Fingerprint

By HC30
  • 1000 BCE

    1000 BC

    1000 BC
    Fingerprints were used during this time as a sort of signature on documents in places like ancient Babylon, China, Nova Scotia, and Persia.

  • 1686

    1686
    Macello Malpighi a professor at the University of Bologna, in Italy, saw that fingerprints had common patterns. Loops, whorls, arches, and ridges seemed to make up most fingerprints.

  • 1823

    1823
    Johannes Evengelista Purkinje another professor documented nine specific patterns to help identify types of fingerprints.

  • 1858

    1858
    William Herschel A magistrate in India began using fingerprinting as a way to make natives "sign" a contract. After doing a few of these he realized that fingerprints can be used as identification.

  • 1880

    1880
    Dr. Henry Faulds he used fingerprints to identify who had left a stray bottle lying around—he matched fingerprints left on the bottle with a laboratory worker.

  • 1892

    1892
    Police in Argentina were able to identify a murderer by using a bloody fingerprint left on a door frame. They also started using fingerprints as identification

  • 1896

    1896
    After Argentina started using fingerprints it was slow to catch on but British India started to use them soon after.

  • 1901

    1901
    Soon after the success in Argentina and India Scotland Yard wondered if it was a good system for England. Soon after the Scotland Yard Fingerprint Bureau was created.

  • 1924

    1924
    The FBI took over fingerprinting in America in 1924 by 1971 there were over 200 million fingerprints on file in America.

  • 1999

    1999
    In 1999 the FBI began a long process of transferring fingerprints to an electronic system now millions of criminal fingerprints are now stored around the world.