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50 free Jacques Cousteau trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Jacques Cousteau trivia quiz covers the French naval officer whose broken arms ended a flying career and sent him into the sea instead. It follows the borrowed goggles of 1936, the Aqua-Lung he developed with Emile Gagnan during the occupation, the Navy's underwater research group, the one-franc lease of a converted minesweeper called Calypso, the Palme d'Or and Oscar for The Silent World, the diving saucer, the Conshelf underwater villages, the campaign that stopped a train of nuclear waste, ten years of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, the discovery of the Britannic, and the family feuds and honours of his last decades. The easy questions are ones most people know: the ship, the invention, the hat. The medium ones ask about his films, his crew, his sons, his awards and his television career. The hard ones dig into Philippe Tailliez, the Mahdia wreck, the porpoise theory, the SP-350 Denise, the Academie francaise seat, and the John Denver song that gave its royalties to his society. It suits a marine-science class, an ocean-themed quiz night or anyone who grew up watching the red bonnet on Sunday evenings. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What breathing apparatus did Jacques Cousteau co-invent, making modern scuba diving possible?
The Aqua-Lung
It was the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.
Q 02Cousteau was an officer in which armed service before he became a full-time oceanographer?
The French Navy
He graduated from the Ecole navale as a gunnery officer in 1930 and left the Navy in 1949.
Q 03With which engineer did Cousteau develop his breathing apparatus in the winter of 1942-43?
Emile Gagnan
Gagnan's demand regulator was the key improvement; the prototypes were made by Air Liquide.
Q 04What accident ended Cousteau's planned career as a naval pilot?
A car crash that broke both his arms
Forced to change plans, he 'indulged his passion for the ocean' instead.
Q 05Which friend lent Cousteau his first pair of underwater goggles in 1936?
Philippe Tailliez
They were Fernez goggles, predecessors of modern swimming goggles; Cousteau was serving on the Condorcet in Toulon.
Q 06Cousteau's first wife Simone Melchior was also his what?
Business partner
They married in 1937 and had two sons, Jean-Michel and Philippe, who both joined the ship's adventures.
Q 07What was the first French underwater film, made by Cousteau and friends in 1942 without breathing apparatus?
Par dix-huit metres de fond (18 Metres Deep)
It shared first prize at the 1943 Congress of Documentary Film with mountaineer Marcel Ichac.
Q 08Cousteau's brother Pierre-Antoine was sentenced to death in 1946 for what?
Editing a collaborationist newspaper
The sentence for editing Je suis partout was commuted to life, and he was released in 1954.
Q 09Cousteau's apparatus improved on a 1926 breathing set by which French naval commander?
Yves le Prieur
Cousteau found the Le Prieur set gave too little time underwater, so he added Gagnan's demand regulator.
Q 10What was the GERS, which Cousteau and Tailliez were asked to set up in Toulon in 1946?
The French Navy's underwater research group
Its first fatality came in 1947 when Maurice Fargues died attempting a 120-metre depth record on an Aqua-Lung.
Q 11The 1948 exploration of a Roman wreck at Mahdia, Tunisia, was the first of what kind?
Underwater archaeology using autonomous diving
It opened the way for scientific underwater archaeology.
Q 12Whose bathyscaphe did Cousteau's ship help rescue off Dakar in 1949?
Jacques Piccard's
The FNRS-2's sphere was reused to build the FNRS-3.
Q 13Who leased the Calypso to Cousteau for one franc a year, on condition that his identity stay secret?
Thomas Loel Guinness
The British millionaire also insisted Cousteau never ask him for money; his name emerged only after Cousteau's death.
Q 21What did Cousteau's 1960 publicity campaign stop from being dumped in the Mediterranean?
Radioactive waste
Women and children sat on the railway tracks and the train carrying the waste was sent back.
Q 22What were Cousteau's Conshelf I, II and III projects of the 1960s?
Underwater 'villages' where people lived on the seafloor
He used the names Precontinent and Continental Shelf Station interchangeably.
Q 23What was Cousteau's trademark headgear on television?
A red bonnet
Q 14What was the Calypso before Cousteau converted her into a research vessel?
A Royal Navy minesweeper
Built in Seattle of Oregon pine, she then briefly served as a Maltese ferry.
Q 15What ability of porpoises did Cousteau correctly surmise in his first book, The Silent World?
Echolocation
He noticed porpoises following his ship knew the optimal course through the Strait of Gibraltar better than the crew did.
Q 16With which French director did Cousteau co-direct the 1956 film The Silent World?
Louis Malle
Malle had earlier filmed Cousteau's 1954 survey of Abu Dhabi waters for British Petroleum.
Q 17Which top prize did The Silent World win at Cannes in 1956?
The Palme d'Or
No other documentary won it until Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004; the film also took the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Q 18How much film did Cousteau's team shoot for The Silent World over two years?
25 kilometres
Only 2.5 kilometres made the finished documentary.
Q 19Which institution did Cousteau take over as director in 1957?
The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco
The museum was later blamed for introducing the 'killer algae' Caulerpa taxifolia to the Mediterranean.
Q 20To what depth could Cousteau's SP-350 'diving saucer' descend?
350 metres
Two follow-up vehicles reached 500 metres in 1965; the saucer was nicknamed Denise.
It was inherited from standard diving dress and meant to give the films a 'personalized adventure' style.
Q 24For how many years did The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau run on American television?
Ten, from 1966 to 1976
A second series, The Cousteau Odyssey, followed on public television from 1977 to 1982.
Q 25Which shark did Cousteau call 'the most dangerous of all sharks' in his 1970 book with son Philippe?
The oceanic whitetip
The book was titled The Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea.
Q 26Which singer's 1975 tribute song 'Calypso' reached No. 2 on the charts?
John Denver
He gave all the royalties to the Cousteau Society.
Q 27Which sunken Olympic-class liner, sister of the Titanic, did Cousteau locate in 1976?
HMHS Britannic
She had struck a mine in the Kea Channel in November 1916.
Q 28How did Cousteau's son and designated successor Philippe die in 1979?
In a flying-boat crash near Lisbon
His PBY Catalina crashed in the Tagus River; the elder son Jean-Michel then joined the Society for 14 years.
Q 29Which US president awarded Cousteau the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985?
Ronald Reagan
The same year his film Cousteau/Mississippi won a Primetime Emmy.
Q 30To which prestigious French body was Cousteau elected in 1988?
The Academie francaise
He took chair 17, succeeding Jean Delay; Erik Orsenna followed him.