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William H. Fox Talbot
A British inventor, William H. Fox Talbot, an English classical archaeologist, made paper sensitive to light by bathing it in a solution of salt and silver nitrate. The silver turned dark when exposed to light and created a negative, which could be used to print positives on other sheets of light sensitive paper -
Eadweard Muybridge
British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move. -
The film of history began
The history of film began in the 1890s, with the invention of the first motion picture cameras and the establishment of the first film production companies and cinemas -
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. -
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle organizes Universal Pictures, which will become the first major studio. Adolph Zukor founds Famous Players; Mack Sennett starts the Keystone Film Company; and Mutual Film Corporation is formed.
The federal government sues the General Film Company, the film trust's distributor, for illegal restraint of trade.
A federal appeals court rejects the trusts claim to control the patents to the movie camera. -
Motion Picture Association
The Motion Picture Association of America withdraws its seal of approval for Howard Hughes's The Outlaw after he refuses to submit film ads (such as "What are the two great reasons for Jane Russell's rise to stardom") to the MPAA for approval. -
The French
The French "New Wave" begins with the release of Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Other French releases this year include Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, Marcel Camus's Black Orpheus, and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour. -
TWA
TWA shows the first feature film exhibited on a regularly scheduled commercial airline flight - MGM's By Love Possessed, starring Lana Turner and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. -
Film Industry
The film industry announced a rating system: "G" for general audiences; "M" for mature audiences; "R," no one under 16 admitted without an adult guardian; and "X," no one under 16 admitted -
Preservation Act
The Film Preservation Act allows the federal government to designate 25 films a year as national treasures. If these films are colorized, they must carry a disclaimer that their creators have not consented to the change.