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first motion picture
British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move -
fast motion
Etienne Marey in France develops a camera, shaped like a gun, that can take twelve pictures per second. -
kinetoscope
Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light. -
movie
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 kinetoscope
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. -
tinted motion picture
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. -
film exchange
Henry Miles sets up the first film exchange, allowing exhibitors to rent films instead of buying them. -
great train robbery
Edwin S. Porter, chief of production at the Edison studio, helps to shift film production toward story telling with such films as The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, the first western.