Jacques Cousteau and Pierre-Antoine was released in 1954. During the 1940s, Cousteau is credited with improving the aqua-lung design which gave birth to the open-circuit scuba technology used today. According to his first book, "" (1953), Cousteau started diving with Fernez goggles in 1936, and in 1939 used the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus invented in 1926 by Commander Yves le Prieur. Cousteau was not satisfied with the length of time he could spend underwater with the Le Prieur apparatus so he improved it to extend underwater duration by adding a demand regulator, invented in 1942 by Émile Gagnan. In 1943 Cousteau tried
James May's 20th Century chronological order. The programme is now shown on Eden, Yesterday and Dave. The theme tune is called "The Long Boot", by Jeff Knowler. Sam Wollaston writing for Guardian Unlimited described James May's 20th Century as "essentially Top Gear, masquerading as something educational" but conceded that if "teaching history can be achieved through Top Gear, then maybe that's not such a bad thing". The New Statesman thought that James May was "ill-suited to the task in hand" and described the biggest problem as May being unable to "put his wretched motors behind him". The Lancashire Telegraph wrote positively of the show