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Photography Encyclopedia: Chronology

Chronology The following general chronology is provided for reference. The history of photography has been traced thematically in many of the longer entries. But this ‘backbone’ of dates offers a general overview of key technical, institutional, and artistic events in a wide range of countries. Usually, for each year cited, technical innovations appear first, followed by institutional events, and with publications (italicized) and significant photographs (italicized and bold) last.

Listing dates is not always a straightforward matter, especially in the case of new processes or items of equipment. In some cases—the year 1839 is an extreme example—similar discoveries were claimed by several people in different places. Preparing the list sometimes revealed inconsistencies between entries in the book, which were difficult to resolve. But we have done our best, using a wide range of sources. The most useful included Gail Buckland, Fox Talbot and the Invention of Photography (1980); Farbe im Foto: Die Geschichte der Farbphotographie von 1861 bis 1981 (1981); Willfried Baatz, Geschichte der Fotografie (1997); Quentin Bajac, L'Image révéleé: l'invention de la photographie (2001; Eng. The Invention of Photography, 2002); A. W. Tucker et al., The History of Japanese Photography (2003); and, much the most detailed and wide ranging, Christian Sixou, Les Grandes Dates de la photographie (2000). There is an admirably clear and well-illustrated short chapter on the history of photographic processes in Brian Coe (ed.), Techniques of the World's Great Photographers (1981).

1558	Giovanni Battista della Porta's Magiae Naturalis includes a description of a camera obscura
1725	The German chemist Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers that light can darken a solution of chalk moistened with silver nitrate
1777	The Swedish chemist Carl Vilhelm Scheele compares the darkening effect on silver compounds of the different colours of the spectrum
1801	The English doctor Thomas Young elucidates the principles of human colour perception
1802	Thomas Wedgwood and Humphry Davy contact-print silhouettes of leaves and other objects on paper and leather sensitized with silver nitrate, but cannot fix them
1816	The French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, working at his Burgundian estate near Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, embarks on photographic experimentation, using a variety of supports and light-sensitive materials. His objective is to create multiple reproductions of engravings and of images formed in the camera obscura
1822	Niépce makes a permanent copy of an engraving contact printed onto a glass plate sensitized with bitumen of Judaea, a substance that hardens when exposed to light
1824	At about this time, Niépce succeeds in making camera obscura images from his study window (points de vue), using a direct-positive process involving bitumen-coated metal plates. He names the process ‘heliography’
	In Paris, the diorama proprietor Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre also begins photographic experiments
1826	Daguerre learns from the Paris optician Chevalier of Niépce's work and conducts an inconclusive correspondence with him
1827	Probably in this summer Niépce creates *View from the Study Window (Point de vue du Gras à Saint-Loup de Varennes)*. Niépce meets Daguerre in Paris while en route to visit his brother in London, where he fails to interest the scientific establishment in his heliographic process
1829	Niépce and Daguerre sign a formal partnership contract (14 December), prior to which Niépce writes a description of his process, Notice sur l'héliographie. Subsequently Niépce starts using silver iodide as a means of sensitizing silver-plated copper plates
1833	In rural Brazil, Hercules Florence succeeds in contact printing and fixing on paper drawings and script created on glass with a burin; he also uses the term photographie
	Following Niépce's premature death (5 July), and building on his work, Daguerre continues to experiment, from 1836 assisted by the architect Eugène Hubert. The priority is now the speed of the process and the clarity and permanence of the image, rather than its reproducibility
1834	In England, William Henry Fox Talbot begins photographic experiments (January) and eventually succeeds in making and partially fixing silhouetted cameraless negative images of botanical specimens on paper, a process he describes as ‘photogenic drawing’
1835	On 28 February Talbot first notes the possibility of making ‘positive’ from ‘negative’ images
	That summer Talbot creates photogenic negative images on his estate at Lacock, using small wooden cameras (‘mousetraps’). The earliest surviving example is the c.1-inch square *Lacock Oriel Window* (*Latticed Window*) (August). Most significantly for the future, however, he also makes positive prints from his original negatives
	Some time between c.1835 and 1837, Daguerre begins to use mercury vapour to develop the latent image and salt to fix the result: a unique, positive, and finely detailed picture which becomes known as the daguerreotype
1838	In the autumn, after unsuccessful attempts to fund his invention by public subscription, Daguerre approaches the physicist and parliamentarian François Arago with a view to obtaining government support
	Daguerre, *Boulevard du Temple Paris*, probably the first surviving photograph of a human being, a man having his shoes polished in the street
	Charles Wheatstone invents a reflecting stereoscope
1839	Arago and the physicist Jean Baptiste Biot announce Daguerre's discovery—but not its practical details—to the Academy of Science in Paris (7 January)
	The first public showing of Talbot's photogenic drawings takes place at the Royal Institution, London (25 January)
	Talbot reveals the working details of his process to the Royal Society, London (21 February)
	Talbot's friend Sir John Herschel reveals his own, rapidly devised photographic process to the Royal Society (14 March). Herschel also proposes the use of sodium thiosulphate (‘hypo’) as a means of fixing photographic images
	The French civil servant Hippolyte Bayard produces his first direct-positive images on paper (20 March)
	In Munich, Carl August von Steinheil and Franz von Kobell make circular paper negatives of local views, and describe their process to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (13 April)
	In June and July it is arranged that Daguerre should cede the rights to his invention to the French state in return for an annual pension of 6, 000 francs
	Arago reveals the details of Daguerre's process at a joint meeting of the Academies of Science and Fine Arts (19 August)
	Daguerre's manual Historique et description du procédé du daguerréotype et du diorama is published (21 August). A daguerreotype craze follows, with kits on sale from entrepreneurs like Chevalier, Lerebours, and Daguerre himself for c.300 francs
	The first public demonstration of the daguerreotype in London (11 September)
	In Barcelona, Ramón Alabern makes Spain's first daguerreotype (10 November)
	The details of Daguerre's process rapidly circulate throughout Europe and the eastern United States, and many translations of the Historique et description appear
1840	The Hungarian mathematician Josef Petzval designs a fast (f/3.6) ‘portrait’ lens that, in conjunction with chemical improvements by John Goddard, Franz Kratochwilla, and Antoine Claudet, greatly reduces daguerreotype exposure times; Hippolyte Fizeau introduces gold toning to improve the contrast of the final image and make it less fragile
	The American dentist Alexander S. Wolcott opens the world's first photographic (daguerreotype) portrait studio (Wolcott & Johnson) in New York (4 March)
	The first lunar daguerreotype is taken by the American chemistry professor John W. Draper
	Talbot discovers a method of speeding the formation and development of the latent (negative) image (September). It becomes easier to use the negative-positive process for living subjects, and Talbot creates a portrait of his wife Constance on 10 October. Talbot's improved process, patented in 1841, is called the calotype (or, by some, the Talbotype)
	The Abbé Louis Compte, visiting South America aboard a French vessel, makes daguerreotypes at Rio de Janeiro (January); the young Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, buys a camera and subsequently becomes a patron of photography
	Hippolyte Bayard, *Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man* (*Le Noyé*)
	During the next decade, a variety of optical, chemical, and manipulative advances improve the efficacy of both Daguerre's and Talbot's processes, until both are superseded by the wet-plate process during the 1850s
1841	Richard Beard opens what is reputed to be Europe's first daguerreotype portrait studio, in Regent Street, London (March); Hermann Biow opens a studio in Hamburg
1842	Herschel invents the cyanotype printing process
	Appearance of the Illustrated London News (14 May)
	Biow photographs the aftermath of the catastrophic Hamburg fire (May)
	Mads Alstrup opens the first portrait studio in Copenhagen
1843	The Austrian Joseph Puchberger patents a panoramic camera capable of making 48.3 × 61 cm (19 × 24 in) daguerreotypes
	Robert Adamson opens a studio at Rock House, Calton Hill, Edinburgh (May), and goes into partnership with the painter David Octavius Hill; that year they begin making calotypes at the fishing village of Newhaven (until 1847)
	Founding of the Edinburgh Calotype Club
	Appearance of the Illustrirte Zeitung in Leipzig, Saxony
	Anna Atkins begins publication of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (October; it is completed a decade later)
	Sergei Levitsky makes daguerreotype views in the Caucasus
	The firm of Southworth & Hawes is founded in Boston
1844	Henry Talbot opens the Reading Establishment for commercial production of photographic prints and publications
	Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (6 parts, 1844-6)
	Talbot, *The Haystack*
1845	Talbot, Sun Pictures of Scotland
1847	C. F. A. Niépce de Saint-Victor introduces a practical method for making negatives on glass, using a coating of egg white (albumen) and potassium iodide
	Calotype Society founded in London
	L.D. Blanquart-Évrard announces significant improvements to Talbot's calotype process
	The African-American Glenalvin Goodridge founds a daguerreotype studio in York, Pennsylvania; by 1865, after an interval, his brothers Wallace and William have restarted the business in Saginaw, Michigan
1848	L'Illustration publishes wood engravings of revolutionary events in Paris from daguerreotypes by Thibault (July)
1849	Sir David Brewster perfects a lenticular stereoscope for viewing stereo daguerreotypes
	In the autumn Maxime Du Camp and Gustave Flaubert embark on a photographic expedition to the Middle East which lasts until the spring of 1851
1850	The Imperial Printing Office in Vienna opens a photographic department under Paul Pretsch which produces calotype architectural studies and views
	L.D. Blanquart-Évrard introduces albumen paper for printing positives from negatives
	The Daguerreian Journal (later Humphrey's Journal) is founded in New York
	J.T. Zealy makes daguerreotypes of South Carolina slaves (rediscovered in 1976)
1851	Gustave Le Gray's waxed negative technique further improves the calotype process, enabling sensitive materials to be prepared and stored before use
	Frederick Scott Archer publishes a description of the wet-collodion process in The Chemist (March). Although cumbersome and difficult to use, especially out of doors, this wet-plate process, especially in conjunction with albumenized paper, is capable of producing extremely fine images. It dominates photographic practice for over two decades
	The Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, London, includes over 700 entries from both sides of the Atlantic, including Jules Duboscq's stereo-daguerreotypes and John Whipple's daguerreotype of the moon, but also boosts the wet-plate process
	Société Héliographique founded in Paris (January)
	Appearance of La Lumière, edited by Ernest Lacan (9 February)
	The French Mission Héliographique, the first state-sponsored photographic survey of historical monuments, produces c.300 paper prints, made by Baldus, Bayard, Le Gray, Le Secq, and Mestral
	L.D. Blanquart-Évrard opens his Imprimerie Photographique at Loos-lès-Lille, and by the time the establishment closes in 1855 has produced the salt prints for several important archaeological and other works, including Du Camp's Égypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie (1852), Greene's Le Nil (1854), and Salzmann's Jérusalem (1856)
1852	Henry Talbot begins experimenting with a photomechanical etching process (‘photoglyphic engraving’), later known as photogravure, which is eventually brought to fruition by Karl Klič in 1879
	George Washington Wilson establishes his firm in Aberdeen, Scotland
1853	Adolphe Martin invents a rapid direct-positive process later known as the tintype, which becomes particular popular with itinerant photographers
	The Photographic Society of London is founded (20 January; it becomes the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (RPS) in 1894)
	Félix Teynard, Égypte et Nubie (part-work completed in 1858)
1854	Achille Quinet patents the first ‘binocular’ (twin-lens) stereoscopic camera, the Quinetoscope
	First description of a solar camera, using reflected sunlight to make enlargements from negatives (ordinary contact printing created images the same size as the original negative)
	Société Française de Photographie (SFP) founded in Paris
	London Stereoscopic Company founded
	The Liverpool Journal of Photography is launched, becoming in 1860 the British Journal of Photography
	André Disdéri patents the carte de visite format (November)
	The firm of Fratelli Alinari is founded in Florence
	Nadar, *The Mime Charles Debureau as Pierrot* (1854-5)
	US Acting Master's Mate Eliphalet Brown Jr., *Portrait of Tanaka Mitsuyoshi* and other daguerreotypes of people and scenes in Yokohama and elsewhere (the Mitsuyoshi portrait is rediscovered in 1983); other Japanese scenes are photographed by a Russian naval officer, Alexander Fyodorovich Mozhaisky
1855	Roger Fenton takes c.360 wet-plate photographs of views and military scenes in the Crimea (March-June)
	Édouard-Denis Baldus creates an album of photographs of the railway between Paris and Boulogne-sur-Mer
	Gustave Le Gray opens a lavish studio on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris
	The Exposition Universelle in Paris includes a large photographic exhibition organized by the SFP
	A photographic school is established at Elphinstone College, Bombay
	John Mayall, *Sergeant Dawson and his Daughter*
1856	William Thompson makes primitive underwater photographs in the Wey estuary, southern England
	Photographic instruction is included in the training of the British Royal Engineers
	Countess Castiglione begins her photographic association with Pierre-Louis Pierson of the Paris studio Mayer & Pierson
	Gustave Le Gray, *The Brig*
1857	Felice Beato photographs Lucknow after its recapture from rebels by the British
	Carlo Naya opens a studio in Venice
	The Bonfils photographic company is founded in Beirut
	Camille Silvy, *La Vallée de l'Huisne (River Scene, France)*
	Oscar Gustav Rejlander, *The Two Ways of Life*
	Robert Howlett, *Isambard Kingdom Brunel before the Launch of the Leviathan [Great Eastern]* (November)
	Shiro Ichiki, *Portrait of Nariakira Shimazu*, the oldest surviving daguerreotype by a Japanese (rediscovered in 1975)
1858	The South Kensington Museum, London (later the Victoria & Albert Museum) holds an international photography exhibition jointly organized by the Photographic Society and the SEP
	Nadar makes wet-plate aerial photographs from a balloon
	Warren de la Rue makes stereographs of the moon
	The American Society of Photographers is founded
	Désiré Charnay makes the first of several visits to the Yucatán, Mexico, where he photographs pre-Columbian ruins
	Founding of the Odessa Photographic Society and the Russian journal Svetopis (Light-Painting)
	Egypt and Palestine Photographed and Described by Francis Frith
	Henry Peach Robinson, *Fading Away*
1859	Camille Silvy opens a successful carte de visite studio in Bayswater, London
	Charles Leander Weed takes the first photographs of the Yosemite Valley (June)
1860	Permission for the sale of royal photographic portraits in Britain gives a major impetus to celebrity photography
	Personal and financial difficulties force Le Gray to leave France; later he photographs Palermo shortly after its capture by Garibaldi (June)
	Disdéri launches his subscription celebrity series Galérie des contemporains
1861	The English photographer Thomas Sutton invents and patents (August) a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, but few are actually made
	The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell makes the first (projected) colour photograph, using three colour separations, but the photographic establishment takes little notice
	Auguste Rosalie Bisson takes wet-plate views from the summit of Mont Blanc (24 July)
	Nadar uses battery-powered lights to photograph the Paris catacombs (December)
	A photographic department is founded by the Krupp steelworks, Essen
1862	The British Fine Art Copyright Act extends copyright protection to photographs registered at Stationers' Hall, London (it remains in force until 1912)
	Hikoma Ueno opens the first Japanese-owned studio, in Nagasaki
	Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne, Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine
1863	The studio of Howard, Bourne & Shepherd (from 1865, Bourne & Shepherd) is established in Simla, north-western India; Samuel Bourne makes the first of three photographic expeditions into the Himalayas
	Felice Beato arrives in Japan, and opens a studio in Yokohama
1864	John Wilson Swan introduces important improvements to the carbon process, described by Adolphe Louis Poitevin in 1855; the resulting prints are both subtle and permanent, and become widely used in commercial photography
	The journal Photographische Mitteilungen is founded by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel
	Central Europe's first exhibition devoted exclusively to photography is organized in Vienna by the Photographische Gesellschaft (f. 1861)
1865	Charles Piazzi Smyth uses magnesium combustion to photograph inside the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt
	Foundation of the Palestine Exploration Fund
	William Mervyn Lawrence opens a portrait and view business in Dublin; a British intelligence officer, Samuel Lee Anderson, based in Dublin Castle, creates an album of Irish nationalists, inscribed Members of the Fenian Brotherhood
	The Uruguayan Esteban Garcia photographs the war between Paraguay and Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay (1865-70) for an American company
	Alexander Gardner, *Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators at Washington Arsenal* (7 July)
1866	W. B. Woodbury patents the photomechanical Woodburytype process
	The Rapid Rectilinear distortion-free lens is introduced independently by J. H. Dallmeyer and H. A. Steinheil
	Ernst Abbe of Zeiss collaborates with the Schott glass company to develop new glasses suitable for the manufacture of more advanced lenses
	Introduction of the cabinet format studio photograph
	Émile Gsell photographs of the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia
	George Barnard, Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign
1867	Commencement of the first of four US Geological and Geographical Surveys of the Western Territories, a programme lasting until 1879 and producing thousands of photographs of the American West
	Julia Margaret Cameron, *Sir John Herschel* (April)
1868	An eight-volume official work, The People of India, begins to appear, and is completed in 1875
1869	The ‘joining of the rails’ at Promontory Point, Utah, is recorded by A. J. Russell, Alfred Hart, and Charles R. Savage (10 May)
	Launch of the specialist Revue photographique des hôpitaux de Paris, illustrated with tipped-in, hand-coloured photographs (it lasts until 1876)
1870	During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1), microphotography is used to create micro-documents transportable by pigeon to and from besieged French cities
	Eugène Appert's Crimes of the Commune use photomontage to fake images of atrocities committed by the Paris Communards
	Foundation of the Archaeological Survey of India, which in 1871 acquires a photographic branch
	Launch in Yokohama of the journal Far East (30 May), regularly illustrated with albumen prints
	Andrei Karelin, Nizhni Novgorod
1871	Richard Leach Maddox describes a prototype gelatin dry plate; improved versions are increasingly used in the course of the decade, and eventually revolutionize photographic practice. In particular, dry emulsions make the creation of roll-film possible, and standardized manufacturing procedures encourage the development of practical sensitometry
	William Henry Jackson photographs in Yellowstone
1872	Tomishige Studio founded by Rihei Tomishige in Kumamoto City, Kyushu, Japan
	Henry Taunt, A New Map of the River Thames
	Charles Darwin, On the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, partly illustrated with photographs by Oscar Rejlander
1873	William Willis introduces the platinum print (platinotype)
	Timothy H. O'Sullivan, *Ancient Ruins in the Canyon de Chelly, New Mexico*
1877	John Thomson, Street Life in London (12 parts completed in 1878)
1878	Eadweard Muybridge devises a battery-of-cameras system to capture photographs of horses in motion
1879	Photogravure, a photomechanical process for creating high-quality reproductions, is perfected by Karl Klič
1880	The New York Daily Graphic uses the half-tone process to print a small-scale reproduction of a photograph of Manhattan's Shantytown (4 March)
	The Underwood & Underwood stereographic company is founded in Ottowa, Kansas (it moves to New York in 1891)
1881	George Eastman founds the Eastman Dry Plate Company at Rochester, NY, with six employees
1884	Photomechanical reproductions of photographs of military manoeuvres by Ottomar Anschütz appear in the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung (15 March)
	Launch of Amateur Photographer magazine (10 October)
	Lala Deen Dayal becomes court photographer to the Nizam of Hyderabad
	The first edition of Josef Maria Eder's multi-volume Ausführliches Handbuch der Fotografie (Comprehensive Handbook of Photography) begins to appear
1885	Launch of the Eastman-Walker roll holder, taking a 24-exposure paper film and suitable for attachment to standard plate cameras
	Gaston Tissandier, La Photographie en ballon
1886	John Thomson is appointed ‘Official Instructor of Photography’ at the Royal Geographical Society, London
	Nadar's interview of the centenarian chemist Michel Chevreul is photographed by Paul Nadar, and thirteen of the pictures are photomechanically reproduced in Le Journal illustré (5 September)
	An international photography exhibition is held in Oporto, Portugal
	Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, *Water Rats*
	Josef Maria Eder, Die Moment-Photographie (Instantaneous Photography)
1887	Patenting of the Kinetoscope motion-picture viewer
	Peter Henry Emerson, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads
	Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion
1888	Launch of the Kodak roll-film box camera (June), with the marketing slogan ‘you press the button, we do the rest’
	As a by-product of their pioneering research on sensitometry, Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Driffield patent an exposure calculator (14 April), later marketed as the Actinograph
	Founding of the Photo-Club de Paris
	Appearance of National Geographic Magazine (October)
1889	Opening of the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (Graphic Art Institute) in Vienna, providing important facilities for photographic training
	P. H. Emerson, Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art
1890	Paul Rudolph of Zeiss designs the Protar, the first anastigmat lens
	Inauguration of the Berlin Lette-Verein's photography school for women
	Berliner illustrirte Zeitung founded
	Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives
	Alphonse Bertillon, La Photographie judiciaire
1892	Foundation of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring (April)
	Foundation of the Keystone View Company in Meadville, Pa., by Benjamin L. Singley
1893	Verascope stereoscopic camera launched by Jules Richard, Paris
1894	Invention of the Mutoscope, a device using series of still photographs to create the illusion of movement
	Creation of the Japanese Army Photographic Unit
	Alfred Lichtwark, Die Bedeutung der Amateur-Photographie (The Significance of Amateur Photography)
1895	The German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen takes the first X-ray photographs (November-December)
	The pictorialist Society for the Encouragement of Amateur Photography is founded in Hamburg
	George Ewing, A Handbook of Photography for Amateurs in India
1896	Paul Martin receives the RPS's Gold Medal for his series of night photographs London by Gaslight
1897	Foundation of the National Photographic Record Association by Sir Benjamin Stone and others, active until 1910
	Richard and Cherry Kearton, With Nature and a Camera
1898	The Folmer & Schwing Manufacturing Co. launches the Graflex camera, the first of a long line of best-selling SLR cameras
	Secondo Pia takes controversial photographs of the Turin Shroud
	Clarence H. White, *Girl with a Mirror*
1899	Louis Boutan makes an artificially lit underwater photograph 50 m (164 ft) down in the open Mediterranean
1900	Eastman Kodak launches the Brownie camera
	By this time, c.30 per cent of British amateurs are women, and more than 3, 500 female professionals are working in the USA
	George R. Lawrence of Chicago uses a purpose-built Mammoth camera to photograph an entire train
	The Munich Photo School is founded, a joint venture between the city, the Bavarian state, and the South German Photographers' Association
	Louis Boutan, La Photographie sous-marine et les progrès de la photographie
1901	The Professional Photographers' Association is founded, and later (1983) becomes the British Institute of Professional Photographers
	Charles Caffin, Photography as a Fine Art
1902	Paul Rudolph designs the Tessar lens
	Alfred Stieglitz founds the Photo-Secession in New York
1903	Stieglitz launches the journal Camera Work
	Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, La Photographie judiciaire
	Frederick Evans, *A Sea of Steps (Wells Cathedral)*
1904	The German physicist Arthur Korn transmits photographic images over telephone lines from Munich to Nuremberg
	The autochrome colour process is announced by the Lumière brothers of Lyon, France
	Edward S. Curtis, *The Vanishing Race—Navaho*
1905	The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession—later known as Gallery 291—open at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York, and continue until 1917
	Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures: Records of National Life and History (2 vols., 1905-6)
1906	Marketing of the first commercial panchromatic plates, sensitive to all the colours of the spectrum
1907	The autochrome process is introduced commercially, becomes popular with amateurs, and remains available for c.30 years
	The first volume of Edward S. Curtis's twenty-volume The North American Indian appears (the last volume is published in 1930)
	Alfred Stieglitz, *The Steerage*
1908	Karl Karlovich Bulla and his son Victor photograph Leo Tolstoy and his family at Yasnaya Polyana on the occasion of the writer's 80th birthday (July)
1909	Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii embarks on an official photographic survey of Russia, using his own three-colour system
1910	Herbert Ponting makes still and motion pictures of Scott's ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic (1910-12)
	International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography at the Albright Museum, Buffalo, NY
	The ‘Kodak Girl’ becomes a central feature of Kodak advertising
1911	International Salon of Artistic Photography in Kiev
1912	Jacques-Henri Lartigue, *Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France*
1913	Alvin Langdon Coburn, New York from its Pinnacles
	Anton Giulio and Arturo Bragaglia, Fotodinamismo futurista
	Paul Strand, *Abstraction, Shadows of a Veranda, Connecticut*
1914	The Australian Frank Hurley joins Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica and takes spectacular photographs in extreme conditions
1915	British troops attacking at Neuve Chapelle on the Western Front use maps based entirely on aerial reconnaissance; in general, the First World War produces major advances in aerial photography
	Wilhelm Weimar, Die Daguerreotypie in Hamburg, 1839-1860
1916	Arnold Genthe, The Book of the Dance
1917	Alvin Langdon Coburn's Vortographs exhibited at the London Camera Club (February)
	The final, double issue (49/50) of Camera Work appears, with modern work by Paul Strand (June)
	Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths take their first ‘fairy’ photographs at Cottingley, Yorkshire (July)
	Foundation of the Imperial War Museum, London
	Victor Bulla records the revolutionary events in Petrograd (St Petersburg) (February-October)
1919	The Photographic Bureau of the British Ministry of Information becomes the Imperial War Museum's Department of Photographs (1 January)
1922	Arthur Korn transmits photographs by radio
	Edward Weston, *Armco Steel*
1923	Edward Steichen becomes chief photographer for Nast Publications, publishers of Vogue
	Alfred Stieglitz embarks on a long series of cloud studies that he describes as Equivalents
	Edward Weston travels to Mexico with Tina Modotti
1924	L'Illustration (26 January) publishes a three-dimensional anaglyph of the moon produced by Léon Gimpel from two earlier (1902, 1904) astronomical photographs
	László Moholy-Nagy, Malerei Fotografie Film (Painting Photography Film)
	Man Ray, *Kiki: le violon d'Ingres*
1925	Launch of Leitz's Leica I (a) 35 mm camera
	Arbeiter illustrierte Zeitung founded
1926	The German Ica, Goerz, Ernemann, and Contessa-Nettel companies merge to create the Zeiss Ikon photographic conglomerate
	Meeting of Eugène Atget and Margaret Bourke-White, who acquires many of his negatives after his death the following year; later she sells them to MoMA, New York
	Japanese magazine Asahi Camera launched
	Rudolf Koppitz, *Movement Study*
1927	Germaine Krull, Metall
1928	Franke & Heidecke introduce the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex
	Dephot agency founded in Berlin
	Appearance of the French illustrated weekly Vu (21 March)
	Salon de l'Escalier exhibition of modern photography in Paris (May-June)
	Karl Blossfeldt, Urformen der Kunst (Archetypes of Art)
	Albert Renger-Patzsch, Die Welt ist Schön (The World is Beautiful)
	August Sander, *Pastry-Cook, Cologne*
1929	Alfred Stieglitz opens the gallery An American Place in New York, which lasts until 1946
	Walter Peterhans is appointed to teach photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany
	Film and Foto (Fifo) exhibition in Stuttgart
	An exhibition of Hill and Adamson calotypes is held at the Belvedere, Vienna, curated by Heinrich Schwarz
	August Sander, Antlitz der Zeit (Face of our Time)
	Tina Modotti, *Woman of Tehuantapec* (c.1929)
1930	Lewis Hine is commissioned to document the construction of the Empire State Building, New York, eventually creating hundreds of images, a selection of which are published in Men at Work (1932)
	Atget: photographe de Paris, introduced by Pierre Mac Orlan
	At about this time, Man Ray creates his celebrated *Glass Tears*
1931	The Soviet photo-essay A Day in the Life of a Moscow Worker (Alpert, Shaikhet, Tules) appears in the Arbeiter illustrierte Zeitung
	Julien Levy opens his first gallery, at 602 Madison Avenue, New York, with a retrospective exibition of American photography
1932	Launch of Zeiss Ikon's Contax I 35 mm camera
	Group f/64 exhibition at the M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco (November-December)
	Edward Weston, The Art of Edward Weston
	Launch of Japanese journal Koga (Light Picture)
	Henri Cartier-Bresson, *Place de l'Europe*
	Wanda Wulz, *I+Cat*
1933	Founding of the Rapho agency in Paris
	A team led by Col. L. V. S. Blacker overflies Mount Everest for the first time and takes photographs (3 April)
	Brassaï: Paris de nuit: 60 photos inédites
	José Ortiz-Echagüe inaugurates a three-part series (completed in 1943) of photographic studies of Spain with España: tipos y trajes (Spain: People and Costumes)
1934	Founding of Alliance Photo in Paris, and opening of the Harcourt Studio
	Edward Weston begins a relationship with Charis Wilson (April), who inspires a series of celebrated nudes in the mid- and late 1930s
	Alexey Brodovitch becomes art director of Harper's Bazaar
	Doctrine of Socialist Realism proclaimed in the USSR
	Antoine Poidebard, La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie, based on aerial photographs
	Alexander Rodchenko, *Girl with a Leica*
1935	Launch of the AP WirePhoto network (1 January)
	Kodachrome colour transparency film is introduced for cinematographic use (in 1936 for still cameras)
	Roy Stryker creates and heads the Historical Section of the US Resettlement Administration (in 1937 renamed the Farm Security Administration [FSA])
	Madame Yevonde, *Lady Milbanke as ‘Queen of the Amazons’*
1936	Launch of Ihagee Kamerawerk's 35 mm Kine Exakta SLR, and of Agfacolor transparency film
	T* lens coating patented by Zeiss
	In Japan, the Seiki Optical Co. designs a Leica-type 35 mm camera called the Kwannon (marketed in Europe from 1937 as the Hansa Canon)
	Walter Benjamin's essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’
	Appearance of Life magazine (23 November)
	Founding of the Black Star agency in New York
	The Photo League, a group of New York-based documentary still photographers, emerges from the earlier (1928) Film and Photo League
	Bill Brandt, The English at Home
	Bill Brandt, *The Lambeth Walk*
	Dorothea Lange, *Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (Prairie Mother)* (March)
	Robert Capa, *The Falling Soldier (Death in Spain)* (23 September)
1937	Founding of Mass-Observation in England by Tom Harrison, Humphrey Jennings, and Charles Madge
	Edwin Land founds the Polaroid Corporation
	The Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, NJ (6 May), is recorded by numerous photographers; many of the pictures are distributed by WirePhoto and published next day
	Photography 1839-1937 exhibition at MoMA, New York, curated by Beaumont Newhall, and the first survey of photography to be held at an American museum. It is accompanied by Newhall's The History of Photography
	Edward Weston receives the first fellowship awarded to a photographer by the Guggenheim Foundation, for travel in the western states of the USA
	Maurice Bonnet founds the Relièphographie company in Paris for production of lenticular stereograms
	Man Ray, Max Ernst, Lee Miller, and other Surrealists gather at Lambe Creek near Truro, Cornwall (June)
	Herbert List, *Goldfish Bowl, Santorini*
1938	Kodak Super Six-20 camera with automatic exposure control, styled by Walter Dorwin Teague
	The Minox sub-miniature camera goes into production in Riga
	Andor Kraszna-Krausz founds the Focal Press in London
	Appearance of the British weekly illustrated paper Picture Post (1 October), edited by Stefan Lorant
	D. A. Spencer, Colour Photography in Practice
	R. M. Taft, Photography and the American Scene: A Social History, 1839-1889
	Henri Cartier-Bresson, *Sunday on the Banks of the Marne*
1939	Horst P. Horst, *Mainbocher Corset, Paris*
1940	Foundation of the Department of Photography at MoMA, New York, the first of its kind in an art museum, directed by Beaumont Newhall
	Edward Weston, *Tide Pool, Point Lobos*
1941	Victor Hasselblad founds his own manufacturing company in Gothenburg, Sweden
	The German serviceman Joe Heydecker takes illicit photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto (February)
	Launch of the Zurich monthly magazine Du (March)
	John Grierson founds the National Film Board in Canada
	The Wandering Jew exhibition held by Tanpei Shashin Club, Osaka, Japan (May)
	Walker Evans (with James Agee), Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
	Ansel Adams, *Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico*
1942	Introduction of the Kodacolor process for making colour prints from colour negatives
	Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis
	Jindrich Styrsky (with Jindrich Heisler), On the needles of these days
	Launch of the Japanese propaganda magazine Front in sixteen languages (January), its first edition dedicated to the Japanese navy
	Gordon Parks, *Ella Watson (American Gothic)*
1943	George Strock, *Three American Soldiers Ambushed on Buna Beach, New Guinea* (February; published in Life, 20 September)
	Weegee, *The Critic*
1944	Robert Capa photographs the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach, but most of the pictures are ruined in processing (6 June)
1945	Atomic bomb test at Alamogordo, N. Mex.; the only surviving colour photograph of the explosion is taken by Jack Aeby of the Special Engineer Detachment (16 July)
	The atomic attack on Hiroshima is photographed from the bomber Enola Gay by George R. Caron, and on the ground by Yoshito Matsushige (6 August)
	Alexey Brodovitch, Ballet
	Weegee, Naked City
	Joe Rosenthal, *Raising of the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima* (23 February)
1946	Refounding of Rapho by Raymond Grosset
1947	Edwin Land's ‘peel-apart’ instant picture process is demonstrated at the American Optical Society (21 February), heralding the launch of Polaroid 95 instant cameras the following year
	Magnum agency founded at meetings in Paris and New York
	Edward Steichen succeeds Beaumont Newhall as director of the Department of Photography at MoMA, New York, and stays until 1962
	Incorporation of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction (Indiana University, Bloomington), which eventually acquires a large photographic archive
	Hugo van Wadenoyen, Wayside Snapshots
1948	Holography described and named by Denis Gabor
	W. Eugene Smith's photo-essay Country Doctor appears in Life
	Philippe Halsmann, *Dali Atomicus*
	Eric Hosking, *Barn Owl with Vole*
1949	Opening of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
	German fotoform group founded
	Launch of Paris Match (25 March)
	Robert Doisneau (with Blaise Cendrars), La Banlieue de Paris
	Willy Ronis, *Provençal Nude*
1950	First Photokina photographic trade fair, Cologne
	Drum magazine founded in South Africa, lasting until 1985
	Japan Professional Photographers' Society founded
	Izis (Israëlis Bidermanas), Paris des rêves
	Robert Doisneau, *The Kiss at the Hôtel de Ville (Les Amants de l'Hôtel de Ville)* (March)
1951	Partly as the result of official harassment, the Photo League disbands
	Light Publicity, one of the most important post-war Japanese advertising agencies, is created, and employs many leading photographers
	The Photographic Society of Japan is founded (December)
	David Douglas Duncan, This Is War
1952	Helmut and Alison Gernsheim rediscover Niépce's *View from the Study Window (Point de vue du Gras à Saint-Loup de Varennes)* of 1827 (15 February)
	Launch of the journal Aperture
	Henri Cartier-Bresson, Images à la sauvette, photographies (Paris)/The Decisive Moment: Photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson (New York)
1953	Launch of Playboy magazine (November)
	Dmitri Baltermants, *The Announcement of Stalin's Death*
1954	Ernst Leitz GmbH launches the Leica M series with the M3 rangefinder camera
	Pierre Bourdin begins working for French Vogue
	Pierre Verger, Deux Afriques
1955	The Family of Man exhibition opens at MoMA, New York (January)
	Henri Cartier-Bresson, Les Européens
1956	The Family of Man exhibition is held at the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo, and attracts large crowds (March-April); later the first International Subjective Photography exhibition takes place at the same location (December)
	William Klein, New York (Life is Good and Good for You in New York)
	Josef Sudek Fofografie
	O. Winston Link, *Hot Shot Eastbound at Iaeger Drive-In, West Virginia*
1957	Picture Post closes (1 June)
	Lucien Clergue, Corps mémorables
1958	Robert Frank, Les Américains: photographies de Robert Frank (Paris)/The Americans (New York, 1959)
	Ansel Adams, *Aspens, Northern New Mexico*
1959	Launch of 35 mm Nikon F SLR by Nippon Kogaku (later Nikon)
	The Family of Man exhibition reaches Moscow
	VIVO agency launched in Tokyo (July), and lasts until 1961
	Bernd Becher and Hilla Wobeser (later Becher) begin collaborating on images of industrial structures in western Germany
	A selection of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh photographs appears in Photography Annual
	Richard Avedon, Observations
	Jeanloup Sieff, Borinage
1960	Federico Fellini's film La dolce vita gives currency to the term paparazzo for intrusive celebrity photographers
	Irving Penn, Moments Preserved
	Alberto Korda, *Il guerillero heroico (Che Guevara)* (5 March)
1961	Creation of the first successful holograms
	Bill Brandt, Perspective of Nudes
1962	John Szarkowski succeeds Edward Steichen as director of the department of photography at MoMA, New York
	Bert Stern photographs Marilyn Monroe (July), shortly before her death
	American aerial reconnaissance photographs identify Russian missiles positioned in western Cuba (October)
	Malick Sidibé opens Studio Malick in Bamako, Mali
	Eliot Porter, with texts by H. D. Thoreau, In Wildness is the Preservation of the World
1963	Kodak Instamatic series launched (February)
	First production 35 mm SLR camera with through-the-lens (TTL) metering, Tokyo Kogaku's Topcon RE Super
	Nippon Kogaku launches the Nikonos underwater camera
	An acclaimed exhibition of Jacques-Henri Lartigue's early photographs is held at MoMA, New York
	Publication of the first Pirelli Calendar
1964	The young Chinese photographer Li Zhensheng joins the Heilongjiang Daily in Harbin in north-eastern China (October); later he photographs events of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76)
	Edwin Smith (with Edward Hyams), The English Garden
1965	Pierre Bourdieu, Un art moyen: essais sur les usages sociaux de la photographie (Paris)/Photography: A Middlebrow Art (New York, 1996)
	Lennart Nilsson, A Child is Born
1966	The Photographer's Eye exhibition at MoMA, New York
	Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup
	Hou Bo, *Mao Zedong Swimming in the Yangtze River*
1967	New Documents exhibition at MoMA, New York
	Founding of the Friends of Photography at Carmel, California
	Ernest Cole, House of Bondage
1968	The radical Japanese journal and collective Provoke is founded (November) by Daido Moriyama and others
	Laura Gilpin, The Enduring Navaho
	Eddie Adams, *General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executes a Vietcong Prisoner in a Saigon Street* (1 February)
	Ronald L. Haeberle, *Massacre of Villagers at My Lai 4, South Vietnam* (16 March; the pictures are not published until November 1969)
1969	Ralph Gibson founds Lustrum Press in New York
	The Lee Witkin photographic gallery opens in New York
	Harlem on my Mind exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
	MoMA, New York, acquires the Eugène Atget archive
	Neil Armstrong, *Buzz Aldrin on the Moon* (20 July), taken with a Hasselblad 500SL camera
1970	E. J. Bellocq's rediscovered *Storyville Portraits* of New Orleans prostitutes, taken c.1912 and newly printed by Lee Friedlaender, are exhibited at MoMA, New York
	The French Law of 17 July 1970 severely restricts the photographic invasion of privacy
	Inauguration of the Arles Festival
	Ralph Gibson, The Somnambulist
	Bernd and Hilla Becher, Anonymous Sculptures
	Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Diary of a Century
	Kishin Shinoyama, Nude
1971	The Photographers' Gallery opens in London
	Sotheby's, London, holds its first photographic auction, organized by Philippe Garner
	Appearance of the Spanish journal Nueva lente
	Philip Jones Griffiths, Vietnam Inc.
	Nobuyoshi Araki, Sentimental Journey
	Larry Clark, Tulsa
1972	Launch of Olympus's OM SLR system with the mechanical OM-1
	Bell Systems USA announces the use of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) for a solid-state camera
	Polaroid SX-70 Deluxe instant-picture camera, with ultrasonic autofocus system
	The Musée Niépce opens at Châlon-sur-Saône
	Diane Arbus becomes (posthumously) the first photographer to be represented at the Venice Biennale
	Publication of Life magazine suspended (December)
	The publishing house La Azotea is founded in Argentina; in general, book publishing becomes an increasingly important activity for photographers
	The first of W. Eugene Smith's photographs of pollution in Minamata, Japan, appear in Life (2 June); they are exhibited in Japan and elsewhere from 1973 and are published as a book in 1975
	Daido Moriyama, Bye Bye Photography
	Nick Ut, *Napalm Attack, Trang Bang, South Vietnam* (8 June)
1973	Sygma agency founded in Paris
	Harold E. Edgerton, *Bullet Passing through a Candle Flame*
1974	The Camera and Dr Barnardo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London includes images of Victorian child prostitutes by ‘Francis Hetling’ shown later (1978) to be fakes: a symptom of the rising value of the market in historic photographs
	International Center of Photography founded in New York
	New Japanese Photography exhibition at MoMA, New York, curated by John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi
	Tony Ray-Jones (d. 1971), A Day Off: An English Journal
	Bernd and Hilla Becher, *Water-Towers, 1*
1975	The Fox Talbot Museum opens at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire
	New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, organized by William Jenkins, at the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House
	The Camera Obscura gallery opens in Stockholm
	Mervyn Bishop, *Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil into the Hand of Traditional Gurindji Landowner Vincent Lingiari, Northern Territory, [Australia]*
	Josef Koudelka, Gypsies
1976	Introduction of ASA 400-rated colour negative film (Fujicolor FII 400), 11 million times more sensitive than the bitumen-coated plates used by Niépce in the 1820s
	Founding of Contact Press Images
	William Eggleston's Guide exhibition of colour photographs at MoMA, New York
	Susan Meiselas, Carnival Strippers
1977	Konica C35A autofocusing compact camera, using infrared sensing
	The Hackney Flashers, a socialist and feminist collective, is founded in east London
	Stills Gallery opens in Edinburgh
	Cindy Sherman begins the series Untitled Film Stills (1977-80)
	Kosti Ruohamaa, Night Train at Wiscasset Station
	Humphrey Spender, Britain in the '30s
	Thomas Nelson, A Practical Introduction to the Art of Daguerrotypy in the 20th Century
1978	Ian Berry, The English
	Mirrors and Windows exhibition at MoMA, New York
1979	Founding of the Consejo Argentina de Fotografía
	Jo Spence, Beyond the Family Album
1980	First Week of Spanish Photography in Barcelona (May)
	The Imaginary Photo Museum exhibition at Photokina, Cologne
	David Bailey's Trouble and Strife
	Martine Franck, Le Temps de vieillir
	Roland Barthes, La Chambre claire (Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography)
	Annie Leibovitz, *John Lennon and Yoko Ono*
1981	Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills exhibited at Metro Pictures, New York
	Tee A. Corinne's series Yantras of Womanlove
	Susan Meiselas, Nicaragua
	Helmut Newton, *Self-Portrait with Wife and Model*
1982	Demonstration of Sony's ‘still-video’ Mavica camera, recording up to 50 analogue images on a magnetic disc
	Launch of Kodak disc camera. Production continues until 1988
	A survey estimates that c.20 million working cameras exist in France, and that 62 per cent of households own at least one
	Susan Sontag, On Photography
	Bert Stern, The Last Sitting
	Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places
1983	The National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television opens in Bradford, an outstation of the Science Museum in London
	Scottish Society for the History of Photography founded
	The Ken Domon Museum, Japan's first museum dedicated exclusively to photography, opens in Sakata
	Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Byker
	Robert Mapplethorpe, Lady: Lisa Lyon
	Roman Vishniac, A Vanished World
	Michael Hiley, Seeing through Photographs
1984	Launch of the fully automated Minolta Dynax 7000 (Maxxum 7000) 35 mm SLR
	The National Galleries of Scotland create the Scottish National Photography Collection
	The J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, founds a department of photography, of which Weston Naef becomes director
	Oliviero Toscani begins his association with the Benetton clothing firm (until 2000)
	The Picture Photo Space gallery opens in Osaka, Japan
	David Williams, Pictures from No Man's Land
1985	Richard Avedon, In the American West
	Takeshi Ozawa et al. (eds.), The Complete History of Japanese Photography (12 vols., completed in 1988)
	Black Sun: The Eyes of Four exhibition (Eikoh Hosoe, Masahisa Fukase, Daido Moriyama, Shomei Tomatsu) at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, then in London and Philadelphia
1986	Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
	André de Dienes, Marilyn mon amour
	South Africa: The Cordoned Heart, book and exhibition sponsored by the anti-apartheid agency Afrapix
1987	Controversial Corps à corps exhibition held by the French group Noir Limite
	Andres Serrano, *Piss Christ*
1988	Foundation of the Daguerrian Society in the USA
1989	Canon and Fuji launch consumer electronic cameras, recording analogue images on, respectively, floppy disks and memory cards
	The 150th ‘official’ anniversary of photography is celebrated with exhibitions including The Art of Photography, 1939-1989 at the Royal Academy, London, and On the Art of Fixing a Shadow at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the Art Institute of Chicago
	The exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment arouses major controversy
	The Ansel Adams Center for Photography opens in San Francisco
	David Goldblatt founds the Market Photography Workshop in Johannesburg
	Japan Photographers' Association founded, for both professionals and amateurs
1990	The Hubble Space Telescope, using a CCD array to capture astronomical images, is launched into orbit by the US space shuttle Discovery
	The first edition of Adobe Photoshop image manipulation software is launched
	Photography Until Now exhibition at MoMA, New York, followed by the retirement of John Szarkowski as director of the photography department
	Ken Burns makes extensive use of historic photographs in his television documentary series The American Civil War
	Fay Godwin, Our Forbidden Land
	Pierre Mac Orlan and Marcel Bovis, Fêtes foraines
1991	Kodak and Philips launch the Photo CD system
	The beginning of a spate of censorship scandals in Japan, involving the work of photographers such as Nobuyoshi Araki and Kishin Shinoyama
	Foundation of the research-orientated Japan Society for the Arts and History of Photography
	Alexandras Macijauskas, My Lithuania
	Donna Ferrato, Living with the Enemy
1992	Launch of the Canon EOS-5, the first camera with eye-controlled autofocus
	Launch of Kodak DCS digital SLR cameras
	In their film Photowallahs, David and Judith MacDougall explore the culture of street photography in the north Indian town of Mussoorie
	Toshio Shibata, Quintessence of Japan
	Jeff Wall, *Dead Troops Talk*
1993	Sebastião Salgado, Workers
1994	The US Clementine spacecraft maps the entire surface of the moon and takes c.1.8 million photographs
	Sally Mann, Still Time
	Nouvelle Histoire de la photographie, edited by Michel Frizot
1995	Light from the Dark Room exhibition, National Galleries of Scotland
	Freelens professional photographers' association founded in Hamburg
	Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography opens fully, and hosts the first Tokyo International Photo-Biennale (June-July)
	Launch of Print Club (Puri-Kura) photo-booths in Japan
	1 June becomes an annual Day of Photography in Japan
1996	Launch of the Advanced Photographic System (APS) by a consortium of manufacturers
	First Tokyo Month of Photography (May)
1997	The Helene Anderson collection of avant-garde photographs of the 1920s and 1930s is auctioned at Sotheby's, London (May), fetching high prices
	Founding of Getty Images Inc.
	Opening of Tokyo Photographic Cultural Centre
1998	Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography exhibition at the Barbican Gallery, London
	David Goldblatt, South Africa: The Structure of Things Then Raghubir Singh, River of Colour
1999	The Royal Library of Copenhagen's collection of 10 million pictures becomes the Nationale Fotomuseum
	A large part of the Jammes collection of 19th-century and modernist photography is auctioned at Sotheby's, London, achieving record prices and a total of over £6 million; Gustave Le Gray's La Grande Vague, Sète fetches £507, 000 (c.$800, 000)
	The New York collector John Pritzker pays over $1 million for a print of Man Ray's *Glass Tears*
	Online sales of photography are boosted by the creation of *www.eyestorm.com*
	Daido Moriyama et al., Stray Dog
	Patricia Macdonald (with John Berger), Once in Europa
	Annie Leibovitz, Women
2000	Photojournalists and other professionals adopt digital photography in ever larger numbers; Canon launches its last film-based professional SLR, the EOS-1V
	Paris en 3D exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris
	How You Look at It exhibition, an overview of 20th-century photography, at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover
	Inauguration of an annual Documentary Photo Festival at Miyazaki, Japan. However, economic depression leads to the closure of many photographic galleries and periodicals
	Naoya Hatekeyama, Underground
	Sooni Taraporevala, The Parsis of India: A Photographic Journey
2001	Digital cameras outsell film cameras in Japan (and in the USA in 2003)
	Founding of VII photographic agency by James Nachtwey and others
	Andreas Gursky retrospective at MoMA, New York, curated by Peter Galassi; a print of his *Montparnasse* (1994) sets a record for contemporary photography by fetching c.$600, 000
	Wolfgang Tillmans wins the Turner Prize at Tate Britain, London
	Closure of the Friends of Photography (October)
	Hiroshi Sugimoto, Architecture of Time
	Jean Gaumy, Men at Sea
2002	Production of Olympus OM film cameras ceases
	The first consumer-level camera phones are launched
	The exhibition Ansel Adams at 100 tours the USA and Europe
2003	Launch of the Canon EOS 300D 6.3 megapixel digital SLR for under £1, 000
	Launch of the Olympus E-1 digital SLR, incorporating the Four Thirds sensor system and using lenses designed exclusively for digital imaging
	The Japanese manufacturing giants Konica and Minolta merge to become Konica-Minolta (October)
	Guy Bourdin exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
	Transfer of the RPS photographic collection to the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television, Bradford
	Cruel and Tender exhibition at Tate Modern, London, its first exclusively photographic show
	Lartigue: l'album d'une vie exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, Paris (and the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2004); another major Paris show, Le Daguerréotype français: un objet photographique celebrates pioneering French photography
	Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
	Li Zhensheng, Red-Color News Soldier
2004	Kodak ends production of APS cameras and embarks on a restructuring of its business worldwide
	Launch of the Nikon F6, predicted in some quarters to be the company's last professional film-based SLR
	Launch of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II digital SLR, with 16.7 million pixels
	Samsung launches a 5-megapixel camera phone. A Fonetography exhibition is held at the AOP Gallery, London
	Ilford Ltd., specialists in black-and-white film materials, go into administration
	Two NASA exploration vehicles soft-land on Mars and begin transmitting stereoscopic digital images of the terrain
	Opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC, incorporating a major photographic archive (21 October)
	The Cable Factory Photography Gallery opens in Helsinki
	At its annual award ceremony in November, the RPS honours the lifetime achievements of the portraitist Arnold Newman and documentary photographer Humphrey Spender. Other awards illustrate the many-sidedness of the medium in the early 21st century. Those honoured include the photojournalists Terry O'Neill and Simon Norfolk; the picture editor Aidan Sullivan; the nature photographer Andy Callow; the cinematographer Seamus McGarvey; Eric Fossum and Peter Burns for research on digital image processing, and Efthimia Bilissi for work on image reproduction via the Internet; the collector and auctioneer Philippe Garner; the hologram collector Jonathan Ross; the photographic publisher Dewi Lewis; and Anne McCauley, Colin Harding, Val Williams, and Mark Holborn for curatorship and historical scholarship
2005	The Japanese firm Kyocera, maker of Contax and Yashica cameras, announces its withdrawal from camera production and concentration on camera phones

c.1500-1000 bce	Vedic period in India
c.1000-800 bce	Composition of Brāhmaṇas
c.800-500 bce	Composition of major Upaniṣads
c.500 bce	Life of Lao-tsu
552-479 bce	Life of Confucius
c.485-405 bce	Life of the Buddha (Śākyamuni)
c.465-413 bce	Reign of Bimbisāra
c.405 bce	Council of Rājagṛha
327-325 bce	Alexander the Great in India
322-298 bce	Reign of Candragupta Maurya
303 bce	Megasthenese at court of Candragupta
c.300 bce	Council of Vaiśālī
c.284 bce	Council of Pāṭaliputra I
c.272-231 bce	Reign of Aśoka
c.250 bce	Council of Pāṭaliputra II
247 bce	Mahinda introduces Buddhism to Sri Lanka
200 bce	Beginnings of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Composition of Prajñā-pāramitā texts begins.
c.200-000 bce	Stūpa construction at Sāñcī
148 bce	An Shih-kao arrives in China and establishes first translation bureau
200 bce-200 ce	Invasion of India by Śuṇgas and Yavanas (187-30 bce), Śakas and Pahlavas (100-75 bce), and Kuṣāṇas (1st-2nd century ce)
101-77 bce	Reign of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi Abhaya in Sri Lanka; Buddhism becomes state religion
c.100-000 bce	Abhayagiri monastery founded in Sri Lanka
29-17 bce	Pāli Canon written down in Sri Lanka during reign of Vaṭṭagāmaṇi Abhaya
c.100-000 ce	Buddhism enters central Asia and China. Composition of Lotus Sūtra and other early Mahāyāna texts
c.100-200 ce	Founding of Nālandā
c.200-300 ce	Buddhism arrives in Vietnam
c.100-200 ce	Council of Kaniṣka
150-250 ce	Life of Nāgārjuna
c.200 ce	Buddhism transmitted to Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia
c.300 ce	Life of Asaṇga and Vasubandhu
334-416 ce	Life of Hui-yüan
343-413 ce	Life of Kumārajīva
350-650 ce	Gupta dynasty in India, Buddhist philosophy and art flourish
372 ce	Buddhism transmitted to Korea
399-414 ce	Fa-hsien travels to India
c.400-500 ce	Life of Buddhaghoṣa
c.500-600 ce	Composition of tantric texts in India
499-569 ce	Life of Paramārtha
c.500 ce	Development of Hua-yen, T'ien-t'ai, Ch'an, and Pure Land schools in China
520 ce	Bodhidharma arrives in China
538-97 ce	Life of Chih-i; development of T'ien-t'ai school
552 ce	Buddhism enters Japan from Korea
572-621 ce	Prince Shotoku sponsors Buddhism in Japan
581-618 ce	Chinese Sui dynasty
c.600 ce	first diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet
c.600 ce	Life of Dharmakīrti; flourishing of logic and epistemology
617-86 ce	Life of Woˇnhyo; foundation of ‘unitive Buddhism’ in Korea
618-50 ce	Life of Songtsen Gampo; establishment of Buddhism in Tibet.
618-907 ce	Chinese T'ang dynasty; golden age of Buddhism in China
625-702 ce	Life of Uˇisang; introduction of Hwaoˇm (Hua-yen) into Korea
629-45 ce	Hsüan-tsang travels to India
638-713 ce	Life of Hui-neng; Northern-Southern schools controversy
643-712 ce	Life of Fa-tsang; consolidation of Hua-yen school
650-950 ce	Pala dynasty in India
668-918 ce	Unified Silla Period in Korea; Buddhism flourishes
671-95 ce	I-ching travels to India
c.700 ce	Life of Padmasambhava
c.700 ce	Northern-Southern Schools controversy in Japan
c.700 ce	Esoteric school (Chen-yen tsung) develops in China
c.700-800 ce	Construction of Borobudur
c.700-1100 ce	Pala dynasty; Mahāyāna and tantric Buddhism flourish; consolidation of school of logic and epistemology (pramāṇa)
710-94 ce	Nara period in Japan; Six Schools of Nara Buddhism
742 ce	Council of Lhasa
767 ce	Construction of Samyé monastery in Tibet
767-822 ce	Life of Saichō; founding of Tendai school
774-835 ce	Life of Kūkai; founding of Shingon school
794-1185 ce	Heian period in Japan
c.800 ce	Founding of Vikramaśīla monastery
836-42 ce	Reign of Lang Darma and suppression of Buddhism in Tibet
845 ce	Persecution of Buddhism in China
960-1279 ce	Sung dynasty in China
978-1392 ce	Koryoˇ period in Korea
983 ce	First printing of Chinese Buddhist canon (Szechuan edition)
1012-97 ce	Life of Marpa and origins of Kagyü order
1016-1100 ce	Life of Nāropa
1040-77 ce	King Anawrahtā unifies Burma and gives allegiance to Theravāda Buddhism
1040-1123 ce	Life of Milarepa
1042 ce	Atīśa arrives in Tibet; beginning of second diffusion of Buddhism
1055-1101 ce	Life of Uˇich'oˇn
1073 ce	Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism founded
1079-1153 ce	Life of Gampopa
c.1100 ce	Construction of Angkor Wat
1133-1212 ce	Life of Hōnen, founding of Jōdo-shu school
1141-1215 ce	Life of Eisai; transmission of Rinzai Zen to Japan
1158-1210 ce	Life of Chinul; Chogye order founded; development of Sŏn in Korea
1173-1262 ce	Life of Shinran; founding of Jōdo-shinshū in Japan
1185-1392 ce	Kamakura Period in Japan
1197 ce	Nālandā University sacked by Mahmud Ghorī
c.1200 ce	Buddhism disappears from north India. Traces linger in south.
c.1200 ce	Printing of Tripiṭaka Koreana
1200-53 ce	Life of Dōgen; Sōtō Zen established in Japan
1222-82 ce	Life of Nichiren
1239-89 ce	Life of Ippen; foundation of Jishū school
1244 ce	Sakya Paṇḍita converts Mongols to Buddhism
c.1260 ce	Theravāda declared state religion of kingdom of Sukhothai (Thailand)
1290-1364 ce	Life of Butön; compilation of Tibetan canon.
1357-1419 ce	Life of Tsongkhapa; Gelukpa order founded in Tibet
1360 ce	Theravāda becomes state religion of Thailand
1368-1644 ce	Ming dynasty in China
1392-1909 ce	Ch'osŏn period in Korea, Buddhism suppressed
1411 ce	Tibetan Kanjur printed in China
1578 ce	Office of Dalai Lama instituted by Mongols
1617-82 ce	Life of Dalai Lama V and beginning of rule of Tibet by Dalai Lamas
1644-94 ce	Life of Bashō; Buddhism influence on haiku and the arts in Japan
c.1700 ce	Beginning of colonial period and Western domination of south and south-east Asia
1749 ce	Mongolian Buddhist canon translated from Tibetan
c.1800 ce	Beginning of the academic study of Buddhism by Western scholars
1823 ce	Royal Asiatic Society founded
1851-1868 ce	Reign of Rama IV in Thailand; reform of Thai Saṃgha
1853 ce	First Buddhist temple founded in USA, in San Francisco.
1868-1912 ce	Meiji period in Japan; Buddhism suppressed in favour of Shintō
1870-1945 ce	Life of Nishida Kitarō, founder of Kyoto school
1875 ce	Theosophical Society founded
1879 ce	Publication of the The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold
1881 ce	Pali Text Society founded in England by T. W. Rhys Davids
1891 ce	Mahabodhi Society founded by Anagārika Dharmapāla
1891-1956 ce	Life of B. Ambedkar; conversion of former Untouchables in India
1899 ce	Buddhist Churches of America founded
1924 ce	The Buddhist Society founded in London
1924 ce	Woˇn Buddhism founded
1924-9 ce	Compilation of Chinese canon (Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō) in Japan
1937 ce	Nichiren Shōshū Sōkagakkai formally established
1938 ce	Risshō Koseikai founded
1950 ce	People's Liberation Army enters Tibet
1950 ce	World Fellowship of Buddhists founded
1954-6 ce	Council of Rangoon
1959 ce	Dalai Lama XIV flees to India; persecution of Buddhism in Tibet by Chinese
1967 ce	Friends of the Western Buddhist Order founded
1970 ce	Development of Engaged Buddhism
1973 ce	Vajradhatu Foundation founded
1976 ce	International Association of Buddhist Studies founded
1989 ce	International Network of Engaged Buddhists founded
1995 ce	UK Association of Buddhist Studies (UKABS) founded
2001 ce	Destruction of standing Buddha statues at Bāmiyān by Taliban regime

c. 6000 BC	Farming begins in Tigris-Euphrates and Nile River Valleys
c. 4000 BC	Farming begins in Yellow River Valley
c. 3500 BC	Sumerian city-states emerge
3300 BC	Rulers divide Nile Valley into Upper and Lower Egypt by this time
c. 3100 BC	Egypt unified into single kingdom
c. 2800	Indus River Valley civilization begins
2180 BC	Egypt’s Middle Kingdom established
c. 2000 BC	Stonehenge built in England
c. 1760 BC	Hammurabi rules in Babylon
c. 1700 BC	Hebrew monotheism emerges

chronology

Definition

Calendar and Era

Anno Urbis Conditae Era

Astronomical Era

Other chronological subjects

Prehistoric chronologies

See also

Examples

Techniques

Other

References

Further reading

External links