The first person ever photographed got into the picture because he was having his boots shined.

1838

In Daguerre's 1838 shot a busy Paris boulevard looks empty: the exposure took minutes, so only those standing still were caught.

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The event

• 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.

19th century

More amazing facts

• 1837 Pushkin died after a duel in early 1837; that October Russia's first train ran from Saint Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo, the town where he had gone to school.
• 1838 Mexico's General Santa Anna buried his own leg with full military honours.
• 1839 · 1842 The word 'dinosaur' is younger than photography: the daguerreotype was unveiled in 1839, while Richard Owen coined the 'terrible lizard' only in 1842.
• 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.

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