Timeline of underwater technology

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Pre-industrial

• Several centuries BC: (Relief carvings made at this time show Assyria
  Assyria
  
  Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
  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 civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
   and Greek
  Ancient Greece
  
  The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
   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 .
• About 500 BC: (Information originally from Herodotus
  Herodotus
  
  Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
  ): During a naval campaign the Greek Scyllis
  Scyllis
  
  Scyllis is the name of:* Scyllis , a sailor mentioned by Herodotus.* One of Dipoenus and Scyllis, the ancient Greek sculptors....
   was taken aboard ship as prisoner by the Persian King Xerxes I
  Xerxes I of Persia
  
  Xerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, was a Persian Empire of the Achaemenid Empire. X?rxes is the Greek language form of the Old Persian throne name X?ayar?a, meaning "Ruler of heroes"....
  . 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 bells is recorded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle
  Aristotle
  
  Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, 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 Eye protection that usually enclose or protect the eye area in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes....
   with windows made of the polished outer layer of tortoiseshell
  Tortoiseshell
  
  Tortoiseshell can refer to:* tortoiseshell material, made primarily from the shell of the Hawksbill turtle* a Tortoiseshell cat* a pattern used in clothing and jewellery...
  .
• 15th century: Leonardo da Vinci
  Leonardo da Vinci
  
  Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italy polymath, being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, Painting, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
   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 of Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the Regions of Italy capital of Lombardy....
  ) 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 as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , 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 liquid waste product of the body secreted by the kidneys by a process of filtration from blood called urination and excreted through the urethra....
   collector, too.
• 1531: Guglielmo de Lorena dives on two of Caligula
  Caligula
  
  Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , more commonly known by his nickname Caligula , was the third Roman Emperor, reigning from 16 March 37 until his assassination on 24 January 41....
  's sunken galleys
  Nemi ships
  
  The Nemi Ships were ships built by the Roman emperor Caligula in the first century AD at Lake Nemi. One of the ships was designed as a temple that was dedicated to Diana , the larger ship however was essentially an elaborate floating palace, which counted marble and heated, mosaic floors and plumbing such as baths among its amenities, the s...
   using a diving bell
  Diving bell
  
  A diving bell, also known as a wet bell, is a cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom like a moon pool structure, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers....
   from a design by Leonardo da Vinci
  Leonardo da Vinci
  
  Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italy polymath, being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, Painting, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
  .
• Around 1620: Cornelius Drebbel
  Cornelius Drebbel
  
  Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel was the Netherlands inventor of the first navigable submarine in 1620.In 1595 he married Sophia Jansdochter....
   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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  : see Rebreather#History of rebreathers
  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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  .
• 1772: Sieur Freminet tried to build a scuba
  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....
   device out of a barrel, but died from lack of oxygen after 20 minutes, as he merely recycled the exhaled air untreated.
• 1776: David Bushnell
  David Bushnell
  
  File:Turtle submarine 1776.jpgDavid Bushnell of Saybrook, Connecticut, was an United States inventor during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with creating the first submarine ever used in combat, while studying at Yale University in 1775....
   invented the Turtle
  Turtle (submarine)
  
  Turtle was the world's first submarine used in battle. It was invented in Connecticut in 1775 by Patriot David Bushnell as a means of attaching Naval mine to ships in a harbor....
  , first submarine to attack another ship. It was used in the American Revolution
  American Revolution
  
  The American Revolution refers to the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrew the governance of the British Empire and then rejected the British monarchy to become the sovereign United States of America....
  .

19th century

• 1800: Robert Fulton
  Robert Fulton
  
  Robert Fulton was an United States engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat. He also designed a new type of steam warship....
   builds a submarine
  Submarine
  
  A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
  , the "Nautilus"

Diving helmets appear

• 1808: Brize-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 of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
  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 consists of a full range of vessels, from patrol boats to guided missile frigates, and includes one nuclear aircraft carrier and ten nuclear submarines ....
   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 Deane 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....
   and John Deane of Whitstable
  Whitstable
  
  Whitstable is a seaside town in northeast Kent, southeast England. It is north of the city of Canterbury and west of the seaside town of Herne Bay, Kent....
   in Kent
  Kent
  
  Kent is a Counties of England 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 River Thames estuary....
   in England design the first air-pumped diving helmet
  Diving helmet
  
  File:Kask-nurka.jpgDiving helmets are worn mainly by professional diving 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
  Fireman
  
  Fireman may refer to:* Firefighter, employed that is to extinguish fires and rescue people from harms way* Fire Officer, a senior ranking firefighter or Fire Safety Inspector in the UK...
  '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.
• 1829: E.K.Gauzen, a Russian naval technician
  Technician
  
  A technician is generally someone in a technology field who has a relatively practical understanding of the general theoretical principles of that field, e.g., as compared to an engineer in that field....
   of Kronshtadt naval base (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 municipality, or subdivisions of municipalities....
   of Saint Petersburg
  Saint Petersburg
  
  Saint Petersburg is a types of inhabited localities in Russia and a federal subjects of Russia 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 is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. 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, a variation of the hat. The oldest use of helmets was by Ancient Greek soldiers, who wore thick leather or bronze helmets to protect the head from sword blows and arrows....
   strapped to a leather
  Leather
  
  Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
   suit (an overall). The bottom of the helmet is open. The helmet is strapped to the leather suit by metallic tape
  Tape
  
  Tape refers to a strip of long, thin and narrow matter, usually rolled up. Most commonly, it refers to:...
  . Gauzen's diving suit and its further modifications were used by the Russian Navy
  Navy
  
  A navy is the branch of a nation's military forces principally designated for naval warfare 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. Modern diving suits can be divided into two kinds:...
   of the Russian Navy, based on Gauzen's invention
  Invention
  
  An invention is the creation of a new configuration, composition of matter, device, or process. Some inventions are based on pre-existing models or ideas....
  , was known as "three-bolt equipment".
• 1837: Following up Leonardo's studies, and those of Halley
  Edmond Halley
  
  Edmond Halley Royal Society was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist.Biography and career ...
   the astronomer, Augustus Siebe develops standard diving dress
  Standard diving dress
  
  A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or air hose from a surface supplied diving air diving pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots....
  , a sort of surface supplied diving
  Surface supplied diving
  
  Surface supplied diving refers to diving activities using equipment supplied with breathing gas using an Umbilical cord#Other uses for the term "umbilical cord" from the surface, often from a diving support vessel but possibly, indirectly via a diving chamber....
   apparatus.
• 1837 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).

The first diving regulator

• 1838: Dr. Manuel 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.
• 1839 Canadian inventors James Eliot and Alexander McAvity of Saint John, New Brunswick
  Saint John, New Brunswick
  
  Saint John is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the oldest incorporated city in Canada. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 68,043....
   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".
• 1839: 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 Regents Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east....
   in London patented an inflatable lifting jacket for divers .
• Around 1842: The Frenchman Joseph Cabirol starts making standard diving dress
  Standard diving dress
  
  A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or air hose from a surface supplied diving air diving pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots....
  .
• 1843: Based on lessons learned from the Royal George salvage, the first diving school is set-up by the Royal Navy.
• 1849: Saint-Simon-Sicard (a chemist
  Chemist
  
  A chemist is a scientist trained in the science of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density, acidity, size and shape....
  ) made the first practical oxygen rebreather. It was demonstrated in London in 1854 .
• 1856: Wilhelm Bauer
  Wilhelm Bauer
  
  Wilhelm Bauer was the Germany inventor and engineer, who built several hand-powered submarines....
   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 Austro-Hungarian Navy, born in Rijeka , who had the idea of the first self-propelled torpedo....
  , a retired engineer of the Austro-Hungarian navy, demonstrates a design for a self-propelled torpedo
  Torpedo
  
  Note: Prior to 1900, in naval usage "torpedo" could also refer to what today is called a naval mine. For that usage, see naval mine.The modern torpedo is a self-propelled explosive projectile weapon, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater toward a target, and designed to detonate on contact or in proximity t...
   to emperor Franz Joseph.
• 1863: CSS Hunley becomes the first submarine to sink a ship, the USS Housatonic, during the American Civil War
  American Civil War
  
  The American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several Naming the American Civil War, was a civil war in the United States....
  .
• 1865: Benoit Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouze design a diving set with a backpack spherical air tank that supplied air through the first known demand regulator
  Diving regulator
  
  A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in a scuba set that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure from one or more diving cylinders....
  . The diver still walked on the seabed and did not swim. This set was called an aérophore (Greek for "air-carrier"). But air pressure tanks made with the technology of the time could only hold 30 atmospheres, and the diver had to be surface supplied; the tank was for bailout. 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 France writer Jules Verne published in 1870 in literature. 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 France author who helped pioneer the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth , From the Earth to the Moon , Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , and Around the World in Eighty Days ....
  , are wildly exaggerated fiction. Judging by Jules Verne's inaccurate attempts in the book at describing how the Rouquayrol set worked, how the demand regulator works was not generally known or had already been forgotten when he wrote the book, which was published in 1870. But Jules Verne knew about the tendency of some divers, when surfacing into rain, to want to stay underwater to keep out of the rain.
• 1866: Minenschiff, the first self-propelled (locomotive) torpedo
  Torpedo
  
  Note: Prior to 1900, in naval usage "torpedo" could also refer to what today is called a naval mine. For that usage, see naval mine.The modern torpedo is a self-propelled explosive projectile weapon, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater toward a target, and designed to detonate on contact or in proximity t...
  , developed by Robert Whitehead
  Robert Whitehead
  
  Robert Whitehead was an English engineer. He was born the son of a cotton-bleacher, in Bolton, England.He developed the first self-propelled torpedo in 1866....
   (to a design by Captain Luppis, Austrian Navy), is demonstrated for the imperial naval commission on December 21.

Gas and air cylinders appear

• Late 19th century: Industry
  Industry
  
  An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
   begins to be able to make high-pressure air and gas cylinder
  Gas cylinder
  
  A gas cylinder or Storage tank is a pressure vessel used to store gases at high pressure. Gases stored this way are called bottled gases....
  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
  Regulator
  
  Regulator may refer to:*Regulator , a device which has the function of maintaining a designated characteristic*Battery regulator, a device in a battery pack which bleeds off excess charge current to let all cells reach full charge without overcharging some cells...
   did not come back until 1939.
• 1876: An English merchant seaman, Henry Fleuss, 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.
• 1893: Louis Boutan invents the first underwater camera.

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 foundation of a bridge pier , for the construction of a concrete dam, or for the repair of ships....
   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

File:Friction alt.svgFriction is the force resisting the relative lateral motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, or material elements in contact....
 on compression; or organ congestion

Congestion

Congestion may refer to* Network congestion, an occurrence in data networking* Traffic congestion, an occurrence on roadways* Nasal congestion, the blockage of nasal passages due to swollen membranes...
 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, Missouri, 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 developed decompression sickness and his personal description 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 101,325 Pascal and formerly used as unit of pressure . For practical purposes it has been replaced by the Bar which is 100,000 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, one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet over the East River, connecting the New York City borough s of Manhattan and Brooklyn ....
  . 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 United States civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was initially designed by his father John A....
   suffered from caisson disease. (He took charge after his father John Augustus Roebling died of tetanus
  Tetanus
  
  Tetanus, also called lockjaw, 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, Anaerobic organism 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 one of the five Borough of New York City, located at the western end of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area....
  . 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. There were many songs published with "Grecian Bend" in their titles....
  .
• 1878: Paul Bert
  Paul Bert
  
  Paul Bert was a France zoologist, physiologist and politician....
   Publishes La Pression barometrique, providing the first systematic understanding of the causes of DCS.

20th century

• 1900: John P. Holland builds the first successful submarine
  Submarine
  
  A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
  , Holland (also called A-1).
• 1900: ## Leonard Hill
  Leonard Erskine Hill
  
  Sir Leonard Erskine Hill was a UK physiologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1900. His son 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 United Kingdom 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....
   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 Robert Davis , head of Siebe Gorman, inspired by the earlier Fleuss system....
  .
• 1905 Several sources, including the 1991 US Navy 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
  
  Morse can refer to:* The large buckle on the cope, one of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Catholic Church* An archaic word for walrus, a large aquatic mammal...
   and Schrader
  Schrader
  
  Schrader may refer to:People:*August Schrader , German-American inventor*Barry Schrader , American composer*Carol Schrader , American TV presenter...
   helmets.
• 1905: The first rebreather with metering valves to control the supply of oxygen is made.
• 1907: Draeger of Lübeck
  Lübeck
  
  L?beck 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 on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites....
   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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
   called the U-Boot-Retter. = "submarine rescuer".
• 1908: ## Arthur Boycott, Guybon Damant, and John Haldane
  John Haldane
  
  John Scott Haldane Order of the Companions of Honour was a Scotland physiologist famous for intrepid self-experimenting which led to many important discoveries about the human body and the nature of gases....
   publish "The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness", detailed studies on the cause and symptoms of decompression sickness, and propose a table of decompression stop
  Decompression stop
  
  A decompression stop is a period of time a SCUBA diving must spend at a constant depth in shallow water at the end of a dive to safely eliminate absorbed inert gases from the diver's body to avoid decompression sickness....
  s to avoid the effects.
• 1908: ## The Admiralty Deep Diving Committee adopts the Haldane tables for the Royal Navy, and publish Haldane's diving tables
  Dive tables
  
  Dive Tables, Decompression Tables or Tables are printed cards or booklets that allow divers to determine for a particular dive profile and Breath gas, the Decompression stops required for that dive in order to avoid decompression sickness....
   to the general public.
• 1912: ## US Navy adopts the decompression
  Decompression
  
  Decompression has several meanings:* in physics: the release of pressure and is the opposition of physical compression* in medicine and aviation: decompression sickness...
   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.
• 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, Crilley, 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.
• 1916: The Draeger model DM 2 becomes standard equipment of the German Navy
  German Navy
  
  The German Navy The German Navy traces its roots back to the Imperial Fleet of the Revolutions of 1848 and more directly to the Prussian Navy, which later evolved into the Northern German Federal Navy and became the Imperial 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: Ohgushi (he was Japanese) patents "Ohgushi's Peerless Respirator". It was a constant-flow diving and industrial open-circuit breathing set
  Breathing set
  
  *Scuba set, used underwater*Rebreather, reprocesses exhaled air*Surface supplied diving, fed from the surface*Self-contained breathing apparatus, used out of water, worn by rescue workers, firefighters, and others...
  . 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 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 minings because of mining accidents and disasters such as explosions caused by firedamp, roof falls or floods....
   handbook in 1930. They were successors to Ludwig von Bremen of Kiel
  Kiel
  
  Kiel is the Capital and most populous city of the northern Germany state Schleswig-Holstein.Kiel is approximately 90 km to the north of Hamburg....
  , who had the licence to make the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus in Germany .
• 1924 Yves le Prieur
  Yves le Prieur
  
  Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur was an officer of the French navy and an inventor.During the First World War he invented the plane-mounted Le Prieur rocket launcher for bringing down observation balloons....
   invented 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 delivered air at constant pressure without a demand regulator. He first experimented with it in 1926.
• 1926: 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

• The 1930s:
• In France, Guy Gilpatrick starts swim diving with waterproof goggles, derived from swimming goggles (which were originally intended to keep salt water out of the eyes at the surface).
• Sport spearfishing
  Spearfishing
  
  Spearfishing is a form of fishing that has been popular throughout the world for centuries. Early civilizations are familiar with the custom of spearing fish out of rivers and streams using sharpened sticks as a means of catching food....
   became common in the Mediterranean, and spearfishers gradually developed the common sport diving mask and fins and snorkel, 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  s. This practice came to the attention of the Italian Navy
  Italian Navy
  
  Italian Navy may refer to:* Italian unification navies of the Italian states* Regia Marina, the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Italy * Marina Militare, the Navy of the Italian Republic ...
  , which developed its frogman unit Decima Flottiglia MAS
  Decima Flottiglia MAS
  
  The Decima Flottiglia MAS was an Italy commando frogman unit of the Regia Marina created during the Italian fascism regime.The acronym MAS also refers to various light torpedo boats used by the Regia Marina during World War I and World War II....
   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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  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 military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
  .
• 1933:
• In France, Louis de Corlieu patents the first swimming swimfin
  Swimfin
  
  Swimfins, swim fins, shinfin fins or flippers are worn on the foot or leg and made from finlike rubber or plastic, to aid movement through the water in Water sport activities such as swimming, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, kneeboarding , riverboarding, and various types of underwater diving....
  s.
• In San Diego, California
  San Diego, California
  
  San Diego is the second largest city in California and the List of United States cities by population, located along the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast of the United States of the Western United States....
  , 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 a form of fishing that has been popular throughout the world for centuries. Early civilizations are familiar with the custom of spearing fish out of rivers and streams using sharpened sticks as a means of catching food....
  .
• 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.During the First World War he invented the plane-mounted Le Prieur rocket launcher for bringing down observation balloons....
  '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 a sport diving club is started, called the Club des Sous-l'Eau. It did not use breathing sets as far as is known. Its main aim was spearfishing
  Spearfishing
  
  Spearfishing is a form of fishing that has been popular throughout the world for centuries. Early civilizations are familiar with the custom of spearing fish out of rivers and streams using sharpened sticks as a means of catching food....
  .
• Otis Barton
  Otis Barton
  
  Frederick Otis Barton, Jr. was an United States underwater diving, 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....
   and William Beebe
  William Beebe
  
  Charles William Beebe was an United States natural history, List of explorers, and author.Born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, he went on to become Curator of Ornithology for the New York Zoological Society from 1899 to 1952....
   dive to 3028 feet using a bathysphere
  Bathysphere
  
  Bathysphere may refer to either of the following:* Bathysphere , a spherical deep-sea diving submersible which is lowered into bodies of water with a cable...
  .
• 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 consists of a full range of vessels, from patrol boats to guided missile frigates, and includes one nuclear aircraft carrier and ten nuclear submarines ....
   adopts the Le Prieur breathing set.
• 1936: On the French Riviera
  French Riviera
  
  The C?te d'Azur , often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italy border on the east to either Hy?res or Cassis in the west....
  , 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.
• 1937: ## 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 language eor?burg ?earthworks?, ?fortifications?, ....
  .
• 1939: Hans Hass
  Hans Hass
  
  Hans Hass is a diving pioneer and mainly known for his documentary film about sharks, the energon theory, and his commitment, later in life, to the protection of the environment....
   developed from the 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....
   a type of rebreather with its bag on his back and two breathing tubes but no backpack box. These sets appear much in his movies and books.

The diving regulator reappears

• 1937: Georges Commeinhes developed a two-cylinder open-circuit apparatus with demand regulator
  Diving regulator
  
  A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in a scuba set that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure from one or more diving cylinders....
  . 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 military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
   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 military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
  .
• July 1943: Commeinhes reached 53 meters (about 174 feet) using his breathing set off the coast of Marseille
  Marseille
  
  "Marseille" is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest aire urbaine, after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population recorded to be 1,516,340 at the 1999 census and estimated to be 1,605,000 in 2007....
  .
• 1944: Commeinhes died in the liberation of Strasbourg
  Strasbourg
  
  Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace Regions of France in northeastern France. With 702,412 inhabitants in 2007, its metropolitan area is the Aire urbaine....
   in Alsace
  Alsace
  
  Alsace is the fourth-smallest of the 26 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the sixth-most densely populated region in France , with 222 inhabitants per km? ....
  . His invention was submerged by Cousteau's invention.
• Christian J. Lambertsen
  Christian J. Lambertsen
  
  Christian James Lambertsen, is an United States environmental medicine and diving medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the US Navy frogmen's rebreathers in the early 1940s for underwater warfare....
   of the United States designed a 'Self-Contained Underwater Oxygen 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  . It was the first device to be called SCUBA.
• 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  s for some of the best known and most spectacular war actions: see Human torpedo
  Human torpedo
  
  Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes were secret naval weapons of World War II. The name is most commonly used to refer to the weapons that Italy and later Britain deployed in the Mediterranean Sea and used to attack ships in enemy harbours....
  .
• Hans Hass
  Hans Hass
  
  Hans Hass is a diving pioneer and mainly known for his documentary film about sharks, the energon theory, and his commitment, later in life, to the protection of the environment....
   later said that during WWII
  World War II
  
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
   the German diving gear firm Dräger
  Dräger
  
  The Dr?gerwerk AG is a German company based in L?beck with a focus on breathing and protection equipment as well as gas detection and analysis systems....
   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....
   with a demand regulator. It may have been a separate invention, or it may have been copied from a captured Commeinhes-type set.
• 1943: Jacques Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a France naval officer, exploration, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water....
   and Emile Gagnan
  Emile Gagnan
  
  ?mile Gagnan was a Canada engineer and co-inventor of the Diving regulator used for the first Scuba set in 1943. The demand-valve, or regulator, was designed for regulating gas in gas-generator engines, but was found to be excellent for regulating air-supply under varied pressure conditions....
   invent and make an open-circuit diving breathing set, using a demand regulator which Gagnan modified from a demand regulator used to let a petrol-driven car run on a big bag of coal-gas carried on its roof during wartime shortages of petrol. Cousteau had his first dives with it. He made two more aqualungs: there were now 3, one each for Cousteau and his first two diving companions Frédéric Dumas
  Frédéric Dumas
  
  Fr?d?ric Dumas was with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez a team of three, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They empassioned for diving, developed the diving regulator with the aid of tne engineer ?mile Gagnan....
   and Taillez. His aqualung remained a secret until the south of France was liberated
  World War II
  
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
  . This type of breathing set
  Breathing set
  
  *Scuba set, used underwater*Rebreather, reprocesses exhaled air*Surface supplied diving, fed from the surface*Self-contained breathing apparatus, used out of water, worn by rescue workers, firefighters, and others...
   was later named the "Aqua-Lung
  Aqua-lung
  
  Aqualung was the original name for the first open-circuit Scuba sets, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve....
  ". 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 colloquialism or generic description for a general class of Good or Service , rather than the specific meaning intended by the trademark's holder....
   and spelt "aqualung" since at least the 1950s, including in the BSAC
  BSAC
  
  BSAC can stand for:*Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center*Bit Sliced Arithmetic Coding, audio coding from MPEG-4 Part 3*British South Africa Company...
  's publications and training manuals, and describing scuba diving as "aqualunging".
• Early 1944: the USA government, to try to stop men from being drowned in sunken army tank
  Tank
  
  A tank is a Continuous track, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and Military tactics Offensive and defence 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 connected to a mouthpiece. This set was stated to be made from 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 original type, form, or instance of something serving as a typical example, basis, or standard for other things of the same category....
  ; it may have arisen around 1943. In an example recovered in 2003 form a submerged Sherman tank in the Bay of Naples the cylinder was bound round in tape and tied to a lifejacket. 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 terms....
   landings in June 1944, but were used in the invasion of the south of France and in the South Pacific war.
• 1944: In October, Frédéric Dumas
  Frédéric Dumas
  
  Fr?d?ric Dumas was with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez a team of three, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They empassioned for diving, developed the diving regulator with the aid of tne engineer ?mile Gagnan....
   reaches 62 meters (about 200 feet) with a Cousteau aqualung.
• 1945: Cousteau's first aqualung is destroyed by a mis-aimed artillery
  Artillery
  
  Artillery is a military Combat Arms which employs any apparatus, machine, an assortment of tools or instruments, a system or systems used as weapons for the discharge of large projectiles in combat as a major contribution of fire power within the overall military capability of an armed force....
   shell in an Allied landing on the French Riviera
  French Riviera
  
  The C?te d'Azur , often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italy border on the east to either Hy?res or Cassis in the west....
  : that left two. Afterwards, he had more aqualungs made and gathered more men and taught them to aqualung dive. In Toulon
  Toulon
  
  Toulon is a city in southern France and a large military harbour on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-C?te-d'Azur regions of France, Toulon is the Prefectures in France of the Var departments of France, in the former provinces of France of Provence....
   he started an unofficial mine-clearing and wreck-clearing unit. Later this unit was made official. One of the men who he trained was Broussard
  Broussard
  
  Broussard can refer to:...
  , who founded the first post-WWII
  World War II
  
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
   scuba diving club, the Club Alpin Sous-Marin.

Postwar

• The public first hears about frogmen.
• The first known underwater diving club in Britain, "The Amphibians Club", is formed in Aberdeen
  Aberdeen
  
  Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous City status in the United Kingdom and one of Scotland's 32 Local government in Scotland Council areas of Scotland....
   by Ivor Howitt (who modified an old civilian gas mask
  Gas mask
  
  A gas mask is a mask worn over the face to protect the wearer from inhaling "airborne pollutants" and toxic gasses. 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....
  ) and some friends. They called underwater diving "fathom
  Fathom
  
  A fathom is a Units of measurement of length in the Imperial unit , used especially for measuring the depth of water.There are 2 yards in a fathom....
  eering", to distinguish from jumping into water
  Diving
  
  Diving refers to the sport of performing acrobatics while jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard of a certain height. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games....
   .
• 1946:
• Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a France naval officer, exploration, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water....
  -type aqualung
  Aqua-lung
  
  Aqualung was the original name for the first open-circuit Scuba sets, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve....
  s go on sale in France.
• Yves Le Prieur
  Yves le Prieur
  
  Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur was an officer of the French navy and an inventor.During the First World War he invented the plane-mounted Le Prieur rocket launcher for bringing down observation balloons....
   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
  Diving regulator
  
  A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in a scuba set that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure from one or more diving cylinders....
  .
• 1948: Auguste Piccard sends the first bathyscaphe
  Bathyscaphe
  
  A bathyscaphe is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea diving 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 United Kingdom company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects....
   and/or Heinke
  Heinke
  
  Charles Edwin Heinke was the son of a Prussian immigrant to England. His father Gottlif Frederick Heinke who was a coppersmith and had a great business at 103 Great Portland Street, London, since 1819....
   start making Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a France naval officer, exploration, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water....
  -type aqualungs in England. 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"
  Aqua-lung
  
  Aqualung was the original name for the first open-circuit Scuba sets, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve....
  .
• Ted Eldred
  Ted Eldred
  
  Edward Francis Eldred was a pioneer of scuba diving in Australia. He invented the Porpoise .He was born in Melbourne in 1920. As a young man he lived by the sea near Sorrento, Victoria on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne....
   in Australia starts designing the first open-circuit single-hose
  Single-hose
  
  Single-hose refers to some types of diving regulator. See Diving regulator#Two stage, single hose....
   scuba set known: see Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
  Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
  
  Porpoise is a tradename for Scuba set developed by Ted Eldred in Australia and made there from the late 1940's onwards. It included:...
  .
• 1948 or 1949: Rene's Sporting Goods shop in California
  California
  
  California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
   imports aqualungs from France. Hollywood sees them and gets interested.
• 1949: Otis Barton
  Otis Barton
  
  Frederick Otis Barton, Jr. was an United States underwater diving, 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....
   makes record dive to 4,500 feet in his Benthoscope
  Benthoscope (vessel)
  
  The Benthoscope was a deep sea submersible designed by Otis Barton after the Second World War. He hired the Watson-Stillman Company, who had earlier constructed his and William Beebe's bathysphere to produce the new design of deep diving vessel, which was named from the Greek prefix -benthos or bottom....
  .
• 1950: Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a France naval officer, exploration, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water....
  -type aqualungs go on sale (but very expensive) to industry and civilians in Britain
  United Kingdom
  
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
  . Siebe Gorman
  Siebe Gorman
  
  Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a United Kingdom company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects....
   made it 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: Hook, London, Tolworth, Ewell, Surbiton, Claygate, Epsom, Leatherhead, Esher, and Kingston upon Thames....
  .
• 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.
• 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 military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
  . In its last 20 minutes, it shows USA frogmen
  Frogman
  
  A frogman is someone who is trained to dive or swim in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combat swimmer....
  , 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  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
  
  Wetsuits help to preserve body heat by trapping a layer of water against the skin; this water is consequently warmed by body heat and acts as an insulator....
  s, but not known to the public. .
• 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 France naval officer, exploration, 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 France naval officer, exploration, 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 .He was born in Melbourne in 1920. As a young man he lived by the sea near Sorrento, Victoria on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne....
   in Australia starts making for public sale the Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
  Porpoise (make of scuba gear)
  
  Porpoise is a tradename for Scuba set developed by Ted Eldred in Australia and made there from the late 1940's onwards. It included:...
  . This was the world's first commercially available single-hose scuba unit and was the forerunner of most sport SCUBA equipment produced today.

Public interest in scuba diving takes off

• 1953: The National Geographical Society Magazine publishes an article about Cousteau's underwater archaeology at Grand Congloué island near Marseille, and in French-speaking countries a diving film called Épaves (Shipwrecks) came out. That 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 United Kingdom company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects....
   and Heinke
  Heinke
  
  Charles Edwin Heinke was the son of a Prussian immigrant to England. His father Gottlif Frederick Heinke who was a coppersmith and had a great business at 103 Great Portland Street, London, since 1819....
   kept aqualungs expensive, and restrictions on exporting currency
  Currency
  
  A currency is a Medium of exchange, facilitating the trade of goods and/or Service s. It is coins and paper bills used as money. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value....
   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
  Regulator
  
  Regulator may refer to:*Regulator , a device which has the function of maintaining a designated characteristic*Battery regulator, a device in a battery pack which bleeds off excess charge current to let all cells reach full charge without overcharging some cells...
  s made by Siebe Gorman
  Siebe Gorman
  
  Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a United Kingdom 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 dive or swim in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combat swimmer....
  's drysuits
  Diving suit
  
  A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. Modern diving suits can be divided into two kinds:...
   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
  Skindiving
  
  Skindiving may refer to:* Freediving, or breath-hold underwater diving* Scuba diving, as distinct from standard diving in an old-type heavy suit ...
  . 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 plimsoles.
• Captain Trevor Hampton founds the British Underwater Centre at Dartmouth
  Dartmouth, Devon
  
  Dartmouth is a town in Devon in the south-west of England. 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 Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
   in England.
• Rene's Sporting Goods shop (now owned by Spirotechnique
  Spirotechnique
  
  Spirotechnique was a large and well-known French firm which made scuba gear and other breathing apparatus, including the aqualung....
  ) becomes U.S. Divers, now a leading maker of diving equipment.
• 15 October 1953: The BSAC
  BSAC
  
  BSAC can stand for:*Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center*Bit Sliced Arithmetic Coding, audio coding from MPEG-4 Part 3*British South Africa Company...
   is founded.
• 1954: USS Nautilus
  USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
  
  USS Nautilus was the world's first operational Nuclear marine propulsion submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole....
  , 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 was created by Albert Tillman and Bev Morgan.
• 1954: In the USA, MSA
  MSA
  
  MSA may refer to:...
   advertises (in Popular Mechanics
  Popular Mechanics
  
  Popular Mechanics is an United States magazine devoted to science and technology. It was 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....
  " magazine publishes an item "Making an Aqualung".
• 1955: Louis Malle
  Louis Malle
  
  Louis Malle was a French film director, working in both French and English....
  , a young film maker of 23, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau shoot The Silent World
  The Silent World
  
  The Silent World is a Cinema of France documentary film released in 1956 in film, co-directed by the famed French oceanography Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle....
  , 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....
   to show the ocean depths in color
  Color photography
  
  Color photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors which are produced chemically during the Photographic processes phase....
  .
• 1956: Wetsuit
  Wetsuit
  
  Wetsuits help to preserve body heat by trapping a layer of water against the skin; this water is consequently warmed by body heat and acts as an insulator....
  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
  Diving regulator
  
  A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in a scuba set that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure from one or more diving cylinders....
   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 in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne. Hexham is the administrative centre for the Tynedale district, although in terms of population, Prudhoe is now Tynedale's largest town....
   in Northumberland
  Northumberland
  
  Northumberland is a Counties of England in the North East England of England. The non-metropolitan counties of England of Northumberland borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham to the south and Tyne and Wear to the south east, as well as having a border with the Scottish Borders council area to the north, and nearly eighty miles of Nort...
  , 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 United Kingdom company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects....
  's and Heinke
  Heinke
  
  Charles Edwin Heinke was the son of a Prussian immigrant to England. His father Gottlif Frederick Heinke who was a coppersmith and had a great business at 103 Great Portland Street, London, since 1819....
  '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
  BSAC
  
  BSAC can stand for:*Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center*Bit Sliced Arithmetic Coding, audio coding from MPEG-4 Part 3*British South Africa Company...
  '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 and any firm could legally copy it.
• 1956: The Silent World
  The Silent World
  
  The Silent World is a Cinema of France documentary film released in 1956 in film, co-directed by the famed French oceanography Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle....
   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 to competing films at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee....
   award at the Cannes Film Festival
  Cannes Film Festival
  
  The Cannes Film Festival , founded in 1946, is one of the world's oldest, most influential and prestigious film festivals alongside Venice Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival....
  .
• 1957: The television
  Television
  
  Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
   series Sea Hunt
  Sea Hunt
  
  Sea Hunt was an United States television adventure series from syndicator Ziv TV that ran from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in Television syndication for decades afterwards....
   begins. It introduces scuba diving to the television audience. It ran until 1961.
• 1958: USS Nautilus
  USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
  
  USS Nautilus was the world's first operational Nuclear marine propulsion submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole....
   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 the Earth's surface....
   and back.
• 1958: The CMAS (World Underwater Federation) is founded in Brussels.
• 1959: NAUI is founded by Albert Tillman
  Albert Tillman
  
  Albert Tillman was an United States educator and underwater diving. He is widely considered to be the father of diving education....
   and Neal Hess.
• 1960: Jacques Piccard
  Jacques Piccard
  
  Jacques Piccard was a Switzerland oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He is 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 Bathyscaphe Trieste when it made a record-breaking descent into the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the world's oceans....
  , USN, descend to the bottom of the Challenger Deep
  Challenger Deep
  
  The Challenger Deep is the deepest surveyed point in the oceans, with a depth of about 11,000 metres . The exact depth is unknown. It is located in the Mariana Islands group at the southern end of the Mariana Trench....
  , 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 diving 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 was a Switzerland-designed deep-diving research bathyscaphe with a crew of two, which reached a record-breaking depth of about , in the deepest part of any ocean on Earth, the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, in January 1960....
  : see at and
• USS Triton
  USS Triton (SSRN-586)
  
  USS Triton , a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered radar picket submarine, was the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth, accomplishing this during her shakedown cruise in early 1960....
   completed the first ever underwater circumnavigation
  Circumnavigation
  
  To circumnavigate a place, such as an island, a continent, or the Earth, is to travel all the way around it by boat or ship. More recently, the term has also been used to cover aerial round-the-world flights....
   of the world.
• In Italy, sport diving oxygen rebreathers continued to be made well into the 1960s.
• 1965: ## Robert D. Workman of the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit (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 diving to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent rate can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness....
  , rather than a pre-computed table.
• The film version of James Bond
  James Bond
  
  James Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections....
   in Thunderball
  Thunderball (film)
  
  Thunderball is the fourth spy film in the James Bond James Bond Dr. No , From Russia With Love and Goldfinger , and the fourth to star Sean Connery as the fictional character Secret Intelligence Service agent James Bond ....
   (using both sorts of open-circuit scuba) is released and helps to make scuba diving popular.
• 1966: PADI
  Padi
  
  Padi or PADI can refer to:* Professional Association of Diving Instructors, diver training organization* Paddy field * Padi, Chennai, satellite township of Chennai, India...
   starts.
• 1968: First known rebreather with electronic
  Electronics
  
  Electronics refers to the flow of charge through nonmetal electrical conductor , whereas electrical refers to the flow of charge through metal electrical conductor....
   parts is made: the .
• 1971: Scubapro
  Scubapro
  
  Scubapro is a manufacturer of scuba gear. It was founded in the United States in 1963 by Gustav Dalla Valle and Dick Bonin and is well-known for making diving regulators and Buoyancy compensator s....
   introduces the Stabilization Jacket, now in England commonly called stab jacket, and elsewhere Buoyancy Control (or Compensation) Device (BC or BCD).
• 1972: Scubapro
  Scubapro
  
  Scubapro is a manufacturer of scuba gear. It was founded in the United States in 1963 by Gustav Dalla Valle and Dick Bonin and is well-known for making diving regulators and Buoyancy compensator s....
   introduces the decompression meter (the first analogic dive computer
  Dive computer
  
  A dive computer or decompression meter is a device used by a Scuba diving to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent rate can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness....
  ).
• 1983: The Orca Edge (the first electronic dive computer
  Dive computer
  
  A dive computer or decompression meter is a device used by a Scuba diving to measure the time and depth of a dive so that a safe ascent rate can be calculated and displayed so that the diver can avoid decompression sickness....
  ) is introduced.
• 1983: ## Professor Albert Bühlmann publishes his work extending the equations to adapt to diving at altitude and with complex gas mixes.
• 1985: The wreck of RMS Titanic
  RMS Titanic
  
  The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was an Olympic class ocean liner superliner owned by the White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland....
   is found. Air India Flight 182
  Air India Flight 182
  
  Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Toronto-Montr?al-London-Delhi-Bombay route. On 23 June 1985 the Boeing 747#747-200 operating on the route was blown up in midair by a bomb in Irish airspace in the single deadliest terrorist attack involving an aircraft to that date....
  , a Boeing 747 aircraft, is found and salvaged off Cork, Ireland
  Cork, Ireland
  
  Cork, Ireland is a term which may refer to the following places in southern Ireland, depending on context.* Cork * County Cork* Metropolitan Cork...
   during the first large scale deep water (6,200 feet) air crash investigation.
• 1989: The film The Abyss
  The Abyss
  
  The Abyss is a science fiction film that was written and directed by James Cameron in 1989 in film. It stars Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn....
   (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 of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
   ends (see Fall of Communism and Collapse of the Soviet Union), 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 dive or swim in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combat swimmer....
  . After that, the world's armed forces had less reason to requisition rebreather patent
  Patent
  
  A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a term of patent in exchange for a 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  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 United States romantic film directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic....
   helps to make underwater trips onboard MIR
  MIR (submersible)
  
  Mir is a self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. The project was initially developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences along with Design Bureau Lazurith....
   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.
• 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 humans cannot safely breathe from the atmosphere....
  s to be used in BSAC dives.

Other diving history timelines (external links)

• from its origins to the aqualung breakthrough.