From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Imaging / Photography Outline

The Only Library Preserved Intact from Roman Times
(79 CE)

Foundation of Experimental Physics, Optics, and the Science of Vision
(1011 – 1021)

Construction of the First Camera Obscura
(1012 – 1021)

Invention of the Telescope
(1608)

Images of Revolutionary Discoveries Concerning the Universe
(March 1610)

Graphic Portrayal of the Hitherto Unknown Microcosm
(1665)

Lichtenberg Figures
(1777)

Daguerreotypes: The First Commonly Used Photographic Process
(January 7, 1839)

Negatives Might be Used to Produce Multiple Images
(January 31, 1839)

The Basis for Blueprints
(1842)

The Doppler Principle
(1842)

Using Microphotography for Document Preservation
(1851 – 1852)

The First Relief Half-Tone
(1854)

The First Book of Printed Reproductions of Photographs
(1856)

The Pigeon Post into Paris: The First Important Application of Microfilm
(1870 – 1871)

Could Life From Other Planets Have Been Carried to Earth by Meteorites?
(1880)

One of the Most Dramatic Problems in the Preservation of Media
(1889)

Rontgen Discovers X-Rays
(November 8, 1895)

Early Facsimile Transmission
(Circa 1901 – 1907)

Curtis's The North American Indian
(1907 – 1930)

The Basis for Computed Tomography
(1917)

The First Experimental Proof of General Relativity
(November 6, 1919)

A Massive Central Library on Microform for Printing on Demand
(1925)

Carlson invents Xerography
(1938)

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

Using Microforms to Conserve Library Space
(1944)

Invention of Holography
(1947)

The First Xerographic Copier
(1949)

The Beginning of Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
(1953)

The Beginning of Medical Ultrasonography
(October 29, 1953)

Beginning of Doppler Ultrasound
(1957)

Invention of the Image Scanner
(1957)

The First Obstetrical or Gynecological Sonograms
(1958)

The Xerox 914
(September 16, 1959)

Changes in Tissue Density Can be Computed
(1963)

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

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

Origins of Automated Facial Recognition
(1964 – 1966)

Invention of Digital Image Processing
(1966)

First System for Interactive Display of Molecular Structures
(1966)

Invention of Three-Dimensional Image Processing
(January 1968)

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

A Sensor for Recording Images
(1969)

CT
(1971)

First Patent for MRI
(March 17, 1972)

The Beginnings of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(1973)

The First Whole-Body CT Scanner
(1973)

The First Omni-Font Optical Character Recognition System
(1974)

Invention of the Digital Camera
(December 1975)

First Print-to-Speech Reading Machine
(1976)

Making MRI Feasible
(1977)

Early Interactive Computing and Virtual Reality
(1978 – 1979)

Flexible Image Transport System
(1980)

The First Commercial Electronic Camera--Not Digital
(1982)

The First Scanner?
(November 1982)

The First Digital Image Database of Cultural Materials
(1987)

Forerunner of Photoshop
(1987)

One of the First Digital Cameras
(1989)

The First Image Posted to the Web
(1992)

First Library of Digital Images on the Internet
(1993)

The Electronic Beowulf
(1993)

The Mosaic Web Browser
(March 4, 1993)

The First Digital Offset Press
(July 1993)

FishCam: The Oldest Nearly Continuously Operational Webcam
(1994)

First Consumer-Priced Digital Camera
(February 17, 1994)

The First Full-Time Online Webcam Girl
(April 1996 – 2003)

The JPEG 2000 Standard for Still Images
(March 17, 1997)

The World's Largest Book --Spectacularly Beautiful
(December 2003)

Flickr
(February 2004)

Image Manipulation in Scientific Publications
(July 6, 2004)

Pixar at MOMA
(December 14, 2005)

The Google Video Store Opens
(January 6, 2006)

Disney Acquires Pixar
(January 24, 2006)

92% of Cameras Sold are Digital
(February 2006)

YouWitnessNews
(December 5, 2006)

Photosynth Demonstrated
(March 2007)

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

Three Billion Images
(November 2008)

First Images of Extra-Solar Planets Taken from the Visible Spectrum: Planets Located 130 Light-Years from Earth
(November 13, 2008)

Imaging a Molecule One Million Times Smaller Than a Grain of Sand
(August 28, 2009)

David Hockney's iPhone Art
(October 22, 2009)

Introduction of Google Goggles
(December 8, 2009)

The Vatican Library Plans the Scanning of all its Manuscripts into the FITS Document Format
(March 24, 2010)

Google Introduces Translation Feature for Google Goggles
(May 6, 2010)