The Dageurreotype was the first widely used photographic process, presenting a mirror-like image on silver-plated copper sheets that were treated with iodine, then developed with mercury vapor after exposure. The first exposures required 20 minutes, but that was a huge step forward over the original work of his collaborator Niepce, who took the first known photograph - an eight-hour exposure of a barn. Before the inventor died, the exposure time was down to a minute, and portrait photography became hugely popular and profitable, although one wonders how the photographers survived the mercury vapor.
We also note the inception of the first Crusade, the discovery of Antarctica by an American whaler, the first use of time zones (local time in every village would be madness in the era of the Internet, even worse than Daylight Stupid Time), and the death of the De Soto.
In a less physical realm, today marks the debut of Mickey Mouse on the silver screen. And though it doesn't seem certain that William Tell actually ever shot an apple off his son's head, so I'm not including it as an event, the more specific versions of the legend put the event on this day in 1307.
1095 - Pope Urban II opened the Council of Clermont. Summoned to plan the First Crusade, it was attended by over 200 bishops. Among its official policies, the Council decreed that a pilgrimage to Jerusalem made every other penance superfluous.
1820 - Nathaniel Brown Palmer, a whaling captain out of Stonington, Connecticut, explored south from the Shetland Islands and was first to spot land on the continent of Antarctica.
1883 - US and Canadian railroads establish time zones across the width of North America, maintaining a single time in each span of 15 degrees of longitude instead of using local time in every location. Most states adopted the time zones by 1895, Congress made them official in 1918.
1928 - The first fully-synchronized sound cartoon premiered at New York's Colony Theater. The title was Steamboat Willy, the star was Mickey Mouse.
1960 - Chrysler Corporation announced that it would discontinue manufacture of the De Soto line of automobiles, first introduced in 1928 at a price of $725 to compete with the Chevrolet and the Ford Model A.
Vertières Day, Haiti - Commemorates the 1803 victory over the French in the Battle of Vertières. Also Haiti's Army Day.
1789
- Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, French artist, inventor - Born
at Cormeilles-en-Parisis, France. First worked as tax collector, then
trained as scene painter for the opera in Paris. In 1822 he opened the
Diorama in Paris, using changing lighting and paintings to simulate passing
time and changing weather and perspective - massive scenic images were
14 x 22 m (44 x 75 feet). Began experimenting with light sensitive materials,
partnered with Joseph-Nicephore Niepce in 1829. Continued experiments
after Niepce's death in 1833, announced the Daguerreotype process at French
Academy of Sciences on 9 January 1839. Was made officer in Legion of Honor
and given 6,000 francs per year, France released the process to the public
domain except in England, where the inventor retained patent rights. Dropped
exposure time from 20 minutes to one before he died on 10 July 1851 at
Bry-sur-Marne, France./p>
1923 - Alan Bartlett Shepherd Jr, US astronaut - Born in East Derry, New Hampshire, studied in a one-room schoolhouse but cleaned hangars at the local airport and dreamed of flying. Went into space for 15 minutes on 5 May 1961, the first American to do so. He was command pilot of Apollo 14 on 31 January 1971, the fifth man to set foot on the moon, first to play golf there. Died in Monterey, California after a lengthy illness on 21 July 1998.
Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work,
and hard work too, no matter how pleasureable it my be.
- Edward Weston
Friendship based solely upon gratitude is like a photograph; with time
it fades.
- Carmen Sylva
If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you
work at it, it's golf.
- Bob Hope
Man shall never reach the moon for such a quantity of gunpowder would
be needed as to gravely injure the crew.
- Childrens Encyclopaedia, 1926
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