From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Graphics / Visualization / Animation Outline

The Forma Urbis Romae
(203 CE – 211 CE)

One of the Few Scraps of Classical Literary Illustration on Papyrus
(Circa 250 CE)

The Earliest Dated European Woodblock Print
(1418)

Printing Playing Cards
(1418)

The First Book Printed in German and the First Dated Book with Woodcuts
(February 14, 1461)

The First Book with Engraved Maps
(1477)

Discovery of a Lost Painting by Michelangelo?
(1487 – 1488)

The First Medical Book with Anatomical Illustrations
(July 26, 1491)

The Illustration of a Printing Office and Bookshop in a Printed Book
(February 18, 1499)

Images of Revolutionary Discoveries Concerning the Universe
(March 1610)

At Attempt to Record All Human Knowledge in Visual Form
(Circa 1625 – 1665)

"Je pense, donc je suis."
(1637)

The First Published Illustrated Catalogue of an Art Collection
(1660)

Graphic Portrayal of the Hitherto Unknown Microcosm
(1665)

Anatomy in the Style of Dutch Still-Life Painting
(1685)

Baroque Anatomy and Plagiarism
(1698)

Invention of Color Printing
(1719)

Possibly the First Color-Printed Mezzotint Published
(1721)

First Use of Color Printing in a Medical or Scientific Book
(1736)

The Cool, Elegant Aesthetic of Anatomy
(1747)

The First Timeline Charts
(1765)

Foundation of Statistical Graphics: the Line Chart and Bar Chart
(1785 – 1786)

Invention of the Pie Chart
(1801)

The Most Famous Image in the Early History of Computing
(1839)

The First Scientific Instrument to Record Scientific Information in Real Time
(1847)

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
(1884)

Nomograms: A Graphical Method of Calculation
(1891)

The First Animated Films
(October 28, 1892)

The First Systematic Classification of Calculating Machines
(1894)

Perhaps the Earliest Example of Stop-Motion Animation
(1899)

Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts
(1914)

The Basis for Computed Tomography
(1917)

The Bettmann Archive; the Beginning of the Visual Age
(1938)

Borges' Universe as a Library, or Universal Library
(1941)

Invention of Holography
(1947)

"Can Man Build a Superman?"
(January 23, 1950)

The First Graphical Display for a Computer
(April 20, 1951)

Perhaps the First Computer-Controlled Aesthetic System
(1953)

The Sage Air Defense System
(1957)

"Computer Graphics"
(1960)

The First Computer-Animated Film
(1961)

"Online Man-Computer Communication"
(Circa June 1962)

The First CAD Program
(December 1962)

The First Graphical User Interface
(1963)

Machine Perception of Three Dimensional Solids
(May 1963 – 1965)

The First to Draw the Human Body Using a Computer
(1964)

The First Plasma Video Display (Neon Orange)
(1964)

The First Book on Computer Graphics
(1965)

Invention of Digital Image Processing
(1966)

First System for Interactive Display of Molecular Structures
(1966)

The Word Multimedia Coined
(July 1966)

The "Coons Patch"
(June 1967)

First Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display System
(1968)

The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age
(1968)

Invention of Three-Dimensional Image Processing
(January 1968)

The First Serious Exhibition of Computer Art
(August 2 – October 20, 1968)

The Architecture Machine
(1970)

Gouraud Shading Method for Polygon Smoothing
(June 1971)

Conceptually, the First Personal Computer System
(1973)

The First Major Film to Use 2D Computer Generated Images
(1973)

Fractals
(1975)

The Roots of the PostScript Page Description Language
(1975 – 1978)

The Utah Teapot
(1975)

The First Major Film to Incorporate 3D Computer Generated Images
(1976)

The First Graphical Computer Adventure Game
(1979 – 1980)

Xerox Star
(1981)

The First Magazine on Computer Games
(1981)

Blade Runner
(1982)

One of the First Films to Incorporate Computer Graphics
(1982)

The First "Killer App" for the PC
(January 1983)

The First Fully Computer-Generated Character in a Film
(1985)

Windows 1.0
(November 20, 1985)

Forerunner of Photoshop
(1987)

The First Computer-Animated Film to Win an Academy Award
(1988)

Mathematica 1.0
(1988)

The First Film to Win an Academy Award for Computer Generated Images
(1989)

Jurassic Park
(1993)

The First Television Series to Use Computer Generated Images
(February 22, 1993 – January 26, 1994)

Rome Reborn on Google Earth
(1997)

The Digital Michelangelo Project
(1998)

Conflicts between Androids and Men
(2001)

The First Attempt to Make a Photorealistic Computer Animated 3D Feature Film
(July 11, 2001)

Minority Report
(2002)

Machinima
(2002)

Grand Text Auto
(May 2003)

Pixar at MOMA
(December 14, 2005)

Disney Acquires Pixar
(January 24, 2006)

Photosynth Demonstrated
(March 2007)

The First Embassy of a Real Country in a Virtual World
(May 30, 2007)

Viewing the Illustrations of a Journal Article in Three Dimensions
(September 30, 2008)

Web Collage of 208 Print Newspapers
(November 9, 2008)

A Virtual Exhibition
(November 18, 2008)

Discovery of a Previously Unknown Self- Portrait of Leonardo
(February 28, 2009)

Higher Resolution Map of Knowledge Than Can be Produced from Citation Analysis
(March 11, 2009)

The First Magazine Cover Created as iPhone Art
(June 1, 2009)

Algorithm to Decipher Ancient Texts
(September 2, 2009)

Introduction of Google Goggles
(December 8, 2009)

"Whatever Happened to Second Life?"
(January 4, 2010)

Probably the First Fully Visually Satisfying Interactive eBook
(April 5, 2010)

The First Pulitizer Prizes for Internet Journalism
(April 12, 2010)