1814–26 Joseph Nicéphore Niepce achieves his first photographic images with a camera obscura. 1817 What is the normal state of a room? One could say that a dark room is a more natural and normative state than a lighted room. As with the cave before it, the room is enclosed and inherently cut off from natural light. Windows can be employed to let light and air into a room, but daylight is limited by the cycles of the sun. At night artificial light is needed to illuminate the chamber. The open fire gave way to more controlled forms of light: oil lamps, candles, and finally, in cities, systematically supplied gas. Swedish Baron Jöns Jakob Berzelius isolates the element selenium. 1825 Peter Mark Roget of thesaurus fame demonstrates the persistence of vision with his Thaumatrope. 1831 Joseph Henry’s single-wire telegraph is introduced. 1832 Charles Wheatstone invents a nonphotographic “stereoscopic viewing device.” Electric currents can travel rapidly along wires of infinite length. Samuel Morse interrupts the current and shapes it into combinations of dots and dashes to represent the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the ten numerals, and all punctuation marks. The Morse code foreshadows the on/off nature of binary code—a series of zeros and ones—used in modern computers. 1833–38 Michael Faraday investigates electrical discharges of gases using vacuum tubes in which a current is passed from a negative electrode to a positive electrode, producing a glow on the inner surface of the opposite end of the tube. 1834 William George Horner patents an image-animation device, the daedelum, “Wheel of the Devil.” Later, around 1864, French inventor Pierre Desvignes refines the device for the home market under the name zoetrope, “wheel of life.” Simon von Stampfer invents the stroboscope, a device using variable-speed, extremely bright flashing light to create the optical effect of capturing motion in a series of frozen images. 1841 Frederick de Moleyn first uses vacuum for electric light bulbs. 1842 Alexander Bain elaborates on Edmond Becquerel's research into the electromechanical effects of light and proposes the idea of scanning an image so that it can be divided into small, transmittable parts. According to his theory, electrified metal letters could be scanned by a pendulum and duplicated on chemical paper at the other end of the telegraph wire by a synchronized pendulum. 1843 Rogues’ Gallery: The first index of photographed criminals is organized by the police of Brussels. Fox Talbot makes first instantaneous photographs using electric spark illumination. Telecommunications 1844 Samuel Morse sends the first message by electric telegraph from the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. to Baltimore. Miss Elsworth, the daughter of the commissioner of patents, composes the message: "What hath God wrought." 1848 On March 31, the Fox family—John, Margaret, and daughters Kate, Leah, and Margaretta—of Hydesville, New York, retire for the evening. As usual, mysterious knocking sounds interrupt their slumber. This time, the adventurous girls begin to interact with the strange sound. In jest, they call him “Mr. Split-foot.” Katie: Here Mr. Split-foot, do as I do. Katie claps her hands three times, the spirit knocks three times. Mother Margaret tests the spirit by asking the ages of her daughters, and the spirit responds correctly. Word of “the new telegraph line that connects to the spirit world” spreads rapidly, and the Fox sisters begin to give public demonstrations. Katie Fox describes a typical seance: “...the voice of Benjamin Franklin was heard, in raps. The medium was a member of the family where the test occurred. After a silence of one or two minutes, a violent shock of her person induced one hastily to say: Q. What is the matter? Are you waking up? A. No, you wanted a signal, and I told him, if it was Dr. Franklin, he might electrize me, and he did it. Q. Has it injured you? A. No, I feel better; my head is clearer – I can see plainer." (W. G. Langworthy Taylor, Katie Fox and the Fox-Taylor Record, compiled 1869). 1850s In a lawsuit against Thomas Edison, Heinrich Gobel, an American of German descent, is ruled to have made “a truly serviceable, practical incandescent lamp and exhibited it publicly twenty or thirty years before Edison.” 1851 As the Fox sisters’ fame grows, so does the controversy surrounding their unique physical phenomena. Some charge the sisters with demonic possession and fraud, so the Fox sisters submit to invasive physical examinations. Several doctors conclude that the girls produce the rappings themselves, using their big toes and knees, which are said to be double-jointed. Leah Fox describes one such “medical examination” in Buffalo, New York: Major Rains was an educated chemist and fine electrician. He arranged a swing, which was fastened to iron or steel chains, sustained by tackles and pulleys attached to the ceiling. I sat in the swing, and over my head was a large glass of circular form, about two and a half feet in diameter, and beneath my feet (which were about four feet from the floor) was a steel circular disk about three feet in diameter. The whole arrangement was suspended by the tackles. Major Rains brought his electrometer, and made every experiment that their ingenuity could invent or suggest. They suspended the table; each person in the room standing on horseshoe magnets provided for that occasion. The physicians were provided with stethoscopes, and placed them on different parts of my person... (Anne Leah Underhill, The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism [1885]). 1858 Heinrich Geissler, a German glass blower and maker of scientific instruments, creates the Geissler tube. A vacuum is created in a glass container sealed with electrodes at either end. Electrons moving through the tube are visible as patterns of light, varying according to the shape of the tube or the type of gas introduced into the vacuum. This invention will lead to the discovery in 1890 of cathode rays, a basic principle of video technology. 1859 Establishing an important principle for the future of electronics, the German mathematician and physicist Julius Plücker discovers that cathode rays (electrons) are deflected by a magnetic field. Alexandre Edmond Becquerel, a member of the noted family of French physicists, uses a Geissler discharge tube filled with fluorescent material to create the first fluorescent lamp. 1860 Oliver Wendell Holmes invents popular stereoscope viewer. The Final Camera Obscura: The Corpse 1860–80 Photographic lightning is believed to be a flash of lightning that creates the image of a person on an ordinary windowpane or mirror. In American folklore the legend encompasses the possibility that sick, dying, or dead people leave images of themselves on glass surfaces in the building of their confinement. The subjects are criminals, victims, and sometimes Jesus Christ. Folklorist Barbara Allen suggests that popular misunderstanding of the new technology such as the photographic plate spawned such lore, and with the introduction of flexible film, the glass plate legends decline. 1864 Lewis Morris Rutherford pioneers astrophotography. Pigeons are used to carry microphotographed messages across enemy lines. Sincere Acting: “This woman’s nature was one in which all . . . experience immediately passed into drama, and she acted her own emotions. . . . It would not be true to say that she felt less because of this double consciousness” (George Eliot, describing Princess Halm-Eberstien in Daniel Deronda [1868]). 1869 Edward Everett Hale's "The Brick Moon" is published in Atlantic Monthly. Hale describes an artificial moon, or satellite, that he thought could be used as a military post. 1870 Dr. Vernois of the Society of Legal Medicine of Paris publishes his theory of the optigramme. He believes that at the point of death, the retina freezes the last frame of one’s life and retains the image until decomposition of the body. The forensic implications of the theory are explored by surgically removing the retinas of murder victims and examining them under a microscope. 1872 Joseph May, a worker at Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Co., tests transatlantic transmissions using rods made of selenium as resistors. He finds the resistance to be inexplicably variable; his lab desk is near a window, and he notices that when a ray of sunlight strikes the test rods, current flows freely through it, while in the dark the electricity crawls. The company’s head electrician, Willoughby Smith, later takes credit for the discovery. Recognizing the implications of the phenomenon, he follows up with extensive experimentation and soon proposes “visual telegraphy.” He states at the time, “Selenium’s sensibility to light is extraordinary . . . a mere Lucifer match being sufficient to effect its conductive powers.” 1876 Alexander Graham Bell, trained in speech therapy for deaf people, patents the telephone. "The telephone operates by translating vocal sounds into a fluctuating electric current, which passes through a wire and is converted back into vocal sounds by a receiver at the other end of the wire" (Christos J. P. Moschovitis, Hilary Poole, Tami Schuyler, Theresa M. Senft, History of the Internet: A Chronology [1999]). 1878 Eadweard Muybridge publishes The Horse in Motion. Dennis Redmond develops “electric telescope” to produce moving images. 1879 General Electric introduces the first Edison carbon filament electric light bulb. 1880 The first articles written about early models of television are published in Nature, English Mechanic, and Scientific American. 1881 Rudge and Friese-Greene use a lantern with a scissors shutter to animate consecutive images of a man removing his own head. Brit Shelford Bidwell transmits silhouettes using both selenium and a scanning system. He dubs the device the "scanning phototelegraph." Artificial lighting during theatrical performances causes audience discomfort; viewers are subjected to extremes of temperature (the ceiling goes from 60 to 100 degrees) and suffer headaches due to the fact that gaslight consumes large amounts of oxygen, while its exhaust includes ammonia, carbon dioxide, and sulfur. In Berlin the effects of gaslight on luxurious public decor and architecture are noted: “The gas flames began their destructive work . . . blackening the ceilings. . . . most surfaces turned yellow . . . and the oil paintings almost disappeared or were darkened by smoke.” 1884 Etienne-Jules Marey develops the chronophotography device, which looks very much like a machine gun. He successfully exposes a number of photographic images in quick succession, thus capturing exact details of motion that have never before been seen. One of his first motion studies is of a flying bird, which he then presents on an electric zoetrope. Marey, a scientist, is interested in using his devices only for speeding things up or down to study locomotion. He shies away from the replication of real time, stating that the absurdity of such an undertaking “would be attended by all the uncertainties that embarrass the observation of the actual movement.” German scientist Paul Gottlieb Nipkow patents an image-scanning machine made up of a spinning disk placed between a scene and a selenium element. Nipkow argues that if the disk is turned fast enough, it can show a moving picture. 1886–89 German physicist Heinrich R. Hertz produces radio waves. 1887 “Look,” said the lady, “the gas flames are upside down.” “You are mistaken my dear,” replied her husband. “They are electric lamps!” “That’s nice,” said the lady, “but what would happen if they were to break? Would it still give out light? Would it leak out into the auditorium? Wouldn’t that be dangerous for the audience?” “My dear wife,” said her husband, “one can breathe electricity without the least danger. And in any case, it would rise and collect under the ceiling at once, so we would have nothing to fear.” 1888 On February 27 Eadweard Muybridge meets Thomas Edison and suggests the combination of the respective inventions—the zoöpraxiscope and the phonograph. George Eastman markets the Kodak, a roll-film camera capable of taking 100 separate pictures without reloading. Eastman provides developing and printing facilities: “You press the button, we do the rest.” Amateur photographers come into being. Frederick Eugene Ives files patent for taking color photographs. Dr. Roth and Professor Reuss of Vienna use bent glass rods to illuminate body cavities. 1889 A. Pumphery (U.K.) invents and markets the cycloidotrope or Invisible Drawing Master, a machine that will “trace an infinite variety of geometric designs” upon smoked or darkened glass slides for the magic lantern. By turning a hand crank, one produces a rudimentary animation of white or tinted lines on the screen. First commercial transparent roll film makes possible the development of the movie camera. 1890 German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the Braun tube, an adaptation of a Lenard cathode ray tube, which is the forerunner of the TV picture tube. Heinrich R. Hertz develops electromagnetic radiation. The U. S. government undertakes the census of 1890, two thousand clerks are hired to run Herman Holerith's mechanized tabulating system. This marks the birth of the now-ubiquitous office-machine as well as IBM (International Business Machines). Clerks translate each citizen's age, sex, and ethnicity into a pattern of holes punched on a card; Holerith's electromechanical machine totals the information. Each machine processes one thousand cards an hour. The census takes two and a half years. (Christos J. P. Moschovitis, Hilary Poole, Tami Schuyler, Theresa M. Senft, History of the Internet: A Chronology [1999]). 1892 Arsène d’Arsonval studies the psychological effect of electrical current on humans. 1893 Thomas Edison patents the kinetoscope. Red Shift The systematic increase of the wavelength of all light received from a celestial object is observed in all segments of the spectrum to shift toward the higher or red end. This is mostly caused by the Doppler effect on the light of the heavenly body as it travels across vast distances of space. 1895 Inside Out Inside Outside 1. Inside/Out. German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers x-rays; slide makers publish long lists from which to choose interesting and macabre examples ranging from coins in a purse to a bullet lodged in a cranium. 2. Inside. George Méliès works as a magician/artist at the Robert-Houdin Theater, which regularly combines lantern shows with performances. On April 4 Méliès shows his first film at the theater, along with Edison’s kinetoscope films. Also on the bill are boxing kangaroos, serpentine dancers, seascapes, and white silhouettes on black. He founds first production company, Star Film, which produces 500 films from 1896 to 1912; fewer than 90 survive. Méliès himself plays the Devil in a number of his own films. 3. Outside. On December 28, in front of the Grand Café in Paris, thirty people watch Auguste and Louis Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, as the Lumières and Edison demonstrate motion picture cameras and projectors. 1896 Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi invents a system that allows electric waves to relay Morse Code messages. 1897 Albert Allis Hopkins publishes the book Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, which describes the techniques of photography on a black ground, spirit photography, and duplex photography. German Karl Braun invents the cathode-ray tube. Electricity + Soviet Power = Communism—Lenin 1900 Max Planck introduces the quantum theory in physics. First mass-marketed camera, the Brownie, is released.