American surfer, entrepreneur, adventurer, and inventor, Jack O'Neill was born On This Day, March 27, 1923.

O’Neill is widely credited with inventing the wetsuit. Wanting to surf longer in the colder waters of Northern California, he popularized the neoprene wetsuit. He established the O'Neill surf wear and gear company in 1952. He was widely known for his eye patch, which he wore due to a surfing accident.

Although O'Neill is widely perceived to be the wetsuit inventor, an investigation concluded that UC Berkeley physicist Hugh Bradner was most likely the original inventor.

Jack O'Neill was a Denver native who grew up in Oregon and southern California, where he began body surfing in the late 1930s. He received a degree in business from University of Portland in Oregon.

During World War II, O’Neill was a pilot in the Naval Air Corps before moving to San Francisco, CA, where he worked as a taxi driver, fisherman, lifeguard, longshoreman, traveling salesman, and draftsman. Duri