Jacques-Yves Cousteau
(Captain Cousteau)
Kelsey Pietrangelo
Biology - Period 4
Doc Simmons
Jacques-Yves Cousteau is known as “explorer of the world of science.” He is the inventor of SCUBA and independent deep-sea diving and underwater photography. Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910 and died on June 25, 1997. Cousteau was born to an upper class family and lived a luxurious childhood. His father was a lawyer for many people including a billionaire. Cousteau had always been interested in water, films and machines since he was a little boy. At the age of 13 he started film making, but enjoyed anything that had to do with the sea even more. The first machine he ever built was when he was 11, and it was a model of a crane. When he was 13, he was able to make a battery-operated car. Because he was so interested in films and movie making, he saved all of his money and bought himself a home movie camera at a very young age. Cousteau had started off in a regular school with children like himself, but he always found himself to be bored most of the time. Because of this, he acted up and got in trouble. His parents were very strict and couldn’t take it anymore so they sent him to boarding school. In boarding school he did very well and continued to excel and then graduate. After he graduated, he went on to be a pilot, but soon had to give up his dream in 1936. He got into a serious car accident causing him not to be able to pilot any longer.
In 1936, Cousteau first knew he was interested in water because when he went swimming with goggles in Toulan, he saw how interesting it was to be able to see everything underwater, such as coral, fish and many other living organisms. This attraction was the beginning of a life long love and career for Cousteau. He began to focus on underwater photography during World War II because he liked to take pictures of the underwater shipwrecks. Back then; there was no such thing as an underwater camera, so he...