Jacques-Yves Cousteau (11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau or Captain Cousteau. Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel (a lawyer), and Élisabeth Cousteau. He discovered the sea in the creeks close to Marseilles where his family settled. He completed his preparatory studies at the prestigious Collège Stanislas in Paris. In 1930 he entered the Ecole Navale and became an officer gunner. In Toulon, where he was serving on the "Condorcet", Cousteau carried out his first underwater experiments, thanks to his friend Philippe Tailliez. In 1936, Tailliez lent him some Fernez underwater goggles, predecessors of the modern diving masks. Cousteau also belonged to the information service of the French Navy and for this reason, was sent on mission to Shanghai and Japan (1938) and in the USSR (1939). In 1930 he entered the French Navy as the head of the underwater research group. He later worked his way up the ranks as he became more famous and more useful to the navy. On 12 July 1937 he married Simone Melchior, daughter of a member of Air Liquide, by whom he had two sons, Jean-Michel (1938) and Philippe (1940). His sons took part in the adventure of the Calypso. In 1991, one year after his wife Simone's death of cancer, he married Francine Triplet. They already had a daughter Diane Cousteau (1980) and a son Pierre-Yves Cousteau (1982), born before their marriage. Cousteau died at the age of 87 of a heart attack while recovering from a respiratory illness. He is buried in the Cousteau family plot at Saint-André-de-Cubzac Cemetery, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France. He was the brother of right-wing journalist and Nazi collaborator Pierre-Antoine Cousteau (1906-1958). From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Yves_Cousteau =)