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Jan 1, 700
Chinese use fingerprints
Chinese used fingerprints to establish identity of documents and clay sculptures -
Jan 1, 1000
Roman use bloody palm prints
Roman courts determined that bloody palm prints were used to frame a man in his brother’s murder -
Jan 1, 1149
The idea of the coroner
King Richard of England introduced the idea of the coroner to investigate questionable death -
Jan 1, 1200
Invisible blood residue
A murder in China is solved when flies were attracted to invisible blood residue on a sword of a man in the community -
Fidelus practices forensic medicine
Fidelus was first to practice forensic medicine in Italy -
First high-powered microscope
Anton Van Leeuwenhoek constructed the first high-powered microscope -
Body identified by false teeth
Paul Revere identified the body of General Joseph Warren based on the false teeth he had made for him -
John Toms convicted over paper evidence
John Toms convicted of murder on basis of torn edge of wad of paper in pistol matching a piece of paper in his pocket -
Science of spectroscopy developed
Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen developed the science of spectroscopy. -
Crime scene photography
Crime scene photography developed -
Identifying people with body measurements
Alphonse Bertillon developed a system to identify people using particular body measurements -
Fingerprint identification
Edward Henry developed first classification system for fingerprint identification -
Human blood groups
Karl Landsteiner identified human blood groups -
Every contact leaves a trace
Edmond Locard formulated his famous principle, “Every contact leaves a trace.” -
Mass spectrometer
Francis Aston developed the mass spectrometer. -
Double helix
James Watson and Francis Crick discover the DNA double helix -
AFIS
AFIS developed by FBI, fully automated in 1996 -
DNA tests to be applied to criminal case
Jeffreys developed and used first DNA tests to be applied to a criminal case