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Eadweard Muybridge
British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move. -
Etienne Marey
France develops a camera, shaped like a gun, that can take twelve pictures per second. -
thomas edison & W.K dickson
Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light. -
Louis and August Lumiere
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. -
Thomas Edison's company
Thomas Edison's company, using a projector built by Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins, projects hand-tinted motion pictures in New York City -
Kinetograph camera.
Edison files the first of many patent infringement suits, claiming that others are using equipment based on his Kinetograph camera. -
Edwin S. Porter
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. -
MPPC
Nine leading film producers set up the MPPC and agree not to sell or lease equipment to any distributors who purchase motion pictures from any other company. Kodak agrees to sell film stock only to member companies. -
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle, who has set up his own Independent Motion Picture Company, introduces the star system by hiring Florence Lawrence, one of Biograph's anonymous stars, and beginning a massive publicity campaign -
Lee DeForrest
Lee DeForrest demonstrates a method for recording sound on the edge of a film strip. -
MGM
MGM is formed out of the merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and the Louis B. Mayer Company. It is headed by Marcus Loew, owner of a theater chain. -
mickey mouse
Mickey Mouse is introduced in the cartoon Steamboat Willie.
