This article lists some notable events in animation, from 1854 to the present day.
1850s 1854 – In London, the Welsh photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn exhibited several early instantaneous photographs of the seaside. In 1855, he demonstrated these photographs at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. His works were well received by critics, with detailed analysis of how well the waves were pictured. Llewelyn probably was an early adopter of the use of an automatic shutter, though the start date for this practice is uncertain. 1855 – In 1855, the Austrian-German physiologist Johann Nepomuk Czermak published an article about his Stereophoroskop and other experiments aimed at stereoscopic moving images. He mentioned a method of sticking needles in a stroboscopic disc so that it looked like one needle was being pushed in and out of the cardboard when animated. He realized that this method provided basically endless possibilities to make different 3D animations. He then introduced two methods to animate stereoscopic pairs of images, one was basically a stereo viewer using two stroboscopic discs and the other was more or less similar to the later zoetrope. Czermak explained how suitable stereoscopic photographs could be made by recording a series of models, for instance to animate a growing pyramid. 1856 – Publication of Majama’ al-Bahrayn (1856) by al-Yaziji. It is a modern example of the maqama genre of picaresque short stories.Qian, A. (2012). The Maqāmah as Prosimetrum: A Comparative Investigation of its Origin, Form and Function [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Pennsylvania. The illustrations of the genre tend to share formal qualities with the art of shadow play. Shadow plays are considered a precursor to silhouette animation. 1857 – In 1857, the earliest known illustration of a vertical biunial magic lantern, probably provided by E.G. Wood, appeared in the Horne & Thornthwaite catalogue.The Magic Lantern Society. Encyclopedia of the Magic Lantern. p. 21-22 Biunial lanterns, with two projecting optical sets in one apparatus, were produced to more easily project dissolving views. 1858 – In 1858, the physicist Joseph-Charles d'Almeida published descriptions of two methods that he had successfully developed to project stereoscopic images. The first was an anaglyph method with red and green glasses, the second used the stroboscopic principle to alternately present each picture to the corresponding eye in quick succession. D'Almeida had started work on combining this method with the principles of the phenakistiscope. 1859 – On April 7, 1859, the Belgian civil engineer and inventor Henri Désiré du Mont filed a Belgian patent for nine different versions of his Omniscope, of which most would show stereoscopic animation from stroboscopic discs or from cylinders with pictures on the outside. One version was built inside a peep-box and had a lens focusing a light-beam to project the image on a frosted glass screen. Another design combined two zoetropes with Charles Wheatstone's reflecting stereoscope in between.Mannoni, Laurent The Great Art of Light and Shadow (2000 translation by Crangle)
1860s 1860 – On 27 February 1860, Peter Hubert Desvignes received British patent no. 537 for 28 monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices, much like the later zoetrope. His devices included a version that used an endless band of pictures running between two spools which was intermittently lit by an electric spark. Desvignes' Mimoscope later received an honourable mention "for ingenuity of construction" at the 1862 International Exhibition in London. It could "exhibit drawings, models, single or stereoscopic photographs, so as to animate animal movements, or that of machinery, showing various other illusions." 1861 – In 1861, the American engineer Coleman Sellers II received US patent No. 35,317 for the kinematoscope, a device that exhibited "stereoscopic pictures as to make them represent objects in motion". In his application he stated: "This has frequently been done with plane pictures but has never been, with stereoscopic pictures". He used three sets of stereoscopic photographs in a sequence with some duplicates to regulate the flow of a simple repetitive motion, but also described a system for very large series of pictures of complicated motion. 1862 – The English inventor Peter Hubert Desvignes received an Honourable Mention "for ingenuity of construction" at the 1862 International Exhibition in London for his Mimoscope. He had created several monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices, much like the later zoetrope. His device could "exhibit drawings, models, single or stereoscopic photographs, so as to animate animal movements, or that of machinery, showing various other illusions." Desvignes "employed models, insects and other objects, instead of pictures, with perfect success." The horizontal slits allowed a much improved view, with both eyes, of the opposite pictures. 1863 – On 1 January 1863, The Illustrated London News reported on a magic lantern production of Cinderella at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, in which the showman Henry Langdon Childe was involved in painting slides, following the designs of Henry George Hine. 1864 – According to the 1864 narrative of the British mathematician Charles Babbage, the thaumatrope was invented by the Irish geologist William Henry Fitton. Babbage had told Fitton how the astronomer John Herschel had challenged him to show both sides of a shilling at once. Babbage held the coin in front of a mirror, but Herschel showed how both sides were visible when the coin was spun on the table. A few days later Fitton brought Babbage a new illustration of the principle, consisting of a round disc of card suspended between two pieces of sewing silk. This disc had a parrot on one side and a cage at the other side. Babbage and Fitton made several different designs and amused some friends with them for a short while. They forgot about it until some months later they heard about the supposed invention of the thaumatrope by John Ayrton Paris. 1865 – Edmund Johann Krüss, representing the optical equipment company Krüss Optronic, received a patent for his version of the magic lantern. The device was a forerunner of movie projectors."Mikroskop, A. Krüss Hamburg". Museum optischer Instrumente. 1866 – The inventor William Ensign Lincoln applied for a U.S. patent for his zoetrope, as an assignor to the board game manufacturing company Milton Bradley and Co.. The patent was granted to him in April 1867. Lincoln had invented the definitive version of the zoetrope in 1865, when he was about 18 years old and a sophomore at the Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Lincoln's patented version had the viewing slits on a level above the pictures, which allowed the use of easily replaceable strips of images. It also had an illustrated paper disc on the base, which was not always exploited on the commercially produced versions. On the advice of a local bookstore owner, Lincoln had sent a model to Milton Bradley and Co. in an attempt to market the animation device.Herbert, Stephen. (n.d.) Retrieved May 31, 2014. 1867 – The inventor William Ensign Lincoln is granted a U.S. patent for his zoetrope, as an assignor to the board game manufacturing company Milton Bradley and Co.. This animation device was also patented in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on June 7, 1867 (application March 6, 1867) under no. 629, by Henry Watson Hallett (as a communication to him by Milton Bradley), and in the Second French Empire by Charles William May (filed May 14, 1867). 1868 – The physicist James Clerk Maxwell had an improved zoetrope constructed. Instead of slits, his version used concave lenses with a focal length equaling the diameter of the cylinder. The virtual image was thus seen in the centre and appeared much more sharp and steady than in the original zoetrope. Maxwell drew several strips that mostly demonstrated subjects relating to physics, like the vibrations of a harp string or Helmholtz's vortex rings threading through each other. An article about the "Zootrope perfectionné" was published in the French science magazine Le Cosmos in 1869, but Maxwell never marketed his animation device. 1869 – Thomas Ross developed a small and transparent phenakistiscope system, called Wheel of life, which fitted inside a standard magic lantern slide. A first version, patented in 1869, had a glass disc with eight phases of a movement and a counter-rotating glass shutter disc with eight apertures. The discs depicted ice skaters, fishes, a giant's ladder, a bottle imp, and other subjects. Ross introduced an improved version of his animation device in 1871.
1870s 1870 – The Philadelphia-based engineer Henry Renno Heyl presented his Phasmatrope to 1500 persons at a church entertainment evening at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. This modified magic lantern had a wheel that could hold 16 photographic slides and a shutter. The wheel was rotated in front of the light source by an intermittent mechanism to project the slides successively, probably with a speed of 3 fps. The program contained three subjects: All Right (a popular Japanese acrobat), Brother Jonathan, and a waltzing couple. Brother Jonathan addressed the audience with a voice actor behind the screen and professed that "this art will rapidly develop into one of the greatest merit for instruction and enjoyment." The pictures of the waltzing couple survived and consist of four shots of costumed dancers (Heyl and a female dancing partner) that were repeated four times in the wheel. The pictures were posed. The waltzing animations were screened with an appropriate musical accompaniment by a 40-person orchestra. Heyl's only known other show was a screening on 16 March 1870 at the Franklin Institute. 1871 – During the Siege of Paris (1870–1871) by the Prussian Army, the inventor René Dagron proposed to the French authorities to use his microfilming process to carry the messages by carrier pigeons across German lines.Newsletter of the Illinois State Archives & The Illinois State Historical Records Advory Board Jesse White Secretary of State & State Archivist Volume 2 Number 1 Quote: "Despite Dancer’s early work, in 1859, Ree Dagron, a French optician, received the first patent for microfilm. Using Dancer’s techniques, Dagron manufactured and sold microphotograph trinkets. In 1870–71, during the Franco-Prussian War, Dagron demonstrated a practical use for microforms. During the siege of Paris, the French used carrier pigeons to transparrt microfilmed messages across German dices."The Pigeon Post into Paris 1870–1871 by J.D. Hayhurst O.B.E. Prepared in digital format by Mark HayhurstmCopyright ©1970 John Hayhurst Quote: "He now proposed to Rampont that his process should be applied to pigeon messages and a contract was concluded on 11th November. " Dagron photographed pages of newspapers in their entirety which he then converted into miniature photographs. He subsequently removed the collodion film from the glass base and rolled it tightly into a cylindrical shape which he then inserted into miniature tubes that were transported fastened to the tail feathers of the pigeons. Upon receipt the microphotograph was reattached to a glass frame and was then projected by magic lantern on the wall. The message contained in the microfilm could then be transcribed or copied.The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications, History, and Science p. 94 By Michael R. Peres Contributor Michael R. Peres Published by Focal Press, 2007 By 28 January 1871, when Paris and the Government of National Defense surrendered, Dagron had delivered 115,000 messages to Paris by carrier pigeon.CHRONOLOGY OF MICROFILM DEVELOPMENTS 1800 – 1900 from UCLA