JACQUES COUSTEAU

1. Underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau died yesterday in Paris at the age of 87. His environmental organisation, the Cousteau Society, said, ‘Jacques Cousteau returned yesterday to the world of silence.’ The World of Silence is the title of his great film about life under the sea.___

2. The French film-maker was also famous for his television programme, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and films about his adventures on his ship, such as the Calypso.___

3. He was also famous for exploring, filming and writing books about sea plants and animals. Cousteau fought all through his life for the environment. In 1995, for example, he was strongly against France’s nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean.___

4. He was also an inventor. In 1943 he invented the Aqua-Lung with another Frenchman, Emile Gagnan.___

5. He had many interests. He was an explorer, an adventurer, a writer, a film-maker, an inventor and a businessman. He spoke French, English and German fluently, understood Spanish and read Russian. He was a hero of modern France. He took us into worlds we never knew or thought about before.___