forensic science timline

  • 700

    Finger prints

  • 1248

    drowning victims or strangled

  • first treatise on systematic document examination

  • first documented uses of physical matching

  • Period: to

    The first recorded use of questioned document analysis. The development of tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context. A bullet comparison used to catch a murderer. The first use of toxicology (arsenic detection) in a jury trial.

  • Period: to

    The development of a presumptive test for blood. The first use of photography for the identification of criminals and documentation of evidence and crime scenes.The development of the first microscope with a comparison bridge.

  • Establishment of the popular practice of using the comparison microscope for bullet comparison

  • Development of the absorption-inhibition ABO blood typing technique

  • Invention of the first interference contrast microscope

  • Enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence

  • Period: to

    The 1980s ended with a few DNA firsts: the use of DNA to solve a crime and exonerate an innocent suspect, in 1986, and, in 1987, the introduction of DNA profiling in the U.S.1994, the DNA Databank legislation was enacted.