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600
Use of fingerprints for the first time
Fingerprints first used to determine identity. Arabic merchants would take a debtor's fingerprint and attach it to the bill. -
Physical evidence used in criminal case
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 -
Investigating poisoning
German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, thus advancing the investigation of poison deaths. -
First uses of photos in identification
San Francisco uses photography for criminal identification, the first city in the US to do so. -
British police use fingerprints
The English first began using fingerprints on July 28, 1858, when on a whim Sir William Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on a contract. -
Father of Fingerprints
Henry Faulds was a Scottish physician, missionary, and scientist who is noted for the development of fingerprinting. -
Francis Galton
British scientist Sir Francis Galton is often credited with the discovery that everyone's fingerprints are unique and that they could therefore be used for identification. -
Alvarez & Galton
At Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1892, Inspector Eduardo Alvarez made the first criminal fingerprint identification. He was able to identify Francisca Rojas, a woman who murdered her two sons and cut her own throat in an attempt to place blame on another -
Forensic Odontology first used
Mass forensic identification by dentition was first used at Paris, in the aftermath of the fire of the Bazaar de la Charité that began around 16:00 h on the afternoon of May 4, 1897. About 1200 people were in the bazaar at the time. -
Fingerprint powder
Early versions of fingerprint powders were generally handmade by latent print examiners or police crime scene technicians. In the early 1900's, commercially-available powders were being produced, with some, most notably Lightning Powder® with its origin in 1936, still in business today. -
Paul Uhlenhuth
devises a method to distinguish between human and animal blood. -
Harry Jackson
was the first man to be convicted in the United Kingdom via fingerprint evidence. On 27 June 1902 a burglary occurred in a house in Denmark Hill, London, and some billiard balls were stolen. -
Hair now used in forensics
Victor Balthazard and Marcelle Lambert publish first study on hair, including microscopic studies from most animals. First legal case ever involving hair also took place following this study. -
New York first medical examiner
State of New York adopts the medical examiner system. -
first American police crime laboratory
August Vollmer, chief of the Los Angeles Police, established the first American police crime laboratory in 1924 -
Bite mark
One of the first published accounts involving a conviction based on bite marks as evidence was the “Gorringe case”, in 1948, in which pathologist Keith Simpson used bite marks on the breast of the victim to seal a murder conviction against Robert Gorringe for the murder of his wife Phyllis. -
Gunshot residue
Detection of gunshot residue by SEM/EDS is developed. -
DNA
1986 was when DNA was first used in a criminal investigation by Dr.Jeffreys. 1986. The investigation used genetic fingerprinting in a case of two rapes and murders that had happened in 1983 and 1986. These crimes happened in a small town called Leicestershire, which is located in the United Kingdom. -
NDIS
The National DNA Index System (NDIS) becomes operational. -
Gujarat Forensic Sciences University
is the first university in the world solely dedicated to forensic and investigative science. It was created by Act 17 passed in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly on 30 September 2008.
