What depth have we managed to reach into the sea by submarine or other means?

[Girly Brains]

The deepest anyone has ever reached, either in the world's oceans or otherwise, ie: even taking deep mining and offshore drilling operations into account, was in a very highly specialised vessel designed by a father and son team from Switzerland: Auguste and Jaques Piccard.

" ... a new type of probe called a bathyscaphe (meaning 'deep boat'). Christened Triest, after the Italian city in which it was built, the new device manoeuvred independently, though it did little more than just go up and down." ¹

(The much earlier 'bathysphere', designed by Otis Barton in 1930, in which he descended with his partner, Charles Beebe, to a depth of 183 metres and later, in 1934, to over 900 metres thus beginning modern deep ocean exploration, merely dangled on a long cable.)

"... in January 1960 Jaques Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh [ ... ] sank slowly to the bottom of the ocean's deepest canyon, the Mariana Trench, some 400 kilometres off Guam in the western Pacific [ ... ] It took just under four hours to fall 10,918 metres, or almost 7 miles." ¹

Wikipedia concurs (almost): "more accurate measurements made during 1995 have found the Challenger Deep to be slightly shallower, at 10,911 metres" as (again almost) it does with the dive-time: "4 hours and 48 minutes" And adds: "3 hours, 15 minutes" for the ascent. ²
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You will have possibly noted but, for the record, your other answer is largely copied and pasted without citation, from both Wikipedia and Facebook. Allow me to rectify this shortfall:-

See '1 Characteristics', at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIR_%28subm...cteristics

And '3.1 Titanic and Bismarck filming', at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIR_%28subm...ck_filming

And Facebook, at: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=286576704856

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And, someone is pulling your leg, Jo!

According to NASA ³, as well as many other reputable sources, Apollo 17 (by way of typical example) launched on December 7, 1972 at almost exactly 12:33 a.m., and made lunar landing, some four days and twenty hours later, on December 11 at almost exactly 7:55 p.m. (Though, for obvious reasons, slower on the way out, faster coming back!)
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¹ Bill Bryson. 'A Short History Of Nearly Everything'. Transworld Publishers, Copyright © Bill Bryson 2003. p244.

² Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe...ench_dives

³ NASA. Mission highlights at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo...llo17.html