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Fingerprints first used to determine identity. Arabic merchants would take a debtor's fingerprint and attach it to the bill.
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Julius Caesar is assassinated. Following this event, a physician performed an autopsy, and determined that of the 23 wounds found on the body, only one was fatal.
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The First recorded instance of physical matching of evidence leading to a murder conviction (John Toms, England). Evidence was a torn edge of newspaper in a pistol that matched newspaper in his pocket.
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German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, thus advancing the investigation of poison deaths.
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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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Prototype polygraph, which was invented by John Larson in 1921, developed for use in police stations.
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DNA fingerprinting led to conviction of Colin Pitchfork in the murder of two teenage girls. This evidence cleared the main suspect in the case, who likely would have been convicted without it.