| 1824: | Peter Roget presented his paper 'The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects' to the British Royal Society. |
| 1831: | Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau and Dr. Simon Rittrer constructed a machine called a phenakitstoscope. This machine produced an illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows; behind the windows was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated effect. |
| 1872: | Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic gathering of animals in motion. |
| 1887: | Thomas Edison started his research work into motion pictures. |
| 1889: | Thomas Edison announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds. |
| 1889: | George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic film strips using a nitro-cellulose base. |
| 1892: | Emile Renynaud, combining his earlier invention of the praxinoscope with a projector, opens the Theatre Optique in the Musee Grevin. It displays an animation of images painted on long strips of celluloid. |
| 1895: | Louis and Augustine Lumiere issued a patent for a device called a cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures. |
| 1896: | Thomas Armat designed the vitascope which projected the films of Thomas Edison. This machine had a major influence on all sub-sequent projectors. |
| 1906: | J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film which he called "Humorous phases of funny faces." His method was to draw comical faces on a blackboard and film them. He would stop the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face. The ‘stop-motion’ provided a starting effect as the facial expressions changed be fore the viewer’s eyes. |
| 1908: | In France Emile Cohl produced a film, Phantasmagorie which was the first depicting white figures on a black background. |
| 1910: | Emile Cohl makes En Route the first paper cutout animation. This technique saves time by not having to redraw each new cell, only reposition the paper. |
| 1911: | Winsor McCay produced an animation sequence using his comic strip character "Little Nemo." |
| 1913: | Pat Sullivan created an American cartoon series called "Felix the Cat." J.R. Bray devised "Colonel Heeza Liar," and Sidney Smith created "Old Doc Yak." |
| 1914: | John R Bray applies for a patent on numerous techniques for animation. One of the most revolutionary being the process of printing the backgrounds of the animation. |
| 1914: | Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called "Gertie, The Trained Dinosaur" which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings. |
| 1914: | Earl Hurd applies for a patent for the technique of drawing the animated portion of an animation on a clear celluloid sheet and later photographing it with its matching background. [Cel animation] |
| 1917: | The International Feature Syndicate released many titles including "Silk Hat Harry","Bringing Up Father", and "Krazy Kat". |
| 1926: | The first feature-length animated film called "El Apostol" is created in Argentina. |
| 1923: | Walt and Roy Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. |
| 1923: | Walt Disney extended Max Fleischer's technique of combining live action with cartoon characters in the film "Alice's Wonderland". |
| 1927: | Warner Brothers released "The Jazz Singer" which introduced combined sound and images. |
| 1928: | Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called "Steam Boat Willy". |
| 1930: | The King of Jazz is produced by Universal. In it is a short animated sequence done by Walter Lantz. It is the first animation done with the two strip technicolor process |
| 1934: | Urb Irwek creates a multi-plane camera. This camera is capable of filming several separate layers of cels giving the final frame a truly three dimensional look. |
| 1943: | John and James Whitney produced "Five Abstract Film Exercises." |
| 1945: | Harry Smith produced animation by drawing directly onto film. |
| 1957: | John Whitney used 17 Bodine motors, 8 Selsyns, 9 different gear units and 5 ball integrators to create analog computer graphics. |
| 1961: | John Whitney used differential gear mechanisms to create film and television title sequences. |
| 1964: | Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies. |
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