From Edison to Buzz Lightyear, magic moments make history

Today’s movies got their start more than a century ago, when 19th-century scientists and inventors first began to play with the concepts of “persistence of vision” and “illusion of movement.” (The gist: When single images fly by in rapid succession, our eyes merge the pictures together and we see movement.) Inventions like the phenakistoscope, the thaumatrope, the zoetrope and the praxinoscope first introduced the notion of moving pictures to the public.

In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison and his assistant designed an early version of the movie projector, called the kinetoscope. The rest is Hollywood history.

1894: Edison opens the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria, to create films for the kinetoscope. The first kinetoscope parlor opened in New York City, and patrons could drop in a coin to watch 15 to 30 seconds of film.

1895: The French Lumiere brothers present the first commercial exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in a room beneath a Paris cafe.

1905: The first “nickelodeon” movie theater opens in Pittsburgh, showing short films for a nickel.

1909: The New York Times publishes the first movie review, an evaluation of D.W. Griffith’s “Pippa Passes.” (The reviewer liked it.)

1913: Edison introduces the kinetophone to the public, after creating several versions. The device synchronized sound and pictures, paving the way for “talkies.”

1923: Rin Tin Tin becomes film’s first canine star. Walt Disney releases “Alice’s Wonderland,” a short animated film.

1925: Fritz Lang’s film “Siegfried” is the first to have a synchronized soundtrack.

1927: Al Jolson stars in “The Jazz Singer,” the first feature-length “talkie.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.

1929: The first Academy Awards are handed out.

1932: The Technicolor company’s first “three-strip” camera brings full-color capability to the movie industry.

1933: The first drive-in movie theater opens in Camden, N.J.

1937: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Disney’s first feature-length animated film, hits theaters.

1939: “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” are released.

1953: The Academy Awards ceremony is televised for the first time.

1956: “The Wizard of Oz” becomes the first feature film to be broadcast on U.S. TV in prime time.

1968: The motion picture rating system debuts with G, PG, R and X.

1975: The first home VCR, Sony’s Betamax, debuts for $2,000.

1976: “Rocky” is the first film to use the Steadicam.

1980: The United States elects its first movie-star president, Ronald Reagan.

1983: “Return of the Jedi” is the first film to be shown in a THX-certified auditorium.

1984: The Motion Picture Association of America introduces the PG-13 rating.

1990: NC-17 replaces X.

1991: “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was the first film with a $100 million budget and the first with a CG-generated main character.

1995: “Toy Story” is the first theatrical motion picture generated entirely by computer.

2009: James Cameron develops the stereoscopic virtual camera, and uses it to make “Avatar,” the first full-length movie using performance-capture to create photo-realistic 3D characters in a CG 3D world.

Sources: “Eyewitness Books: Film,” American Museum of the Moving Image (www.ammi.org), www.thomasedison.com, Internet Movie Database, www.filmsite.org, www.factmonster.com, National Association of Theater Owners, KRT, About.com, www.allmovie.com, www.moviegoods.com, Ruby Slippers photo courtesy of the Smithsonian institution.