
Edmund Halley
According to legend, the first fell to the bottom of the sea by Alexander the great in the 4th century BC. So argued Aristotle. The purpose of the dive was exploration: it was necessary to find out, not did the defenders of the Phoenician city of tyre underwater obstacles. Dive Alexander the great made in a special glass apparatus.
Fanne in a diving bell with a pump proposed in 1690 the Englishman Edmund Halley - the one whose name is called comet.
As you know, the deeper a diver plunges into the sea, the greater the water pressure test. The only solution was to construct a spherical device, so that the water pressure on the sphere from all directions with equal force. Such a device, called a bathysphere, constructed in 1930, William Beebe (USA).

Charles Beebe and Otis Barton
Later, in 1948, thanks to the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccaro appeared submarine, able to act independently, without the help of the ship, to ascend and descend. The device of the bathyscaphe PACCAR more like a blimp than the sub.
The bathyscaphe Auguste of Pickar immediately embarked on 3140 meters in the Mediterranean sea. And in 1960, the son of Auguste Pickar Jacques on the device "Trieste" for the first time in the history of mankind has fallen to the bottom of the Mariana trench (Pacific ocean), which is located at a depth of 11.25 km. "Trieste" sank to a record in the history of mankind depth - 10 919 meters. The dive took about 5 hours, ascent - about 3 hours, and at the bottom of the device has been 20 minutes.

The Bathyscaphe "Trieste"