60 years ago, January 23, 1960 US navy Lt Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, son of engineer/aeronaut Auguste Piccard, succeeded to dive to the Challenger Deep the deepest point on Earth’s seabed in the Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean. Their bathyscaphe “Trieste” touched the ocean floor at a depth of 10911 meters but had a cracked window. Trieste’s descent took five hours and the two men spent barely twenty minutes on the ocean floor before undertaking the three hours 15 minutes ascent to the surface. Remarkably, Jacques Piccard had attached a Rolex dive watch, Deep Sea Special number 3, at the outside rails of the Bathyscaphe and this Rolex watch worked perfectly at all times. Photo shows Jacques Piccard in 1953 during their prototype tests near the harbor of Trieste, northeastern Italy. The adventure is described in the book “Seven Miles Down” ... (Photo: Rolexmuseum/NOAA)
