Q 01/05

What breathing apparatus did Jacques Cousteau co-invent, making modern scuba diving possible?

A) The rebreather

B) The Aqua-Lung

C) The diving bell

D) The bathysphere

Answer · why

B) The Aqua-Lung

The Aqua-Lung. It fed air from a tank on the diver's back only when he breathed in, so people could at last swim free under water for long stretches i...

Q 02/05

Cousteau was an officer in which armed service before he became a full-time oceanographer?

A) The French Air Force

B) The French Army

C) The French Navy

D) The Foreign Legion

Answer · why

C) The French Navy

The French Navy. He entered its academy in 1930, and during the occupation he spied for the Resistance, work that later earned him the Legion of Honou...

Q 03/05

With which engineer did Cousteau develop his breathing apparatus in the winter of 1942-43?

A) Emile Gagnan

B) Georges Claude

C) Louis Breguet

D) Louis Renault

Answer · why

A) Emile Gagnan

Emile Gagnan. He had designed the valve to let car engines run on gas when the occupiers took France's petrol, and the pair adapted it to feed a diver...

Q 04/05

What accident ended Cousteau's plans to become a pilot?

A) A car crash that broke both his arms

B) A parachute that failed to open

C) A skiing fall that broke his back

D) A shipboard boiler explosion

Answer · why

A) A car crash that broke both his arms

A car crash that broke both his arms. The smash nearly killed him, and the long convalescence that followed at Toulon turned the would-be flyer from t...

Q 05/05

In 1936 a friend lent Cousteau which piece of diving kit?

A) A snorkel

B) Rubber fins

C) Swimming goggles

D) A diving helmet

Answer · why

C) Swimming goggles

Swimming goggles. Philippe Tailliez handed him a pair made by the inventor Maurice Fernez when the two were posted together at Toulon, and within a fe...