The First Hundred Years! (1939)

Titles read: “THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS!“ Various locations of events. Various shots of the first photograph ever taken and the camera that took it, made by William Henry Fox Talbot, then of the camera made by Frenchman Louis Daguerre. Brief shots of early photographs. A huge telescope camera is shifted into position in an observatory; photographs of the moon are seen. Men at long tables lay out aerial photographs of towns and cities and use machinery to trace the outlines for mapmaking. Brief shots of x-rays being taken. Photographs showing a bullet breaking through a sheet of glass. Several shots of a photograph being scanned and transmitted by radio waves. Several shots of a Kinescope showing a man turning on a gymnast bar and juggling a barrel with his feet. Commentator mentions (William) Friese-Greene and the Lumiere Brothers; various shots of cine cameras. Early piece of film shows women and men coming out of a factory. Up to date footage shows flowers opening in time-lapse photography