From Mary Bellis,
Your Guide to Inventors.
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• 5th-4th Centuries B.C.
  Chinese and Greek philosophers describe the basic principles of optics and the camera.
• 1664-1666
  Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colors.
• 1727
  Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light.
• 1794
  First Panorama opens, the forerunner of the movie house invented by Robert Barker.
• 1814
  Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura - however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.
• 1837
  Daguerre’s first daguerreotype - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure.
• 1840
  First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.
• 1841
  William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.
• 1843
  First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia.
• 1851
  Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure.
• 1859
  Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.
• 1861
  Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.
• 1865
  Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.
• 1871
  Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.
• 1880
  Eastman Dry Plate Company founded.
• 1884
  George Eastman invents flexible, paper-based photographic film.
• 1888
  Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.
• 1898
  Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
• 1900
  First mass-marketed camera—the Brownie.
• 1913/1914
  First 35mm still camera developed.
• 1927
  General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.
• 1932
  First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.
• 1935
  Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film.
• 1941
  Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film.
• 1942
  Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).
• 1948
  Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.
• 1954
  Eastman Kodak introduces high speed Tri-X film.
• 1960
  EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.
• 1963
  Polaroid introduces instant color film.
• 1968
  Photograph of the Earth from the moon.
• 1973
  Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.
• 1977
  George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• 1978
  Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera.
• 1980
  Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.
• 1984
  Canon demonstrates first digital electronic still camera.
• 1985
  Pixar introduces digital imaging processor.
• 1990
  Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.

Continue > History of Photography & The Camera