This Day in History (1975): Decompression Simulation

From the Feb. 5, 1975, edition of The Arabian Sun

Members of the Abqaiq Chapter of the British Sub-Aqua experience the effects of decompression at a recent training session in Ras Tanura.

The amateur divers were subjected to pressure equal to a depth of 100 feet of water for five minutes and lowly brought back to atmospheric pressure before they emerged from the Decompression Chamber at the West Pier.

The chamber is designed for treatment of a condition known as the bends, which occurs when the diver ascends too rapidly from the depths. 

Caption for top photo: Ken Baratko, Jim Fraser, and Jim Brown train inside the inner chamber. William Thompson and Tony Worth are seated in the outer chamber.

On this date

2020 — U.S. President Donald J. Trump is acquitted by the U.S. Senate in his first impeachment trial

2019 — Pope Francis becomes the first Pope to visit and perform mass in the Arabian Peninsula during a visit to Abu Dhabi

1994 — Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evans

1988 — Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges

1985 — Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is born in Madeira, Portugal

1971 — Apollo 14 mission astronauts land on the moon

1958 — The Tybee hydrogen bomb is lost by the U.S. Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and is never recovered

1958 — Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic

1939 — Francisco Franco becomes the leader of Spain

1919 — Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists

1907 — Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic

1885 — King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession

1869 — The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, the "Welcome Stranger," is found in Victoria, Australia

62 — Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy