Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) diagrams the first camera, the Camera Obscura.

By means of the Dutch, the camera obscura arrives in Nagasaki, Japan.

Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers that certain liquids change color when exposed to light.

Tiphaigne de la Roche predicts photography in Giphantie.

7th of March, Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce is born. He is famed as the first person to create a photograph.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele proves ammonia stabilizes darkened silver salts.

Gilles-Louis Chrétien develops the Physionotrace for profile portraits.

Otsuki Gentaku, an apprentice of Sugita Genpaku, describes, in an essay, the camera obscura, pronounced "donkuru-kaamuru" in Japanese

Robert Barker opens the first Panorama, prototype of future movie houses.

Thomas Wedgwood successfully captures images, but the silhouettes could not survive and hence where only temporary.

William Hyde Wollaston invents the camera lucida.