Historidex / Firsts

Historical Firsts: Photos of the First Time

The first photograph of a person, the first powered flight, the first film: these historical firsts are shown through the real photos and film made at the time.

24 historical firsts stories

• The earliest known photo of a person 1838, Paris, France

  This Paris street was packed with carts and people, but the exposure took several minutes, so anything moving vanished. A man having his boots shined at bottom left stood still long enough to appear.

• 0.016 seconds after the first atomic bomb 1945, Trinity Site, New Mexico

  The Trinity test, New Mexico, 5:29 a.m. The top of this fireball is already about 200 meters high. Head photographer Berlyn Brixner watched from 10,000 yards away, and his team ran about 50 cameras.

• The oldest known surviving film 1888, Roundhay, Leeds, England

  About two seconds of Louis Le Prince's family and a friend in a garden in Leeds, filmed in October 1888. The older woman, Sarah Whitley, died ten days later. In 1890 Le Prince boarded a train to Paris and was never seen again.

• Pillars raised by hunter-gatherers 9600 to 8200 BCE, Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey

  Hunter-gatherers raised these T-shaped limestone pillars in southeastern Turkey between about 9600 and 8200 BCE, using no metal tools. Some stand about 5 metres tall, and this one is carved with animals. The site was once called the world's first temple, but recent digs have also found remains of houses.

• Goddard's 2.5-second rocket flight 1926, Auburn, Massachusetts

  On March 16, 1926, Robert Goddard flew the first liquid-fuel rocket, on his aunt's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. It lasted 2.5 seconds and traveled 184 feet, about 60 miles per hour. It landed in a cabbage patch.

• A Gardener Gets Soaked 1895, Lyon, France

  A boy steps on a gardener's hose, and the gardener peers into the nozzle to see why the water stopped. Louis Lumière filmed it in Lyon in spring 1895. It is often called the earliest film comedy.

• The inventor who faked his drowning 1840, Paris, France

  In October 1840, French inventor Hippolyte Bayard posed as a drowned man in protest after the French government rewarded Louis Daguerre for his photographic process. A note on the back says the government had been generous to Daguerre but could do nothing for Bayard. It is often called the first staged photograph.

• The first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral 1950, Cape Canaveral, Florida

  On July 24, 1950, a V-2 with a smaller WAC Corporal rocket on top became the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral. Bumper 8 flew first only because Bumper 7 was scrubbed. Bumper 7 followed five days later.

• A world map shaped like two hearts 1531, Probably Paris, France

  French mathematician Oronce Fine published this world map in Paris in 1531, drawn as two hearts. Its label calls the huge southern continent Terra Australis, 'recently found but not yet fully known.' The continent was mostly guesswork, built on ancient theory and Magellan's sighting of Tierra del Fuego.

• The oldest known tornado photo 1884, Garnett, Kansas, USA

  A. A. Adams photographed this tornado from a street corner in Garnett, Kansas, on April 26, 1884. It is believed to be the oldest surviving tornado photo, though Adams may have darkened the funnel when printing. The funnel is the thin line near the horizon, left of the houses.

• Boxing cats at Edison's studio 1894, West Orange, New Jersey

  In 1894, Edison's studio filmed two cats in tiny boxing gloves. They belonged to Henry Welton's touring cat circus, which also had cats riding bicycles. The full film runs about 20 seconds and was shot at the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

• Prayer at the Kaaba in Mecca 1889, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

  Abd al-Ghaffar, a physician in Mecca, is described as the first Meccan photographer. He took more than 250 photographs between 1886 and 1889, including this view of prayer at the Kaaba. The Dutch scholar Snouck Hurgronje published his prints in 1888 and 1889.

• Ederle swims the Channel 1926, English Channel

  On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel. She crossed from France to England in under 15 hours, faster than any man before her. This photo ran in the French magazine Le Miroir des sports that month.

• John Quincy Adams in a daguerreotype 1843, Washington, D.C., USA

  John Quincy Adams sat for Philip Haas in Washington in March 1843. The studio made three daguerreotypes, and this is the only one known to survive. The National Portrait Gallery calls it the earliest known photograph of a U.S. president.

• A Skater's Fall in Sydney 1896, Sydney, Australia

  A bearded man skates in Sydney's Prince Alfred Park in 1896, falls, loses his hat and shows a white hand printed on his trousers. Marius Sestier filmed it for the Lumière company. The National Film and Sound Archive says it is thought to be Australia's earliest surviving film.

• Lincoln at 37, his earliest known photo 1846-1847, Springfield, Illinois, USA

  This daguerreotype from 1846 or 1847 is the earliest known photograph of Abraham Lincoln. He was 37, a Springfield lawyer and congressman-elect. It is attributed to Nicholas Shepherd, based on the memory of a law student in Lincoln's office.

• The earliest photo of the White House 1846, Washington, D.C., USA

  This daguerreotype of the White House's south front, attributed to John Plumbe Jr., dates to about 1846, early in James K. Polk's presidency. It is the earliest known photograph of the building. Bare trees and patches of snow point to winter.

• Earth, seen from lunar orbit 1966, Lunar orbit

  Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photo of Earth from the Moon's vicinity on August 23, 1966, on its 16th orbit, just before passing behind the Moon. A station near Madrid received it. In 2008, a recovery project pulled a much sharper version from the original tapes.

• The Moth in the Logbook 1947, Cambridge, Massachusetts

  In 1947, engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard found a moth stuck in a relay. They taped it into the logbook and wrote "First actual case of bug being found." Engineers had called faults bugs since at least 1878, when Thomas Edison used the word in a letter.

• A voice recorded before Edison 1860, Paris, France

  On April 9, 1860, a voice singing "Au Clair de la Lune" was traced as a wavy line in soot by a phonautograph like this one. The machine could not play sound back, and the recording was first heard in 2008. Edison's phonograph came 17 years later, in 1877.

• A Tigress and Cubs in Stone 300s CE, Roman Empire

  More than ten thousand small stone tiles make up this tigress with her three cubs, made in the 300s CE. Pliny the Elder wrote that Augustus first showed Romans a tiger, a tame one, at the opening of the Theatre of Marcellus, sometime between 13 and 11 BCE.

• Fred Ott's Sneeze 1894, West Orange, New Jersey, USA

  Edison assistant Fred Ott took a pinch of snuff and sneezed for the camera in January 1894. The film was made as publicity for a Harper's Weekly article, and it was registered for copyright as a photograph. This clip plays the sneeze three times.

• Explorer 1 Press Conference 1958, Washington, D.C., USA

  America's first satellite reached orbit on the night of 31 January 1958. In the early hours of 1 February, William Pickering, James Van Allen and Wernher von Braun held up a full size model of it for reporters at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

• Ham, the first ape in space 1961, Atlantic Ocean

  On January 31, 1961, a chimpanzee named Ham rode a Mercury capsule on a flight of 16 minutes and 39 seconds, the first great ape in space. After the USS Donner picked up the capsule, a crewman handed him an apple. He came back with a small scrape on his nose.

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