1646: Kircher, a German Jesuit scientist, builds a magic
lantern to project images.
1794: Opening of the first Panorama, forerunner of movie theaters.
1824: British physicist Peter Mark Roget describes persistence
of vision.
1825: Persistence of vision shown with thaumatrope, a disk
with image on each side.
1828: In Belgium, the anorthoscope is a forerunning of a motion
picture projector.
1832: Phenakistoscope in Belgium and stroboscope in Austria
herald the movies.
1834: The zoetrope, a toy using a rotating drum, gives the
illusion of movement.
1861: Kinematoscope by U.S. inventor Coleman Sellers is a crude
movie projector.
1875: In France, the praxinoscope, an optical toy, a step toward
movies.
1877: Eadweard Muybridge photographs horse in motion, forerunner
of movies.
1879: An electric telescope is designed to capture moving images.
1880: Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope projects photographic
images in motion.
1882: Etienne-Jules Marey designs a rifle-like camera that
shoots 12 photos per second.
1887: Thomas Edison assigns engineer W.K.L. Dickson to create
a motion picture camera.
1888: Edison tries to record movies on a wax cylinder like
his phonograph.
1888: Experimental motion pictures are recorded on sensitized
paper rolls.
1889: William Dickson reportedly synchronizes motion pictures
with phonograph.
1890: In England, Friese-Greene builds the Kinematograph camera
and projector.
1891: Edison’s assistant, Dickson, builds the Kinetograph
motion picture camera.
1892: Edison and Dickson construct the peep-show Kinetoscope,
46 frames per second.
1893: Dickson builds a motion picture studio in New Jersey.
1894: In New York City, Edison opens a Kinetoscope movie parlor.
1895: Vitascope adds intermittent motion loop to movie projector.
1895: France’s Lumière brothers’ portable
movie camera can also print, project films.
1895: In Berlin, Max and Emil Skladanowsky show a 15-minute
motion picture.
1895: In a Paris cellar, a paying audience sees Lumière’s
motion pictures projected.
1896: Edison Vitascope, designed by Thomas Armat, brings film
projection to U.S.
1896: In Britain, the motion picture projector is manufactured.
1897: World’s first cinema is built in Paris.
1897: Edison patents a movie projector.
1898: Lumière boasts a catalogue of more than one thousand
short films.
1900: Much of Europe and Japan begin to make movies.
1902: French magician George Méliès’ A
Trip to the Moon has trick photography.
1902: Los Angeles theater succeeds by showing movies only,
no vaudeville.
1902: Vivaphone, Chronophone, and Kinetophone synchronize sound
and film.
1903: The Life of an American Fireman begins narrative documentary,
editing.
1903: The Great Train Robbery begins narrative fiction filming.
1905: In Pittsburgh the Nickelodeon movie theater opens; concept
grows fast.
1905: In France, Pathé colors black and white films
by machine.
1906: Motion picture screen aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1 accepted
as international standard.
1906: Kinemacolor movie process enjoys some success.
1906: A cartoon film is produced, Humorous Phases of Funny
Faces.
1906: An experimental sound-on-film motion picture.
1907: Bell and Howell develop a film projection system.
1907: Multiple-reel films are produced.
1908: A trust, the Motion Picture Patents Co., is set up to
control U.S. movie making.
1908: Moviemakers set up shop in California at a place called
Hollywood.
1908: Safety film replaces highly flammable cellulose nitrate
base for stills.
1908: D.W. Griffith starts to introduce variety in movie film
composition.
1909: In France, Charles Pathé creates the newsreel.
1909: Hollywood sets up its first self-censorship office.
1910: Sweden’s Elkstrom invents “flying spot” camera
light beam.
1910: Movie “stars” foreshadowed when Florence
Lawrence becomes “the Vitagraph Girl.”
1911: Photoplay, first movie fan magazine.
1911: Keystone Kops’ folly delights audiences, especially
cop-fearing immigrants.
1912: Motorized movie cameras replace hand cranks.
1912: Queen Elizabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt is first feature-length
movie.
1913: Hollywood becomes America’s movie production center.
1913: Movies get longer; Quo Vadis runs for nine reels, about
two hours.
1913: Gertie the Dinosaur, the first animated cartoon, requires
10,000 drawings.
1914: Mack Sennett fills the screen with slapstick and skimpy
costumes.
1914: Charlie Chaplin creates cinema’s most enduring
character, the little tramp.
1914: Cliffhanging serials like The Perils of Pauline enthrall
movie audiences.
1914: From Hollywood, a full-length comedy, Tillie’s
Punctured Romance.
1914: Grand cinema houses start to replace nickelodeons.
1915: The Birth of a Nation sets new standards, for film art,
but is racist.
1915: Star system. Charlie Chaplin goes from $125 to $10,000
weekly.
1917: A Chicago movie theater adds a new feature: air conditioning.
1920: German film expressionism is established with The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
1920: After 21 years, Japanese moviemakers start using actresses.
1920: Sound recording is done electrically. “Talkies” will
follow.
1922: Nervous Hollywood renews self-regulation with the Hays
Office.
1922: Herbert Kalmus introduces two-color Technicolor process.
1922: 40 million movie tickets sold weekly in the U.S.
1922: Germany’s UFA produces a film with an optical sound
track.
1922: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North is the first
feature film documentary.
1923: Reversal film eliminates negatives.
1923: Kodak introduces home movie equipment.
1924: The first Walt Disney cartoon, Alice’s Wonderland.
1925: Western Electric creates Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc film
system.
1925: Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin establishes
film montage technique.
1925: From France, a wide-screen film.
1925: Ben-Hur costs nearly $4 million, an unheard-of price
to make a movie.
1925: Warner Bros. starts experiments to make “talkies.”
1926: In U.S., first 16mm feature movie is shot.
1926: Rudolf Valentino’s funeral hysteria, suicides,
show emotional power of film.
1926: Don Juan, with sound effects but no spoken dialogue,
premieres.
1927: The film Napoleon tries wide-screen and multi-screen
effects.
1927: Jolson’s The Jazz Singer is the first
popular “talkie.”
1927: Movietone offers newsreels in sound.
1927: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
1928: First Oscars: Wings, Emil Jannings, Janet Gaynor.
1928: Disney adds sound to cartoons; Steamboat Willie introduces
Mickey Mouse.
1929: 24 frames/second established as sound motion picture
camera standard.
1929: Hollywood makes its first original musical, The Broadway
Melody.
1929: The film Hallelujah introduces post-synchronization.
1930: Hollywood tightens self-censorship with the Motion Picture
Code.
1930: Movie cartoon character Mickey Mouse gets a comic strip.
1932: Disney adopts a three-color Technicolor process for cartoons.
1932: Flowers and Trees, first to use 3-color Technicolor,
also first Oscar for cartoon.
1932: For home movies: 8 mm cameras and film.
1933: Drive-in movie theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.
1935: Two-way speaker system becomes a standard for cinemas.
1937: Film One Hundred Men and a Girl puts nine music channels
on one track.
1938: The first full-length animated film, Disney’s Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs.
1938: More than 80 million movie tickets (65% of population)
sold in U.S. each week.
1939: Year of the blockbusters: Gone With the Wind, Wizard
of Oz, Stagecoach.
1940: Fantasia introduces a kind of stereo sound to American
movie goers
1941: Citizen Kane experiments with flashback, camera movement,
sound techniques.
1946: In France, the debut of the Cannes Film Festival.
1946: Italian cinema counters Hollywood glitz with neo-realism
in Open City.
1947: U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee attacks entertainment
industry.
1949: Supreme Court decision splits movie studios from theater
chains.
1949: Hollywood studios begin to produce television programs.
1950: More than 3 billion tickets sold at U.S. movie theaters.
1951: Cinerama will briefly dazzle with a wide, curved screen
and three projectors.
1951: FCC approves test in Chicago of Phonevision subscription
TV, $1 for a movie.
1952: Studio control of stars erodes as James Stewart signs
independent contract.
1952: 3-D movies offer thrills to the audience.
1952: The Supreme Court gives movies First Amendment free speech
protection.
1953: Hollywood hopes wide-screen CinemaScope will counteract
TV.
1953: The Moon Is Blue uses the word “virgin,” leads
to picket lines.
1954: Disney ends freeze, leads Hollywood studios in producing
television programs.
1955: Most movie studios open their vaults for television rentals,
sales.
1955: Todd-AO process for musicals continues Hollywood’s
wide-screen efforts.
1956: Foreign language films get an Oscar category. This year:
Italy’s La Strada.
1958: Number of drive-in theaters in U.S. peaks near 5,000.
1958: Cinéma verité (also called “direct
cinema”) documentary technique.
1960: A movie gets Smell-O-Vision, but the public just sniffs.
1963: In Kansas City, the first multiplex: two theaters side
by side.
1965: Kodak offers Super 8 film for home movies.
1967: Pre-recorded movies on videotape sold for home TV sets.
1968: Hollywood adopts an age-based rating system: G, PG, R,
X.
1970: U.S. movie tickets drop from 3 billion plus in 1950 to
under 1 billion.
1970: Canadian filmmakers invent giant projector IMAX system.
1973: Super 8 home movie film adds magnetic striping for sound.
1974: Dolby Labs demonstrates Surround Sound and Pro Logic
for movies.
1976: Dolby stereo goes into movie theaters.
1980: In France, a holographic film shows a gull flying.
1980: A former movie star, Ronald Reagan, is elected president
of the United States.
1982: Return of the Jedi plays in theaters equipped for its
THX sound system.
1985: Hollywood amends ratings; now G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17,
X.
1987: From Japan, the anime sci-fi cartoon film.
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? feature film combines live action,
animation.
1990: Dick Tracy is first 35 mm feature film with a digital
soundtrack.
1991: Motion Picture Assoc. says only 16% of American movies
fit for kids under 13.
1991: Denver viewers can order movies at home from list of
more than 1,000 titles.
1991: Moviegoers are astonished by the computer morphing in
Terminator 2.
1991: For the first time a cartoon, Beauty and the Beast, is
up for best picture Oscar.
1993: IMAX 3D digital sound system goes into a New York theater.
1993: Computer dinosaurs roam in Jurassic Park with DTS Digital
Sound.
1993: Hollywood film edited on non-linear editing computer
system.
1994: Forrest Gump uses digital photo tricks to insert person
into historical footage.
1995: Toy Story is the first totally digital feature-length
film.
1998: About 800 drive-in theaters still remain open in the
United States.
1998: The Last Broadcast is the first desktop feature film.
1999: $31,000 Blair Witch Project shows potential of low cost
video production.
2001: Movie box office receipts in U.S. climb to $8.4 billion.
2001: From Shrek to Harry Potter to Crouching
Tiger, special
effects rock audiences.
2001: Final Fantasy, a life-like computer-generated feature
film.
2002: Feature film, Attack of the Clones, produced entirely
in digital format.
2002: DVD burners are popular for downloading movies.
2003: The IP phone is a mini-computer that can transmit movies.
2003: An estimated one million camcorders worldwide.
2003: International piracy of films is rampant.
2003:Hollywood releases heavy on special effects, violence,
sequels.
2004: Film, The Passion of the Christ, is praised, criticized.
2004:Fahrenheit 9/11 breaks all box office records for documentaries.
