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Jefferson for President
The U.S. House of Representatives votes Thomas Jefferson into the presidential office after a grueling battle between him and Burr in the electoral college. -
Thomas Wedgwood
It is a point of contention if Thomas Wedgwood deserves to be recognized as "the father of photography" as many others were starting to recognize the chemicals that could be used to recreate events at the same time. However, Wedgwood is known to have used paper and white leather coated with silver nitrate to make his first images. He noticed that leather is more light-sensitive as well. -
The Sixth Symphony
Beethoven's sixth symphony titled "The Pastoral" had it's first performance in Vienna. -
Camera Obscura
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used an eight hour exposure to create a nature photo. He used lavender oil and petroleum to wash the plate he used in the camera obscura. He called this process "heliography." -
Discovery of Protoplasm
A French zoologist discovered the existence of protoplasm.
Félix Dujardin finally was able to identify what the colorless plasma that surrounds the organelles of our cells was and was able to identify it in humans and animals alike. -
The Daguerreotype
The Daguerreotype was from a French artist and inventor by the name of Louis Daguerre. Using mercury fumes and exposed iodized silver plates, Daguerre found that images could be produced. This was a great discovery because it cut down exposure time from a couple hours to around twenty minutes. -
Coining "Photography"
Sir John Herschel was the first to start using the term "photography"; taking from the Greek words phōtós (meaning "light") and graphê (meaning to draw). Essentially, this made the word mean "drawing with light." -
William Henry Harrison's Short Presidency
Harrison won the presidential race representing the Whig campaign but unfortunately died only thirty days after taking office. -
The Calotype
The Calotype was competition for the original Daguerrotype camera. William Henry Fox Talbot unveiled this new work nearly at the same time as Daguerre revealed his camera. Instead of the metal plates used previously, Talbot used high-sensitivity photo paper for his camera. Hyposulphite was used to preserve the images which were slightly blurrier than the Daguerrotypes. However, these images had the benefit of being easily reprinted and copied. -
President Polk
Polk's decision to send the United States Army into Texas sparked the beginning of the Mexican-American war. The fighting lasted for over two years and was started by Texas gaining its independence from Mexico in 1836. -
Dr. Thomas Keith
Keith used the calotype process for his photography. Although he was only an amateur photographer, his photographs are some of the first created of Edinburgh and its surroundings. -
The Wet-Collodion Process
Daguerrotypes and Calotypes were a thing of the past once this new process was created in 1851. Frederick Scott Archer genially created a mix of the sharp image from the Daguerrotype and the replication of the Calotype. The wet plates used in this process were a chore to use and demanded a very specific usage of light and chemicals to correctly produce an image. However, they cut exposure time down to mere seconds. -
War Photography
Roger Fenton was one of the first to be dispatched to take photos of the Crimean War. His photos are still incredibly famous to this day and is known for his focus on the landscapes instead of any of the fallen soldiers. He is best known for his work called "Shadow of the Valley of Death". -
International Commercial License
William England, along with over five thousand other spectators, watched Jean Francois Gravelet attempt to cross between Canada and the United States on a tight rope over the Niagara River. England's stereoscopic images of the successful event were the first to be commercially licensed for commercial use. -
George N. Barnard
Barnard was one of the fifteen photographers tasked by Mathew Brady to photograph the American Civil War. Using the daguerreotype process, Barnard published an album titled "Photographic views of Sherman's campaign". -
Lincoln Assassination
President Abraham Lincoln was murdered in his theatre box while traveling to see a show. It is assumed that the assassination was from his sympathizing with the confederates. -
Dry Plates
Finally, a method of photography that didn't seem to require a chemistry degree was created by Robert L. Maddox. This was the first type of plate that could be pre-packaged and mass-produced. The exposure time was even quicker and the opportunity was posed for Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge used this method of photography to create a famous set of studies of both animals and humans in motion. -
Julia Margaret Cameron
Cameron was an amateur photographer and mother of six who was born in India. She was an avid photographer whose work suffered from her lack of understanding for developing her pictures. However, her work is credited to be some of the first in the genre of "Pictorialism" and is highly sought after today. -
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain published his famous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, featuring a young boy and his adventures growing up near the Mississippi river. -
Flexible Roll Film
Flexible roll film was the first time photography was truly amateur-friendly. George Eastman was the inventor behind producing the new lightweight alternative that allowed for pictures to be taken in rapid succession. -
First Kodak Camera
The inventor of the first flexible roll film produced the first Kodak camera with the promise "you press the button, we do the rest." The camera featured a roll of 100 photos which, after being exposed, could be sent to the manufacturer to be developed. -
Dracula
Irish author Bram Stokes published his book, "Dracula", about the life of a vampire in Transylvania. This sparked many subsequent works and an intrigue with the "vampire lifestyle". -
Autochrome
Autochrome photography was the first step towards color photography. French brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière found that by adding dyed potato starch to film they were able to produce colored images. -
Portable Cameras
Oskar Barnack, a German engineer, was an amateur photographer who struggled with the weight and size of the cameras he had to lug around. He was one of the first to create a more portable camera which he sold under the name "Leica". This made cameras even more accessible to the public.
