Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his underwater adventures are still legendary. He was an outstanding explorer of the underwater world. During his life (and this great man lived for 87 years), he created many documentaries about what is happening deep under water. It was his work that opened the secrets of the world's oceans to many inhabitants. Jacques-Yves-Cousteau also invented scuba gear. And not only scuba gear …
Early years and love of filming
Jacques-Yves was born in France on June 11, 1910. He learned to swim very early, and by his youth he traveled a lot around the world.
When Cousteau turned thirteen, his father bought a video camera to capture memorable moments from the life of the family. Soon Jacques-Yves became the de facto sole owner of this camera. Obviously, this purchase of his father had a strong enough influence on the future career of Jacques-Yves. The love and passion for video filming, which arose during these years, Cousteau carried through his whole life.
Creation of scuba gear and vessel "Calypso"
In 1930, Jacques-Yves graduated from the naval school and began to serve as a midshipman in the navy. In 1942, the French fleet in Toulon was sunk by enemy forces. And Cousteau, assigned to naval reconnaissance, was tasked with filming underwater in a war zone in the Mediterranean. And the following year, he developed innovative deep diving equipment. After several experiments with equipment, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his fellow engineer Emile Gagnan developed a scuba diving suit. This spacesuit could be used for autonomous immersion in water up to 90 meters. In addition, it allowed a person to move freely at depth in all directions.
Later, Cousteau developed a few more useful things: a waterproof camera and lighting device, as well as the first system adapted for filming in water under a sufficiently high pressure.
And in 1950, Cousteau altered the minesweeper that fell into his hands and gave the updated ship the name "Calypso" - later it became famous. It was "Calypso" that was used for numerous underwater expeditions of Cousteau. And with the help of this vessel, the first underwater archaeological excavations and photographic surveys of the bottom under water at a very great depth - up to 7250 meters were carried out.
Cousteau's Underwater Odyssey
Another important year in the biography of the famous Frenchman is 1953. It was in this year that the book "In the World of Silence", written by Cousteau in collaboration with Frederic Dumas, was published. She immediately gained unprecedented popularity. In 1956, the film version of this book (made by Jacques-Yves himself) won an Oscar. The debut work was followed by other films - "The Golden Fish", "The World Without the Sun" (for which Cousteau was also awarded an Oscar statuette in 1965). And soon the same series appeared - "The Underwater Odyssey of the Cousteau Team." He has been on TV for a total of twenty years. Mainly thanks to this series, Russian viewers learned about Jacques-Yves Cousteau. In addition to him, Jacques-Yves was the author of such series of documentaries as "Oasis in Space", "Amazon", "Rediscovery of the World" and so on.
These cycles were successful for obvious reasons - they allowed people to see places on the planet that were previously inaccessible. But not all specialists and experts were one hundred percent positive about the activities of the researcher Cousteau. He was often criticized for allegedly inhumane treatment of fish.
In the early sixties of the XX century, Cousteau conducted a series of experiments aimed at the full study of life under water - for this, the projects "Precontinent" and "Underwater House" were created.
Until his very last days, the scientist spoke with active propaganda for the protection of the sea. And for this he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor - the highest award in France.
