Cousteau Born: Ocean Explorer Opens the Deep to All
He was a naval officer who'd been in a near-fatal car accident and spent his recovery swimming in the Mediterranean to rehabilitate his arms. That swimming led him to wonder why you couldn't stay underwater longer. In 1943, Jacques Cousteau and engineer Émile Gagnan built the Aqua-Lung — the first practical scuba system. Then he got a navy research vessel, renamed it Calypso, and spent the next forty years filming the ocean floor for television. By 1975, his documentaries had aired in sixty countries. He died in June 1997, eighty-seven years old, the man who showed people what was beneath the surface.
June 11, 1910
116 years ago
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