The word 'dinosaur' is younger than photography: the daguerreotype was unveiled in 1839, while Richard Owen coined the 'terrible lizard' only in 1842.
The events
- Birth of photography: the daguerreotype1839 · Paris. In August 1839 Louis Daguerre's process for fixing images on silvered plates was made public at the French Academy of Sciences. The French government bought the invention and gave it to the world, and photography spread rapidly.
- New Year's dinner inside an Iguanodon1853 · Crystal Palace, Sydenham, London. On New Year's Eve 1853 the sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins held a dinner party inside the mould of his Iguanodon. His Crystal Palace models were the world's first life-size dinosaur sculptures, and wildly wrong by today's standards: only three of the 15 genera are true dinosaurs.
More amazing facts
- 1838 The first person ever photographed got into the picture because he was having his boots shined.
- 1838 Mexico's General Santa Anna buried his own leg with full military honours.
- 1839 · 1860 Tyre rubber was invented by dropping some on a stove.
- 1840 Before the railways, Bristol kept its own time, ten minutes behind London.
- 1840 Britain is the only country whose stamps carry no country name.
- 1840 Before stamps, the recipient paid for a letter, so people cheated.