchill presented his fins to the US Navy, who decided to acquire them for its Underwater Demolition Team
    Underwater Demolition Team
    The Underwater Demolition Teams were an elite special-purpose force established by the United States Navy during World War II. They also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War...

     (UDT).
    • Hans Hass
      Hans Hass
      Hans Hass is a diving pioneer known mainly for his documentaries about sharks, the energon theory, and his commitment, later in life, to the protection of the environment. He was born in Vienna, Austria.-Early years:...

       and Hermann Stelzner of Drager, in Germany make the M138 rebreather. It is developed from the 1912 escape set
      Escape set
      An escape set is a breathing set, which lets its wearer survive for a time in an environment without breathable air, in particular underwater, primarily or originally intending mainly to survive long enough to reach safety where the air is breathable.The escape set was developed from such...

       a type of rebreather used to exit sunken submarines. The M138 sets are oxygen rebreathers with a 150 bar, .6 liter tank and appear in many of his movies and books.
  • 1944: American
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     UDT and British
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     COPP frogmen
    Frogman
    A frogman is someone who is trained to scuba diving or swim underwater in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combatant diver or combat swimmer....

     (COPP: Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) used the "Churchill fins" during all prior underwater demining
    Demining
    Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing either land mines, or naval mines, from an area, while minesweeping describes the act of detecting of mines. There are two distinct types of mine detection and removal: military and humanitarian.Minesweepers use many tools in order to accomplish...

    s, allowing this way in 1944 the Normandy landings. During years after World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

     had ended, De Corlieu spent time and efforts struggling into civil procedure
    Civil procedure
    Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits...

    s, demanding others for patent infringement
    Patent infringement
    Patent infringement is the commission of a prohibited act with respect to a patented invention without permission from the patent holder. Permission may typically be granted in the form of a license. The definition of patent infringement may vary by jurisdiction, but it typically includes using or...

    .
  • 1954: Underwater hockey (octopush) is invented by four navy sub-aqua divers in Southsea who got bored swimming up and down and wanted a fun way to keep fit.

The diving regulator reappears

  • 1934: René Commeinhes, from Alsace
    Alsace
    Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

    , invents a breathing set working with a demand valve and destined to allow firefighter
    Firefighter
    Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...

    s to breath safely in smoke environments.
  • 1937: Georges Commeinhes, son of René, adapts his father's invention to diving and develops a two-cylinder open-circuit apparatus with demand regulator
    Diving regulator
    A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in scuba or surface supplied diving equipment that reduces pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and delivers it to the diver. The gas may be air or one of a variety of specially blended breathing gases...

    . The regulator was a big rectangular box between the cylinders. Some were made, but WWII
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

     interrupted development.

World War II

  • 1939: Georges Commeinhes offers his breathing set to the French Navy, which could not continue developing uses for it because of WWII
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    .
  • 1940-1944: Christian J. Lambertsen
    Christian J. Lambertsen
    Christian James Lambertsen was an American environmental medicine and diving medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the United States Navy frogmen's rebreathers in the early 1940s for underwater warfare...

     of the United States designed a 'Breathing apparatus' for the U.S. military. It was a rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    .
  • 1942: Georges Commeinhes patents 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
    Emile Gagnan
    Émile Gagnan was a French engineer and co-inventor of the diving regulator used for the first Scuba equipment in 1943...

    , engineer employed by the Air Liquide
    Air Liquide
    L'Air Liquide S.A., or Air Liquide , is a major French company supplying industrial gases and services to various industries including medical, chemical and electronic manufacturers. Founded in 1902, it is first in the world market in its field, now operating in over 80 countries. It is...

     company, obtains in Paris a Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus (property of the Bernard Piel company in 1942). He miniaturizes and adapts it to gas generator
    Gas generator
    A gas generator usually refers to a device, often similar to a solid rocket or a liquid rocket that burns to produce large volumes of relatively cool gas, instead of maximizing the temperature and specific impulse. The low temperature allows the gas to be put to use more easily in many...

    s since the Germans occupy France and confiscate the French fuel for war purposes. Gagnan's boss and owner of the Air Liquide company, Henri Melchior, decides to introduce Gagnan to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, his son-in-law
    Son-in-Law
    Son-in-Law was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and an influential sire, especially for sport horses.The National Horseracing Museum says that Son-in-Law is "probably the best and most distinguished stayer this country has ever known." Described as "one of the principal influences for stamina in...

    , because he knows that Cousteau is looking for an efficient and automatic demand regulator. Both men meet then in Paris in December 1942 and adapt Gagnan's regulator to a diving cylinder.
  • 1943: after fixing some technical problems Cousteau and Gagnan patent the first modern demand regulator.
    • Air Liquide builds two more aqualungs: there were now three, owned by Cousteau but also at the disposal of his first two diving companions Frédéric Dumas
      Frédéric Dumas
      Frédéric Dumas was part of a team of three, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They had a passion for diving, and developed the diving regulator with the aid of the engineer Émile Gagnan...

       and Taillez. All three men use them to shoot the film Épaves (Shipwrecks), the first underwater film having beeing shot by means of 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 exploit, Dumas dives with a Cousteau-Gagnan prototype and reaches 62 metres (about 200 feet) off Les Goudes, not far from Marseille. He felt then what is now called a nitrogen narcosis
      Nitrogen narcosis
      Narcosis while diving , is a reversible alteration in consciousness that occurs while scuba diving at depth. The Greek word ναρκωσις is derived from narke, "temporary decline or loss of senses and movement, numbness", a term used by Homer and Hippocrates...

      .
  • 1944: Commeinhes died in the liberation of Strasbourg
    Strasbourg
    Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

     in Alsace
    Alsace
    Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

    . His invention was submerged by Cousteau's invention.
  • Various nations use frogmen equipped with rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    s for some of the best known and most spectacular war actions: see Human torpedo
    Human torpedo
    Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes are a type of rideable submarine used as secret naval weapons in World War II. The basic design is still in use today; they are a type of diver propulsion vehicle....

    .
  • Hans Hass
    Hans Hass
    Hans Hass is a diving pioneer known mainly for his documentaries about sharks, the energon theory, and his commitment, later in life, to the protection of the environment. He was born in Vienna, Austria.-Early years:...

     later said that during WWII
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

     the German diving gear firm Dräger
    Dräger
    The Drägerwerk AG is a German company based in Lübeck which makes breathing and protection equipment, gas detection and analysis systems, and noninvasive patient monitoring technologies. Customers include hospitals, fire departments and diving companies....

     offered him an open-circuit scuba set
    Scuba set
    A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....

     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
    Tank
    A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

    s, asked the company Mine Safety Appliances
    Mine Safety Appliances
    Mine Safety Appliances, or MSA, is a maker of sophisticated safety products that help protect workers who may be exposed to a variety of hazardous conditions...

     (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
    Breathing tube (in breathing apparatus)
    A breathing tube is a flexible tube for breathing through, as part of a scuba set or other breathing apparatus or a medical oxygen apparatus or anaesthetic apparatus They are wide, and usually corrugated to let the user's head move about without the tube pinching at...

     connected to a mouthpiece. This set was stated to be made from "off-the-shelf" items, which shows that MSA had that regulator design before; also, that regulator looks like the result of development and not a prototype
    Prototype
    A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

    ; it may have arisen around 1943. In an example recovered in 2003 from a submerged Sherman tank in the Bay of Naples the cylinder was bound round in tape and tied to a lifejacket
    Lifejacket
    A lifejacket is a type of personal flotation device designed to keep your airway clear of the water whether the wearer is conscious or unconscious...

    . These sets were too late for the D-day
    D-Day
    D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...

     landings in June 1944, but were used in the invasion of the south of France and in the South Pacific war.
  • 1944: Cousteau's first aqualung is destroyed by a mis-aimed artillery
    Artillery
    Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

     shell in an Allied landing on the French Riviera
    French Riviera
    The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...

    : that left two.

Postwar

  • The public first hears about frogmen.
  • 1945: In Toulon
    Toulon
    Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....

    , Cousteau shows the film Épaves to the Admiral Lemonnier. The Admiral makes then 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 creates La Spirotechnique and starts 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
    Aqua-lung
    Aqua-Lung was the original name of the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing set in reaching worldwide popularity and commercial success...

    , that laster 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
    Genericized trademark
    A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...

     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 founds the first post-WWII
      World War II
      World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

       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 le Prieur
      Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur 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 traditional deep sea diving equipment...

       invents 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
      Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

       by Ivor Howitt (who modified an old civilian gas mask
      Gas mask
      A gas mask is a mask put on over the face 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 tissues of the face. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the word...

      ) and some friends. They called underwater diving "fathom
      Fathom
      A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water.There are 2 yards in an imperial or U.S. fathom...

      eering", to distinguish from jumping into water
      Diving
      Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...

      .
    • The Cave Diving Group
      Cave Diving Group
      The Cave Diving Group 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...

       (CDG) is formed in Britain.
  • 1947: Maurice Fargues
    Maurice Fargues
    Maurice Fargues was a diver with the French Navy and a close associate of Jacques Cousteau. In August 1946, Fargues saved the lives of Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas during their dive into the Fountain of Vaucluse...

     becomes the first diver to die using an aqualung while attempting a new depth record with Cousteau's Undersea Research Group near Toulon
    Toulon
    Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....

    .
  • 1948: Auguste Piccard
    Auguste Piccard
    Auguste Antoine Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer.-Biography:Piccard and his twin brother Jean Felix were born in Basel, Switzerland...

     sends the first bathyscaphe
    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....

    , FNRS-2, on unmanned dives.
    • Siebe Gorman
      Siebe Gorman
      Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

       and/or Heinke
      Heinke
      Heinke was a series of companies that made diving equipment in London, run by members of a Heinke family.-Timeline:*1786: Gotthilf Frederick Heinke was born in Prussia.*: He became a coppersmith....

       start making Cousteau
      Jacques-Yves Cousteau
      Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...

      -type aqualungs in England. Siebe Gorman made those first patented aqualungs at Chessington
      Chessington
      Chessington is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, England. The Hogsmill river runs through it. Neighbouring settlements include: Tolworth, Ewell, Surbiton, Claygate, Epsom, Oxshott, Leatherhead, Esher, Kingston upon Thames and Worcester Park.-History:Its name...

       from 1948 to 1960, popularly known as tadpole sets. Captain Trevor Hampton had a dive with one. 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
      Ted Eldred
      Edward Francis Eldred was a pioneer of scuba diving in Australia. He invented the Porpoise .-Early years:...

       in Australia starts designing the first open-circuit single-hose scuba set known: see Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
      Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
      Porpoise is a tradename for scuba developed by Ted Eldred in Australia and made there from the late 1940s onwards. It included:-A make of diving oxygen rebreather:...

      .
    • Georges Beuchat
      Georges Beuchat
      Georges Beuchat was a French inventor, diver, businessman and emblematic pioneer of underwater activities and founder of Beuchat.Throughout his lifetime, Georges Beuchat never ceased developing products which have significantly enhanced underwater activity as we know it today...

       in France creates the first surface buoy.
  • 1948 or 1949: Rene's Sporting Goods shop in California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     imports aqualungs from France. Hollywood sees them and gets interested.
  • 1949: Otis Barton
    Otis Barton
    Frederick Otis Barton, Jr. was an American deep-sea diver, inventor and actor.Born in New York, the independently wealthy Barton designed the first bathysphere and made a dive with William Beebe off Bermuda in June 1930. They set the first record for deep-sea diving by descending 600 feet...

     makes record dive to 4,500 feet in his Benthoscope.
  • 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
      Georges Beuchat
      Georges Beuchat was a French inventor, diver, businessman and emblematic pioneer of underwater activities and founder of Beuchat.Throughout his lifetime, Georges Beuchat never ceased developing products which have significantly enhanced underwater activity as we know it today...

      ,
  • 1951: The movie "The Frogmen" is released. It is set in the Pacific Ocean in WWII
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    . In its last 20 minutes, it shows USA frogmen, using bulky 3-cylindered aqualungs on a combat mission. This equipment use is anachronistic (in reality they would have used rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    s), but it shows that aqualungs were available (even if not widely known of) in the USA in 1951.
    • 1951: The US Navy starts to develop wetsuit
      Wetsuit
      A wetsuit is a garment, usually made of foamed neoprene, which is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports, providing thermal insulation, abrasion resistance and buoyancy. The insulation properties depend on bubbles of gas enclosed within the material,...

      s, but not known to the public. http://www.divinghistory.com/historyofthewetsuit.htm.
    • 1951: In December, the first issue of Skin Diver Magazine (USA) appears. The magazine ran until November 2002.
    • Cousteau
      Jacques-Yves Cousteau
      Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...

      -type aqualungs go on sale in Canada.
  • 1952: Cousteau
    Jacques-Yves Cousteau
    Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...

    -type aqualungs go on sale in the USA.
    • Ted Eldred
      Ted Eldred
      Edward Francis Eldred was a pioneer of scuba diving in Australia. He invented the Porpoise .-Early years:...

       in Melbourne, Australia starts making for public sale the Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
      Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
      Porpoise is a tradename for scuba developed by Ted Eldred in Australia and made there from the late 1940s onwards. It included:-A make of diving oxygen rebreather:...

      . 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 and 75% of those were used as hookah.
    • After World War II Lambertsen called his 1940-1944 rebreather LARU (for Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit
      Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit
      The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit is an early model of frogman's rebreather. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the USA in 1940 and in 1944...

      ) but as of 1952 Lambertsen renamed again his invention and coins 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 nowadays; in old times it was sometimes inaccurately for any scuba set including rebreathers.

Public interest in scuba diving takes off

  • 1953: National Geographic Magazine
    National Geographic Magazine
    National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...

    publishes 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
    Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

     and Heinke
    Heinke
    Heinke was a series of companies that made diving equipment in London, run by members of a Heinke family.-Timeline:*1786: Gotthilf Frederick Heinke was born in Prussia.*: He became a coppersmith....

     kept aqualungs expensive, and restrictions on exporting currency
    Currency
    In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

     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
    Diving regulator
    A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in scuba or surface supplied diving equipment that reduces pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and delivers it to the diver. The gas may be air or one of a variety of specially blended breathing gases...

    s made by Siebe Gorman
    Siebe Gorman
    Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

     cost £15, which was an average week's salary
    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
      Frogman
      A frogman is someone who is trained to scuba diving or swim underwater in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combatant diver or combat swimmer....

      '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 founds the British Underwater Centre at Dartmouth
      Dartmouth, Devon
      Dartmouth is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes...

       in Devon
      Devon
      Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

       in England.
    • Rene's Sporting Goods shop (now owned by La Spirotechnique) becomes U.S. Divers, now a leading maker of diving equipment.
  • Georges Beuchat
    Georges Beuchat
    Georges Beuchat was a French inventor, diver, businessman and emblematic pioneer of underwater activities and founder of Beuchat.Throughout his lifetime, Georges Beuchat never ceased developing products which have significantly enhanced underwater activity as we know it today...

     in Marseille, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     invent and release the first isothermic wetsuit.
  • 15 October 1953: The BSAC is founded.
  • 1954: USS Nautilus
    USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
    USS Nautilus is the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine. She was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958...

    , the first nuclear-powered submarine, is launched.
    • The first manned dives occur in the bathyscaphe FNRS-2.
    • First scuba certification course in the USA is offered by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. Program created by Albert Tillman and Bev Morgan now known as LA County Scuba.
  • 1954: In the USA, MSA
    Mine Safety Appliances
    Mine Safety Appliances, or MSA, is a maker of sophisticated safety products that help protect workers who may be exposed to a variety of hazardous conditions...

     advertises (in Popular Mechanics
    Popular Mechanics
    Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...

     magazine) a two-cylinder aqualung-like open-circuit diving set using the MSA regulator.
  • 1955: In Britain, "Practical Mechanics
    Practical Mechanics
    Practical Mechanics was a monthly British magazine devoted mostly to home mechanics and technology. It was first published by George Newnes, Ltd., in October 1933, and ran for 352 issues until the magazine's termination in August 1963. Practical Mechanics was edited by Frederick J...

    " magazine publishes an item "Making an Aqualung". http://www.vintagedoublehose.com/downloads/MakinganAqualung2.pdf
  • 1955: Jacques-Yves Cousteau and assistant director Louis Malle
    Louis Malle
    Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...

    , a young film maker of 23, shoot The Silent World
    The Silent World
    The Silent World is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by the famed French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle. The Silent World is noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color...

    , one of the first films to use underwater cinematography
    Underwater photography
    Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving, but can be done while snorkeling or swimming.-Overview:...

     to show the ocean depths in color
    Color photography
    Color photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors, which are traditionally produced chemically during the photographic processing phase...

    .
  • 1956: Wetsuit
    Wetsuit
    A wetsuit is a garment, usually made of foamed neoprene, which is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports, providing thermal insulation, abrasion resistance and buoyancy. The insulation properties depend on bubbles of gas enclosed within the material,...

    s become available to the public.
  • 1956: ## US Navy publishes tables that allow for repetitive diving.
    • Around this time, some British scuba divers start making homemade diving demand regulators from industrial parts, including Calor Gas regulators. (Since then, Calor Gas regulators have been redesigned, and this conversion is now impossible.)
    • Later, Submarine Products Ltd in Hexham
      Hexham
      Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...

       in Northumberland
      Northumberland
      Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

      , England designed round the Cousteau-Gagnan patent and made sport diving breathing sets accessibly cheap. This forced Siebe Gorman
      Siebe Gorman
      Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

      's and Heinke
      Heinke
      Heinke was a series of companies that made diving equipment in London, run by members of a Heinke family.-Timeline:*1786: Gotthilf Frederick Heinke was born in Prussia.*: He became a coppersmith....

      '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's policy towards rebreathers became merely "Here be dragons: keep out!" and remained so for a long time. In the USA, some oxygen diving clubs developed down the years. Eventually, the Cousteau-Gagnan patent time-expired
      Term of patent
      The term of a patent is the maximum period during which it can be maintained into force. It is usually expressed in number of years either starting from the filing date of the patent application or from the date of grant of the patent. In most patent laws, renewal annuities or maintenance fees have...

       and any firm could legally copy it.
  • 1956: The Silent World
    The Silent World
    The Silent World is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by the famed French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle. The Silent World is noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color...

    receives an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and the Palme d'Or
    Palme d'Or
    The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

     award at the Cannes Film Festival
    Cannes Film Festival
    The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

    .
  • 1957: The television
    Television
    Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

     series Sea Hunt
    Sea Hunt
    Sea Hunt was an American adventure television series that was aired in syndication by Ziv Television Programs from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced...

    begins. It introduces scuba diving to the television audience. It ran until 1961.
  • 1958: USS Nautilus
    USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
    USS Nautilus is the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine. She was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958...

     completes the first ever voyage under the polar ice to the North Pole
    North Pole
    The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

     and back.
  • 1958: The CMAS
    Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
    The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is the World Underwater Federation. CMAS is the international umbrella organisation for recreational diver training organisations represented in the CMAS Technical Committee and underwater sports governed by the CMAS Sport Committee...

     (World Underwater Federation) is founded in Brussels.
  • 1959: NAUI is founded by Albert Tillman
    Albert Tillman
    Albert Tillman was an American educator and underwater diver. He is widely considered to be the father of diving education.-Biography:...

     and Neal Hess.
  • 1960: Jacques Piccard
    Jacques Piccard
    Jacques Piccard was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He was one of only two people, along with Lt...

     and Lieutenant Don Walsh
    Don Walsh
    Don Walsh is an American oceanographer, explorer and marine policy specialist. He and Jacques Piccard were aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste when it made a record maximum descent into the Mariana Trench on 23 January 1960, the deepest point of the world's ocean...

    , USN, descend to the bottom of the Challenger Deep
    Challenger Deep
    The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the oceans, with a depth of to by direct measurement from submersibles, and slightly more by sonar bathymetry . It is located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands group...

    , the deepest known point in the ocean (about 10900m or 35802 feet = 6.78 miles) in the bathyscaphe
    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....

     Trieste
    Bathyscaphe Trieste
    The Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe with a crew of two, which reached a record maximum depth of about , in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam, on January 23, 1960, crewed by Jacques Piccard ...

    : see at this link and this link
    • USS Triton
      USS Triton (SSRN-586)
      USS Triton , a United States Navy nuclear-powered radar picket submarine, was the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth , doing so in early 1960. Triton accomplished this objective during her shakedown cruise while under the command of Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach, Jr...

       completes the first ever underwater circumnavigation
      Circumnavigation
      Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

       of the world.
    • In Italy, sport diving oxygen rebreathers continued to be made well into the 1960s.
  • 1962: Robert Sténuit
    Robert Sténuit
    Robert Pierre André Sténuit is a Belgian journalist, writer, and underwater archeologist. In 1962 he spent 24 hours on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea in the submersible "Link Cylinder" developed by Edwin Link, thus becoming the world's first aquanaut.- Early career :Sténuit began spelunking...

     lives aboard a tiny one-man cylinder at 200 feet for over 24 hours off Villefranche
    Villefranche
    Villefranche is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:Many French towns are called Villefranche , mostly in the south of France...

     on the French Riviera
    French Riviera
    The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...

    , becoming the world's first aquanaut
    Aquanaut
    An Aquanaut is any individual who remains underwater, exposed to the ambient pressure, long enough to come into equilibrium with his or her breathing media. Usually this is done in an underwater habitat on the seafloor for a period equal to or greater than 24 continuous hours without returning to...

    .
  • 1964: In France, Georges Beuchat
    Georges Beuchat
    Georges Beuchat was a French inventor, diver, businessman and emblematic pioneer of underwater activities and founder of Beuchat.Throughout his lifetime, Georges Beuchat never ceased developing products which have significantly enhanced underwater activity as we know it today...

     creates the Jetfins, first vented fins.
  • 1964-1969: The U.S. Navy's SEALAB
    SEALAB (United States Navy)
    SEALAB I, II, and III were experimental underwater habitats developed by the United States Navy to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time...

     underwater habitat
    Underwater habitat
    Underwater habitats are underwater structures in which people can live for extended periods and carry out most of the basic human functions of a 24-hour day, such as working, resting, eating, attending to personal hygiene, and sleeping...

     project.
  • 1965: ## Robert D. Workman of the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit
    United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit
    The United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit is the primary source of diving and hyperbaric operational guidance for the US Navy...

     (NEDU) publishes an equation for computing decompression requirements suitable for implementing in a dive computer
    Dive computer
    A dive computer or decompression meter is a device used by a scuba diver to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent profile can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness.- Purpose :...

    , rather than a pre-computed table.
    • The film version of James Bond
      James Bond
      James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

       in Thunderball
      Thunderball (film)
      Thunderball is the fourth spy film in the James Bond series starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham...

      (using both sorts of open-circuit scuba) is released and helps to make scuba diving popular.
  • 1966: PADI
    Padi
    Padi or PADI may refer to:* Padi, Chennai, India* Padi , a musical group* Paddy field, a type of cultivated land * Professional Association of Diving Instructors, a scuba organization...

     starts.
  • 1968: First known rebreather with electronic
    Electronics
    Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

     parts is made: the Electrolung.
  • 1971: Scubapro introduces the Stabilization Jacket, now in England commonly called stab jacket, and elsewhere Buoyancy Control (or Compensation) Device (BC or BCD).
  • 1972: Scubapro introduces the decompression meter (the first analogic dive computer
    Dive computer
    A dive computer or decompression meter is a device used by a scuba diver to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent profile can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness.- Purpose :...

    ).
  • 1976: ## Professor Albert A. Bühlmann
    Albert A. Bühlmann
    Professor Albert A. Bühlmann was a Swiss physician who was principally responsible for a number of important contributions to decompression science at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. His impact on diving ranged from complex commercial and...

     publishes his work extending the equations to adapt to diving at altitude and with complex gas mixes.
  • 1983: The Orca Edge (the first electronic dive computer
    Dive computer
    A dive computer or decompression meter is a device used by a scuba diver to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent profile can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness.- Purpose :...

    ) is introduced.
  • 1985: The wreck of RMS Titanic is found. Air India Flight 182
    Air India Flight 182
    Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Montreal–London–Delhi route. On 23 June 1985, the airplane operating on the route a Boeing 747-237B named after Emperor Kanishka was blown up by a bomb at an altitude of , and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace.A...

    , a Boeing 747 aircraft, is found and salvaged off Cork, Ireland
    Cork (city)
    Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...

     during the first large scale deep water (6,200 feet) air crash investigation.
  • 1986 Apeks Marine Equipment introduced the first dry sealed 1st Stage developed by Alan Clarke engineering designer, later to house a patented electronic pressure sensor named STATUS.
  • 1989: The film The Abyss
    The Abyss
    The Abyss is a 1989 science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. The original musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri...

    (including an as-yet-fictional deep-sea liquid-breathing set) helps to make scuba diving popular.
    • The Communist Bloc falls and the Cold War
      Cold War
      The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

       ends (see Fall of Communism and dissolution of the Soviet Union
      Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...

      ), and with it the risk of future attack by Communist Bloc forces including by their combat divers
      Frogman
      A frogman is someone who is trained to scuba diving or swim underwater in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combatant diver or combat swimmer....

      . After that, the world's armed forces had less reason to requisition rebreather patent
      Patent
      A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

      s submitted by civilians, and sport diving automatic and semi-automatic mixture rebreather
      Rebreather
      A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

      s start to appear. See "rebreather history" link below.
  • 1995: BSAC allows Nitrox diving and introduced Nitrox training.
  • 1996: PADI releases their Enriched Air Diver Course.
  • 1997: The film Titanic
    Titanic (1997 film)
    Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...

     helps to make underwater trips onboard MIR
    MIR (submersible)
    Mir is a self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. The project was initially developed by the USSR Academy of Sciences along with Design Bureau Lazurith. Later two vehicles were ordered from Finland...

     submersible vehicles popular.
  • 1998 August: Dives on RMS Titanic occur using Remotely Operated Vehicle controlled from the surface (Magellan 725). First ever live video broadcast from the sunken White Star liner is made.
  • 1999 July: The Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft is raised from 16,043 feet (4891 m) of water in the Atlantic Ocean during the deepest commercial search and recovery operation to date.

21st century

  • 2001 December: The BSAC allows rebreather
    Rebreather
    A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...

    s to be used in BSAC dives.

  • 2006 August 1: Equipped with an ADS 2000 atmospheric suit a US Navy diver establishes a new depth record: 2,000 feet deep (609 metres).

  • 2009 June: NAUI approves the first Standard Dress Sport Diving course. The course is conducted in Australia, bringing antique helmet diving
    Standard diving dress
    A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or hose from a surface supplied diving air pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots...

    back.

Other diving history timelines (external links)

There are other diving history chronologies at:
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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