The underwater exploration of the sea has been a desire and a fascination for humankind since the earliest times. Divers are mentioned in Homer's Illiad; Xerxes of Persia used divers to recover treasure in 475 B.C., and divers breathing through tubes are mentioned by Aristotle in 355 B.C. Early attempts at underwater exploration made use of the diving bell and special rigid suits supplied with air from surface pumps. In 1889, Jules Verne (1828-1905), in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, describes divers moving freely to hunt in underwater forests while breathing air from iron tanks "fastened to their backs with straps." Verne claimed that the equipment had been invented by two French men.

In 1943, two French men, Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan did, in fact, invent the aqualung, a Self-Contained U nderwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) and gave birth to a new...