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1000 BCE
Prehistoric Fingerprints
Fingerprints found in ancient artifacts for hieroglyphics in Nova Scotia and business transactions in Babylon. -
200 BCE
Chinese Fingerprint Evidence
Fingerprints were used as evidence for burglaries in the Qin Dynasty. -
1318
The Jaamehol-Tawarikh
The first text written by the Persian doctor, Khajeh Rashiduddin Fazlollah Hamadani, about fingerprint identification. -
Patterns
Loops, spirals, and ridges were documented in
Europe by many scientists in different texts. -
Anatomical Copper-plates with Appropriate Explanations
This was the first text to include drawn fingerprints and proclaim that friction ridge prints are unique. -
Purkinje
Purkinje published his thesis identifying nine different fingerprint patterns but forgoing the information that they can help identify people. -
Superstition?
Herschel used fingerprints for native contracts not because it was scientifically proven to identify others but just on superstition. -
Professor Paul-Jean Coulier
He discovered making fingerprints with iodine fuming, preserving them, and using them to identify suspects. -
Period: to
Ink and Grease
Dr. Henry Faulds saw the potential of printers ink in creating fingerprints and saw the first greasy fingerprint on an alcohol bottle. -
Thomas Taylor
Realized fingerprints and hand prints could help solve crimes. -
Anthropometry
Alphonse Bertillon founded the way of measuring body parts based on proportions which is called anthropometry. -
American Documentation
The first case of a fingerprint used on a formal document in America by Gilbert Thompson. -
Pop Culture
Mark Twain wrote "Life on the Mississippi" and Pudd'n Head Wilson" with fingerprinting and was also turned into a movie. -
Sir Francis Galton
He finally started his long career of fingerprinting. -
Vucetich
Created a classification system based off of Galton and Bertillon. -
Partnership
Eduardo Alvarez was taught by Vucetich and worked with Galton to find the first criminal by using fingerprints. -
Henry System
Indian Haque and Bose created this filing system for fingerprints that was named after their teacher. -
Technological Advancements
Edward Richard Henry managed to replace the Bertillon system with the one named after him. -
New Scotland Yard
Metropolitan Police created a separate branch entirely for fingerprints. -
New York Civil Service Commission
First systematic use of fingerprints and testing in America. -
Prisons
New York State Prison System and the Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas use the new fingerprint system. -
National Bureau of Criminal Identification
This is America's first fingerprint national depository. -
Militarized
The U.S. Military starts using fingerprints and for the next 25 years, all forms of American law enforcement use them too. -
U.S. Navy
This is just when the U.S. Navy began using fingerprints. -
U.S. Marine Corps
The U.S. Marine Corps finally started using fingerprints. -
Schooling
The first American textbook on fingerprinting was published by Frederick Brayley. -
IACI
Twenty two individuals gathered together and held the first meeting for the International Association for Criminal Identification -
Locard
Edmond Locard wrote that if twelve points of significance based on Galton's details matched between two prints, that counted as identification. -
Congress Takes Action
Congress established the Identification Division of the FBI which is still growing and is still in use today. -
Goodbye Locard
American fingerprint experts agreed that there is no scientific evidence to support the Twelve Point Rule so it was dropped in that year's textbooks. -
100M Cards!
The FBI finally reached a total of one hundred million fingerprint cards held manually in their files. -
The Fingerprint Society
Four employees of the Hertfordshire Fingerprint Bureau contacted fingerprint exerts all over Europe and established the FPS. -
Certification
The IAI decided to construct a board of IAI members to ceritfy fingerprint experts. -
Neurim Declaration
This declaration states that there need not be a minimum amount of friction ridges in order to be used as evidence. -
INTERPOL
Their repository exceeded 150,00 sets of fingerprints from 190 countries at this time. -
AFIS
America's Department of Homeland Security' U.S. Visit Program contained over one hundred twenty million fingerprints. -
World's Largest Database
The Unique Identification Authority of India has the largest identification system including fingerprints and iris biometrics.
