The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater diving equipment. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment.

Primary constraints are:

  • the provision of breathing gas to allow endurance beyond the limits of a single breath,
  • safely decompressing from high underwater pressure to surface pressure,
  • the ability to see clearly enough to effectively perform the task,
  • and sufficient mobility to get to and from the workplace.

Pre-industrial

  • Ancient Roman and Greek era: 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. Fréminet, a Frenchman from Paris. Fréminet conceived an autonomous breathing machine equipped with a helmet, two hoses for inhalation and exhalation, a suit and a reservoir, dragged by and behind the diver,
  • 1937: Georges Commeinhes, son of René, adapted his father's invention to diving and developed a two-cylinder open-circuit apparatus with demand regulator. The regulator was a big rectangular box between the cylinders. Some were made, but WWII interrupted development.

World War II

  • 1939: Georges Commeinhes offered his breathing set to the French Navy, which could not continue developing uses for it because of WWII.
  • 1947: Maurice Fargues became the first diver to die using an aqualung while attempting a new depth record with Cousteau's Undersea Research Group near Toulon.
  • Georges Beuchat in France created the first surface buoy.
  • 1948 or 1949: Rene's Sporting Goods shop in California imported aqualungs from France. Two graduate students, Andy Rechnitzer and Bob Dill obtained a set and began to use it for underwater research.
  • 1951:
  • The movie "The Frogmen" was released. It was set in the Pacific Ocean in WWII. In its last 20 minutes, it shows US frogmen, using bulky 3-cylindered aqualungs on a combat mission. This equipment use is anachronistic (in reality they would have used rebreathers), but it shows that aqualungs were available (even if not widely known of) in the US in 1951.
  • The US Navy started to develop wetsuits, but not known to the public.
  • Cousteau-type aqualungs went on sale in Canada.
  • 1952:
  • UC Berkeley and subsequent UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography physicist Hugh Bradner, invented the modern wetsuit. to the North Pole
  • The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS)
  • August 1959: YMCA SCUBA Program was founded.
  • 1968: An excursion dive to 1025 fsw was made from a saturation depth of 825 fsw at NEDU.
  • 2012 March: Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the Deepsea Challenger to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the ocean.

On 19 June 1838, in London, England, a Mr. William Edward Newton filed a patent (no. 7695: "Diving apparatus") for a diaphragm-actuated, twin-hose demand valve for divers.

However, it is believed that Mr. Newton was merely filing a patent on behalf of Dr. Guillaumet. [Note: The illustration of the apparatus in Newton's patent application is identical to that in Guillaumet's patent application; furthermore, Mr. Newton was apparently an employee of the British Office for Patents, who applied for patents on behalf of foreign applicants.]

There are other diving history chronologies at:

  • Diving Lore from its origins to the aqualung breakthrough.
  • Rebreather history
  • BSAC info
  • Rebreather Diving History
  • Museum of old scuba gear
  • History of Cave Diving

sv:Dykning#Historia