The principle behind the camera was first described by the Chinese philosopher Mozi around 400 BC: light passing through a pinhole into a dark room paints an upside-down image.
This is the camera obscura.
More amazing facts
- 440 BC Herodotus wrote that in India gold was dug up by ants bigger than foxes.
- 400 BC · 399 BC The world's oldest pile carpet is a contemporary of Socrates.
- 399 BC Socrates' last words were about a rooster he owed.
- 396 BC · 392 BC Women could not compete at Olympia, yet in 396 BC the Spartan princess Cynisca became an Olympic champion.
- 356 BC Tradition holds that the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus burned on the very day Alexander the Great was born.
- 356 BC · 221 BC In 356 BC Alexander the Great was born, and the state of Qin began Shang Yang's reforms.