Beginning of film production in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Scandinavia.

Max Planck introduces the Quantum Theory in Physics.

First mass-marketed camera, the Kodak Brownie, costing $1.

A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès, pioneer of film fantasy, special effects, and "trick films."

Pathé acquires the Lumière patents and commissions the design of an improved studio camera.

Alfred Stieglitz edits and publishes the magazine Camera Work.

Otto von Bronk applies for German patent on color television.

Alfred Stieglitz founds the Photo-Secession Group, dedicated to promoting photography as a fine art.

Konishi Honten establishes Rokuoh-sha in Tokyo, a division dedicated to the production of photosensitive materials (dry plates, etc.) and later photographic equipment.

Leon Gaumont's Chronophone in France and Cecil Hepworth's Vivaphone system in England produced hundreds of synchronized (sound and picture) shorts.

American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery, is important for its use of realistic narrative and continuity of action.

The Cherry Portable, the first portable Japanese camera, is made by Konishi Honten (forerunner of Konica). The box-shaped camera used a magazine which held twelve 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. dry plates.

Japan's first photographic paper, the Sakura Hakkin type paper, is marketed by Konishi Honten.

Lyon, France, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière create autochromes -- the first color process.

In the Japanese photo magazine Shashin Geppo, budding art photographers assert that photography could be used for self expression, not just for recording reality. New camera clubs emerge to establish photography as an art form. One group was called Yutsuzu-sha, with core members Kuno (Akiyama) Tetsusuke, Kato, Seiichi, and Saito Taro. They advocate pictorialism in photography, with the same possibility of self expression as in painting.

Alvin Langdon Coburn creates memorable portraits of famous men (Mark Twain pictured).

The Lewis Hine Ellis Island series.

Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen open the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (called "291") in New York City.

Oskar Barnack has the idea of reducing the format of negatives and then enlarging the photographs after they had been exposed

Growth of film theatres in the United States. Named after the Nickelodeon, which opens in Pittsburgh in1905, they are makeshift facilities frequently in storefront properties.

Beginning of the animated film industry: J. Stuart Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces.

Screen aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1 established as an international viewing standard.

Formation of Danish entrepreneur Ole Olsen's Nordisk, one of the decade's most successful production companies.

Panchromatic plates are marketed by Wratten and Wainright in England.

George Albert Smith and Charles Urban develop first commercially successful photographic color process; Kinemacolor.

Édouard Belin makes the first telephoto transmission, from Paris to Lyon to Bordeaux and back to Paris.

Alfred Korn announces Fac-Simile telegraphy.

Lee de Forest perfects the Audion tube, a triode vacuum tube that magnifies sound.

Formation of Svenska Biografteatern, the leading Swedish film firm.

Lumière Brother's autochrome color process is marketed.

After Yutsuzu-sha triggers the art photography movement, the Tokyo Shashin Kenkyukai was founded with the support of Konishi Honten. It held its first Tokyo Shashin Kenkyukai Exhibition (abbreviated as "Kenten") in Ueno, Tokyo.

Kuribayashi Seisakusho, the forerunner of Petri Camera, is founded.

Konishi Honten markets Japan's first single-lens reflex camera, the Sakura-flex Plano with a Tessar f/6.3 lens. Priced 225 yen.

Gabriel Lippmann wins a Nobel Prize for his method of reproducing color by photography.

The most powerful American film companies form the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), pool the 16 most significant US patents in order to establish a monopoly on domestic film production.

Film d'Art's The Assassination of the Duc de Guise, is a transference of a stage play to the screen in an effort to legitimize motion pictures.

Hollywood is founded in the Los Angeles area.

Fujii Ryuzo establishes the Fujii Lens Seizosho factory. It becomes Japan's first modern lens factory. In 1917, the company becomes consolidated into Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon.

Working for Gaumont, Émile Cohl is the first person to devote his energies to drawn animation.

D.W. Griffith and other American filmmakers systematize the use of the close-up, fade-out, iris dissolve, back lighting, soft focus, cross-cutting.

Winsor McCay, cartoonist, produces first animated cartoon, Gertie the Dinosaur.

Thomas Ince's New York Motion Picture Co. and the Selig company of Chicago set up studios near Los Angeles, initiating the establishment of west coast studio production.

American cartoonist John Randolph Bray patents the cell process for film animation.

The serial episode film is the main attraction in many theaters in France, Germany, and the United States.

The Lewis Hines Child Labor series exposes many young children working in America.

Melodramas, westerns, and slapstick comedy are popular American film genres.

Beginning of film production in Australia, Argentina, Canada, Ireland, Spain.

Rokuoh-sha markets Japan's first pocket-size camera called the "Minimum Idea." It's affordable price of 9 yen and 50 sen creates a Minimum Idea boom among amateur photographers, as an effect, in 1913 the Minimum Photo Club is established.

Danish actress Asta Nielsen is the first international star whose fame is wholly dependent on her screen appearances.

The ship Titanic sinks.

Nikkatsu is formed out of several smaller companies to become the most powerful studio in Japan.

First Model Speed Graphic is introduced.

Mary Pickford in the leading role of D. W. Griffith's The New York Hat.

The Kodak Vest Pocket Camera is introduced.

Victor Sjöstrom's early masterpiece Ingeborg Holm.

Italy's Cines company's nine-reel Quo Vadis?, shot using huge three-dimensional sets and 5,000 extras, establishes standard for superspectacles.

Eastman Kodak Company establishes first industrial photographic research laboratory.

The 3,300-seat Strand opens in New York City, marking the end of the nickelodeon era and the beginning of an age of the movie palaces.

First 35mm still cameras are developed.

Oskar Barnack takes pictures with the original Leica 35mm camera.

World War I begins in which aerial reconnaissance is used

D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, a film of great technical assurance and innovation, is strongly attacked in the liberal and black press for its racist content and is banned in several states.

Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp.

The Japanese Navy starts to develop optical glass manufacturing since glass imports from Germany stopped due to World War I.

The Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (Tokyo Art School) adds a photography dept. The first class had 13 students.

Alvin Langdon Coburn's Vortographs: deliberate abstractions.

Paul Strand's photographs emphasize abstract and objective qualities.

Kodak's 3A Autographic with coupled Rangefinder is introduced.

Charlie Chaplin, international star of the American silent comic cinema, stars in The Pawnshop.

Foundation of Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), the largest studio in Europe for the next decade.

25th of July, Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon, is established in Tokyo as a munitions optical instrument shop to meet the needs of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The company is a consolidation of three companies: Tokyo Keiki Seisaku-sho's optical division, Iwaki Glass Seisaku-sho, and Fujii Lens Seizo-sho.

Photography spreads among the masses as film replaces the glass dry plates and cameras become compact. The Vest Pocket Kodak camera was imported in large numbers from 1915.

Mexico is the first country to formally protest the misrepresentation of its people by Hollywood.

Oscar Micheaux, the most successful early African American producer/director, begins making films on black-related topics.

Following litigation for anti-trust activities, the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) is ordered to disband by the US Supreme Court.

American cartoonist Winsor McCay creates what may be the first feature-length animated film, The Sinking of the Lusitania.

11th of November, World War I ends with a German defeat.

Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith establish United Artists, a prestigious firm distributing only independently produced films.

Lee de Forest, in collaboration with Theodore Case and E. I. Sponable, develop an optical sound-on-film process patented as Phonofilm.

Nationalization of the Soviet film industry and foundation of the State Film School.

Asahi Kogaku Goshi Kaisha (forerunner of Asahi Optical Company, Ltd., maker of Pentax cameras) is established in Tokyo by KAJIWARA Kumao as a manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses.

Takachiho Seisaku-sho, the forerunner of Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., is established as a microscope manufacturer (making it's first photographic lens in 1936).

The Golden Age of the German cinema. The Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) conglomerate becomes single largest studio in Europe.