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The science of fingerprint identification began nearly 4,000 years ago. Chinese historian Kia Kung-Yen wrote of fingerprints used in an older method of preparing contracts. Fingerprints are used to determine someone's identity.
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The first forensic science manual was published by the Chinese, it was also the first known record of medical knowledge being used to solve criminal cases.
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The first pathology reports were published in the 1600's.
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The first recorded instance of physical evidence was a torn edge of newspaper. This torn edge of newspaper was found inside of an alleged murderer's pistol, which matched the newspaper in his pocket. The convicted murderer was John Toms.
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German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, which led to the advancement of being able to identify deaths by poison.
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James Marsh, an English chemist, uses chemical processes to determine arsenic as the cause of death in a murder trial.
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San Francisco uses photography for criminal identification, the first city in the US to do so.
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Henry Faulds and William James Herschel publish their findings on the uniqueness of fingerprints.
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Juan Vucetich, an Argentinean police officer, is the first to use fingerprints as evidence in a murder investigation. He created a system of fingerprint identification, which he termed dactyloscopy.
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Victor Balthazard and Marcelle Lambert publish the first study on hair, including microscopic studies from most animals. First legal case ever involving hair also took place following this study.
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Victor Balthazard realizes that tools used to make gun barrels never leave the same markings, and individual gun barrels leave identifying grooves on each bullet fired through it. He developed several methods of matching bullets to guns via photography.
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First police crime lab established in Los Angeles.
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Prototype polygraph, which was invented by John Larson in 1921, developed for use in police stations.
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FBI established the National Crime Information Center, a computerized national filing system on wanted people, stolen vehicles, weapons, etc.
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FBI establishes the integrated automated fingerprint identification system, cutting down fingerprint inquiry response from two weeks to two hours.
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Britain's Forensic Science Service develops online footwear coding and detection system. This helps police to identify footwear marks quickly.
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Michigan state university develops software that automatically matches hand-drawn facial sketches to mug shots stored in databases.
