film timeline

  • the emergence of motion picture

    British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion
  • creating motion picture

    Etienne Marey in France develops a camera, shaped like a gun, that can take twelve pictures per second.
  • creating light

    Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light.
  • kinetoscope

    Thomas Edison displays his Kinetoscope at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago and receives patents for his movie camera, the Kinetograph, and his peepshow device.
  • coin-operated movie

    Coin-operated Kinetoscopes appear in a New York City amusement arcade.
  • motion picture commercial

    Two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere patent a combination movie camera and projector, capable of projecting an image that can be seen by many people. In Paris, they present the first commercial exhibition of projected motion pictures.
  • projector

    Thomas Edison's company, using a projector built by Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins, projects hand-tinted motion pictures in New York City.
  • thomas edison

    Edison files the first of many patent infringement suits, claiming that others are using equipment based on his Kinetograph camera.