History of invention in the arts

Gregory Aharonian

www.patenting-art.com/history/timlin-e.htm

INVENT- v.t. to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation or contrivance; to produce or create with the imagination

This is meant to be a list of firsts (a key requirement to obtain a patent). If you know of earlier instances of the following examples, please email us.

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B.C.E.       pre-1400s       1400s       1500s       1600s       1700s       1800s       1900s       2000s      

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Bibliography - a list of excellent books on the science and engineering of art and entertainment. Additionally, a nice online dictionary of art terms can be found at www.artlex.com

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PATNEWS' multilanguage art dictionary

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B.C.E. - pre-Classical, Egyptian, Greek, Roman

At least as far back as 500,000 BCE, the architectural building is invented, as evidenced by remains of a hut on a hillside at Chichibu, north of Tokyo.

At least as far back as 350,000 BCE, African tribes invent paint , as evidenced by pigments and paint grinding equipment found in a cave at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka, Zambia.

At least as far back as 107,000 BCE, humans invented and starting wearing clothes. The proof is in the evolution of pubic lice into body lice as the lice sought out new homes as humans lost most of their hair. Humans have three forms of lice - head lice which live on hair, body lice which live on clothing, and pubic lice. Scientists have determined that body lice evolved from head lice about 107,000 years ago, based on DNA differences. They theorize that around then, humans started wearing close-fitting animal skins, allowing the head louse to expand its territory and evolve into the body louse.

At least as far back as 82,000 BCE, jewelry, in the form of beads made from snail shells, and thus one of the first forms of art, is invented. In 2006, archeologists found such shells in Morocco in North Africa, at a site called Grotte des Pigeons. All of the shells are pierced, and exhibit signs of friction as if they were from a necklace or bracelet. The snail species is Nassarius gibbosulus, and similar beads about 75,000 years old had been discovered in 2004 in Blombos, a seaside cave in South Africa.

At least as far back as 31,000 BCE, painting is invented, as evidenced by the murals of stampeding bulls, cantering horses, red bears, and woolly rhinoceros found in the Chauvet grotto in the Ardeche region of France. Nearby are paintings from 15,000 BCE found in the Lascaux caves. The European Community is building an early European artists database including a slide show with 3000 images.

At least as far back as 28,000 BCE, Paleolithic tribes in Europe invent flutes from hollowed out bones.

At least as far back as 22,000 BCE, Paleolithic tribes invent sculpture , as evidenced by the Venus of Willendorf sculpture, or the 2.5 inch soapstone sculpture of a female figure found in the Grimaldi Cave in Italy.

Around 6000 BCE, Mesopotamian artists invent art pottery. Pottery itself is invented earlier by Neolithic farmers in villages along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Around 5400 BCE, Persians invent wine. Pottery dating to this time period is found in ruins in the Haji Firuz Hills, near the Western Azerbaijan province of Iran, south of the modern city of Orumieh. Residue found on the pottery indicated the use of the pottery for winemaking. About 4000 years later, people in the region of modern France start making wine.

Around 4500 BCE, Mesopotamians invent blue-glazed soapstone, more popularly referred to as Egyptian faience. The surface of the soapstone was powdered and then heated in the presence of a copper mineral such as azurite or malachite. The effect mimiced the more prized blue mineral lapis lazuli.

Around 4500 BCE, Egyptians invent the written text, the Book of the Dead using carved hieroglyphics, becoming a book around 3000 BCE. The oldest physical copy of a book is the Egyptian Prisse d'Avennes papyrus, which dates back to 2600 BCE, which used blank ink for the text, and red ink for the subtitles and chapter titles.

Around 4000 BCE, Egyptians invent the pre-cursor of paper, papyrus, by pounding flat woven mats of reeds.

Around 3300 BCE, Sumerians invent the pottery wheel.

Around 2650 BCE, Egyptians led by the physician, architect and court counselor Imhotep invent the large stone structure, in this case, the Step Pyramid of Zoser.

Around 2500 BCE, Egyptian chemists invent the first synthetic color pigment, Egyptian blue, a mixture of limestone (calcium oxide), malachite (copper oxide) and quartz (silica), carefully fired to a temperature of 800 to 900 degrees Celsius. Click here for a chronological bibliography of color theory from 380 BCE to the present.

Around 2500 BCE, Egyptian priests invent theater , with their annual ritual, the Abydos Passion Play, about the god Osiris. Evidence of this is found on the Ikhernofret hieroglphic stone dating from 1868 BCE. The stone is an account of one Ikhernofret, who was a participant. The stone lists 8 acts from the play.

Around 2200 BCE, Sumerian priests invent mythic science fiction, a story about the flooding of the earth involving many gods and a pious king Ziusdra. Around 1800 BCE, the Bablyonians adapt and expand the flood story in their Epic of Gilgamesh involving the pious king Atrahasis. Around 500 BCE, Hebrew priests in Babylonia take the regionally popular flood story, reduce the gods to one, and demote the king to a commoner named Noah who gets drunk at the end of the story and curses his son (a literary curse which, thousands of years later, is used in Europe and America for hundreds of years to justify slavery).

Around 2100 BCE, the Sumerians invent the library, in the form of an organized repository of over 20,000 cuneiform tablets at the Temple of Nippur. The tablets were mainly stored arranged on wooden shelves or stored in baskets. A brief history of these earliest libraries.

Around 1950 BCE, Egyptian authors invent the novel, in the form of a story titled Story of Sinuhe, about a prince of Egypt who flees after a court killing, is saved in the desert by a Bedouin tribe, and later on marries the eldest daughter of a king. Some have proposed the literary derivative equation Story of Sinuhe + Birth of Sargon of Akkad ---> early life of Moses. About the same time as the Story of Sinuhe is another Egyptian story, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, about a sailor who is shipwrecked on a island ruled by a monster.

Around 1600 BCE, the Phoenicians invent the first purely phonetic alphabet.

Around 1500 BCE, Egyptian craftsmen invent glass bottles, by attaching metal rods to silica paste cores and repeatedly dipping the cores into molten glass.

Around 1200 BCE, the Phoenicians invent Tyrian purple, an expensive dye made from a Mediterranean snail.

Around 750 BCE, merchants in Armenia invent cochineal red, a range of waterfast red dyes made from the dried bodies of cochineal insects. Hundreds of years later, Indians in Central and South America also produce cochineal-basd dyes. Ref.

Around 700 BCE, the Etruscans invent the true arch to be used in building construction.

Around 685 BCE, the Greek musician Tyrtaeus invents the trombone.

Around 650 BCE, artists in Crete invent the sphyrelation technique, the creation of large bronze statues by nailing hammered sheets of bronze onto a wood core.

Around 675 BCE, Stesichorus of Sicily invents the heroic ballad.

Around 610 BCE, scupltors in Greece invent free-standing human sculpture known as kouroi for male figures and korai for female figures, which are used as religious votive offerings.

Around 600 BCE, the Cretan poet and prophet Epimenides is attributed to have invented the linguistic paradox with his phrase "Cretans are ever liars" - the Liar's Paradox. 2500 years later, the mathematician Kurt Godel invents an adaptation of the Liar's Paradox that reveals serious axiomatic problems at the heart of modern mathematics.

Around 570 BCE, musicians in India invent hollowed string instruments, specifically the vina which consists of two hollow gourds connected by strings and a bamboo reed.

Around 500 BCE, Greek artists invent encaustic paints, where color pigments are embedded in wax .

In 480 BCE, the Greek writer Herodotus invents written history, in his book, History of the Persian Wars.

In 480 BCE, the Greek sculptor Critius invents contrapposto, where the weight of the human figure being sculpted is concentrated on one leg with the rest of the body relaxed.

Around the 5th century BCE - the Greek artist Archytas of Tarentum, a colleague of Plato, invents the robot by building a mechanical bird driven by a jet of steam or compressed air. In 1921, the Czech playwriter Karel Capek invents the word "robot", in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), deriving the word from the Czech word "robota" meaning "drudgery". Other early robots include the Greek engineer Hero's mobile theater (around 50 ACE) whose motions where programmable with strings. He described his inventions in a book, Peri automatopoietikes (On automata-making). Potentially earlier than Archytas is a description in Homer's Illiad of self-propelled tripods (of Hephaestus) that travelled to and from a temple of the gods.

Around 450 BCE, Greek artists invent three dimensional painting, chiaroscuro, by using highlighting and shadowing.

Around 450 BCE, Sophron of Syracuse invents mime.

In 429 BCE, the Greek dramatist Sophocles invents the prequel, in the form of the play Oedipus the King, written after his 441 play Antigone, but with Oedipus's setting earlier in time than the setting of Antigone.

In 300 BCE, the Roman philosopher Euhemerus of Messenia in Sicily invents euhemerism, a theory that the classic gods are merely deified national kings and heroes, and their miraculous feats as told in stories being just exaggerated traditions of actual events. The theory is named after him in the 1700s.

Around 280 BCE, the Greek Ctesibius of Alexandria invents the hydraulic organ, the hydraulos.

Around 250 BCE, Syrian craftsmen in Babyolonia invent glassblowing.

Around 200 BCE, the Roman Lucius Afranius invents homosexual drama, when he introduces elements of homosexuality into his plays.

Around 170 BCE, Pergamum scholars in the court of Eumenes II in Asia Minor invent parchment, a writing material made from animal skins, which leads to the decreasing use of papyrus.

In 65 BCE, the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus discovers the phenomenon of persistence of vision, where the brain "sees" an image for up to a tenth of a second after the image is removed. If a second image is viewed within this tenth of a second, where the second image is very similar to the first image, the brain perceives parts of the first image as having moved, i.e, the basis for motion pictures and animation 2000 years later.

In 50 BCE, the Roman poet Lucretius writes De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), a beautiful and sensuous poem on the theory of atoms.

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pre-1400s - Asian, Christian/Islamic, Gothic, Romanesque

In 105, Chinese court official Ts'ai Lun invents paper. His paper is cheaper to produce than papyrus or parchment. More on the history of paper from the folks at Mead.

Around 300, Mayan artists unknowingly invent nanotechnology, in the form of a paint now known as Mayan Blue. Mayan Blue is so resistant to acids and biocorrosion that it is still found on Mayan artifacts. Studies in the 1990s determined that paint particles are on the order of 50 nanometers.

Around 350, Indian writers assemble the final form of the Mahabharata, the longest poem ever written, comprising 100,000 two line stanzas - a poem of myth, legend, and moral and religious teaching.

In 532, two mathematicians, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus build the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople (Istanbul), a masterpiece of Byzantine architecture.

In 553, Procopius invents scandal literature, in his story Anecdota about a scandal involving the Roman Empire's Justinian, Theodora and Belisauius. Constantine scandal stories would have been much more fun (and extremely risky to write).

In the 560, the concept of prosecutable copyright infringement is invented, when King Diarmit of Ireland convicts a monk, Columba (Columcille) of wrongly copying a book, a book of Psalms from the Christian bible. The book belonged to Finnian of Clonard. In his judgment, the king issued a historic phrase "To every cow its calf, to every book its copy", and fined Columba 40 head of cattle. Columba's appeal was, with his clan, to attack the king in 561, a battle in which 3000 were killed.

In 619, the Chinese royal courts invent orchestras, comprising hundreds of instruments and musicians.

In the mid-600s, Chinese artists in the Tang Dynasty invent porcelain, a fired mixture of kaolin (a clay) and petuntse (a feldspar). A brief history of porcelain. It is not until 1708 that Europeans learn the secret of making porcelain, when the German chemist Friedrich Bottger in Meissen makes porcelain from clay and ground feldspar.

In the 700s, musicians in SouthEast Asia invent the xylophone.

In 765, the earlist known attempts to invent printed pictorial books occur in Japan.

Starting in the 780s, for a few decades, the manuscript Compositiones ad tingenda is written, which includes the first clear description of the preparation of vermilion, a synthetic red pigment based on mercury sulfide. Around the same time, the works of the Arab alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan ("Geber") also describe how to prepare vermilion. Daniel Thompson, in his book The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting writes "No other scientific invention had had so great and lasting an effect upon painting as the invention of [vermilion] .. If the Middle Ages had not had this brilliant red, they could hardly have developed the standards of coloring which they upheld; and there would have been less use for the invention of other brilliant colors which come on the scene in and after the twelfth century.".

In 808, the Chinese invent the printed book with their seven page Buddhist scroll, The Diamond Sutra, printed with wood blocks on paper.

In 855, European musicians invent polyphonic music, music that combines several simultaneous voice parts. In 870, a book on polyphony, Musica enchiriadis (Handbook of Music), is published.

Around 910, the musician Hucbaldus invents the musical score, writing a groups of musical parts together. He invented a staff consisting of an indefinite number of lines.

In 1022, Murasaki Shikibu (a young noblewoman in Kyoto, Japan) invents the first (romance) novel, the story Genji the Shining One, with 1200 pages in the English translation.

In the mid-1020s, Guido of Arezzo invents musical notes, naming them UT, RE, MI, FA, SO, LA (in the 1500s UT is changed to DO, and TI is added), as well as lines/staves to space printed notes.

In 1025, an unknown European artist invents impossible figures art, in a painting Madonna a Gyermekkel . Impossible figures are drawn or painted objects that are very similar to real world objects, but that are also impossible to construct. A few more such paintings appear in the 1500s to the 1700s, for example, Breda Pieter Brueghel's 1568 Magpie on the Gallows, William Hogarth's 1754 engraving Frontispiece: Satire on False Perspective, Giovanni Battista Piranesi's 1760 painting Carceri/Bortonok XIV , and, in modern times, there was Marchel Duchamps' 1916/1917 painting Apollina Enameled. In the 1930s, Oscar Reutersvard became the father of modern impossible figure drawing, with over 2500 drawings, including his noted impossible tribar figures. In February 1958, two mathematicians, L.S. and Roger Penrose, published a paper on impossible figures in the British Journal of Psychology (having heard of Escher's work), a copy of which they sent to Maurits Cornelius Escher. Escher was inspired by this paper to create a wealth of impossible figure drawings that popularized impossible figure art. Earlier, in 1954, Escher had been similarly inspired by the mathematician Harold Coxeter, who had sent a copy of his paper "Crystal Symmetry and its Generalization" to Escher, who took some figures from the paper and turned it into his series of etchings Circle Limit. Another person inspired by Coxeter was R. Buckminster Fuller. Click here to see a fun collections of such figures. Even more fun is a paper and examples of animating impossible figures.

In 1041, the Chinese printer Pi Sheng invents movable type for printing, made with clay blocks. 400 years later in Germany, in 1454, Johannes Gutenberg invents metal movable type.

In 1100, Persian mathematician Abu'l Fath Omar Khayyam writes the classic work of poetry, The Rubaiyat.

Around 1100, artists in Persia invent enamelled pottery, minai, the Persian word for enamelled. Colors are painted on pottery and fixed by a second firing.

In 1202, the Italian Leonardo of Pisan, better known as Fibonacci, writes the book Liber Abaci, that leads to the adoption of Hindu number signs, which gradually displace the Roman number signs. His book begins "The nine Indian figures are 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures and the sign 0, any number may be written, as is demonstrated below." The use of Hindu notation was to major factor in the rise of science and mathematics. In 1126, Adelard of Bath had translated into Latin some of the books of the Arabic mathematician al-Khwarizmi, including al-Khwarizmi's use of Hindu mathematical notation. But Adelard's translations only reach a few people.

In 1225, the English monk John of Fornsete invents rounds, i.e., songs sung in harmony, with his song Sumer is icumen in.

In the mid-1200s, the first images of bagpipes appear, probably near in time to their invention. Click here for the history of bagpipes.

In 1265, Franco of Cologne and Pierre de la Croix invent the motet, a form of polyphony music often with three parts.

In 1030, Guide of Arezzo invents solfege, a system for learning music by ear. In the 19th century, solfege evolves into the tonic sol-fa system used today.

In 1306, Giotto di Bondone, for the first time in 1000 years, reinvents the use of a form of perspective in his painting Encounter at the Golden Gate. He also was one of the first to capture one moment in time in his paintings, as opposed to the prior practice of showing different temporal events in the same work of art. Before him, the background sky was typically painted in gold. He instead used the actual color of the sky, blue, and use of gold went away.

In 1350, English minstrels invent the first musicians professional association, when they form a guild in London.

Around 1360, Germans invent stringed keyboard instruments, starting with the clavichord and harpsichord. German wiresmiths do so by pulling wire through steel plates. The keyed monochord, the forerunner of the clavichord, dates back to the 1100s.

In the 1360s, Nichole d'Oresme invents graphic plots for scientific functions.

In 1391, Geoffrey Chaucer invents the technical manual in his book, A Treatise on the Astrolabe. Click here to view the book.

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1400s - Early Renaissance, Ming

In 1417, Italian sculptor Donatello invents carved relief perspective in his bronze plaque Saint George Slaying the Dragon.

In 1421, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi seeks the first patent, for a new boat for hauling heavy stones upriver, and obtains three years of exclusive use of his boat for any heavy river hauling. At the time he was building a massive dome for a cathedral.

In the 1420s, Italian artist Masaccio (Tommaso di Giovanni) invents the use in paintings of a single consistent source of light and the three dimensional portrayal of humans, for example, his 1427 painting Tribute Money.

Also in the 1430s, Piero della Francesca reinvents the use of shadows in painting, based on the correct nature of light, allowing time to be signified and perspective enhanced.

In 1431, Italian sculptor Donatello reinvents after 1000 years contrapposto. He also reinvents life-size, free-standing nude sculptures with his bronze sculpture David.

Around 1434, the English mystic Margery Kempe invents the autobiography when she dictates her life story, The Book of Margery Kempe. Excerpts from her book.

In 1435, Leon Batista Alberti publishes his formal treatise on perspective and special precision, Della Pittura. The oldest surviving painting to exhibit unambiguously the rules of linear perspective is the 1425 painting The Holy Trinity by Masaccio (Tommaso di ser Giovanni Guidi). Click here to read Alberti's book.

In 1436, Jan van Eyck's painting Maddona and Child with Canon van der Paele includes the earliest depiction of concave glasses for myopia.

In 1437, English composer John Dunstable invents counterpoint for musical compositions.

In the 1440s, European printers invent woodcut block printing blocks of wood cut with text and illustrations to print entire pages for book. The invention is rendered obsolete in the 1450s when Johannes Gutenberg invents movable metal type for printing pages.

In the 1440s, an unidentified artist called the Master of the Playing Cards invents copperplate engravings, one of the earliest works being Vine Ornament with Two Birds. Some speculate the Master was none other than Gutenberg, who might have been trying to mechanize the printing of illustrations as well as type.

In 1470, Italian printer Nicolas Jenson invents the Roman typeface, by adapting Roman script to typography. Today's very popular Times New Roman font is descended from Jenson's.

In the 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci invents the technique of sfumato where shadows and objects in the distance are blurred to reflect atmospheric distortions, for example, his 1485 painting Virgin of the Rocks. (A military computer program for calculating such optical distortions under a wide variety of conditions, LOWTRAN, was patented in U.S. Patent 5,075,856.)

In 1494, Venetian printer Aldus Manutius invents the textbook, i.e, small printed books, octavo sized (6 by 9 inches), for students. In 1501, Manutius invents the italic typeface, a smaller typeface based on cursive script for his new smaller books.

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1500s - High Renaissance, Ming

In 1503, the German artist Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken, better known as Hieronymus Bosch (he signed his paintings with the name of his home town, 's-Hertogenbosch) invents surrealism in his triptych Garden of Earthly Delights. Surrealism is not to become more popular for another 400 years. Other forerunners of Surrealism include Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Jacques Kerver with his floating eyeballs and disembodied feet illustrations in his 1543 book Hora pollo, Pieter Brueghel with his 1562 painting Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), and Henri Rousseau with his 1897 painting The Sleeping Gypsy.

In 1503, Russian monks invent vodka while seeking a new antiseptic liquid.

In 1508, Leonardo da Vinci invents hand signs for gangs in his painting Bacchus.

In 1508, German painter and wood engraver Hans Burgkmair the Elder invents the chiaroscuro woodcut with his The Emperor Maximilian on Horseback, where he creates a three dimensional effect by printing from several blocks in dark and light tones.

In 1509, the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli publishes a three volume treatise Da Divina Proportione (The Divine Proportion) explaining the artistic and architectural use of the golden ratio. Much use is made of the golden ratio by painters, builders and musicians in the centuries that follow. Pacioli taught perspective and proportionality to Leonardo da Vinci. Earlier in 1494, Pacioli wrote Particularis de Computis et Scripturis, a treatise which formalized the double-entry accounting system used by Venetian merchants, a treatise which revolutionizes economics and business in the following centuries.

In 1510, the Venetian artist Giorgione invents odalisque, paintings of reclining nude females in his 1510 painting Sleeping Venus. Other classics include Goya's 1796 The Nude Maja and Manet's 1863 painting Olympia.

In 1515, the Lateran Council invents sanctioned censorship when it forbids the printing of books without permission of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1559, Pope Paul IV invents really sanctioned censorship, when he issues the Index of Forbidden Books. Both inventions repeated way too many times in the centuries to follow.

In the 1520s, artists in Florence invent Mannerism, a style of painting characterized by elongated figures, complicated ("mannered") poses, nonprimary colors, and overly stylized works. Some Mannerists include Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. Later artists, using more natural and emotional styles, invent the Baroque movement. Stanford University is coordinating an effort to digitize the sculptures of Michelangelo.

In 1543, Andreas Vesalius, a Flemish anatomist in Italy, invents modern anatomy and modern anatomical art, with his elaborately illustrated and printed seven book collection, De humani corporis fabrica. The illustrations were done by artists from Titian's workshop. The first anatomical books were written by the Greek physician Galen.

In 1545, Italians invent commedia dell'arte, improvised comedy.

In 1550, the Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari invents art criticism when he publishes his historical and critical book on art titled Delle Vite de piu' Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, ed Architettori [Lives of the Greatest Painters, Sculptors and Architects].

In 1552, the Italian scientist Giambattista della Porta invents the convex lens, and uses it to improve the camera obscura used by artists for tracing. In 1038, the Arab scholar Hassan ibn Hassan had described a working model for a camera obscura, and in 1267 Roger Bacon, using mirrors, would create an optical illusion based on the principles of the camera obscura. In 1812, the English chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston invents the camera lucida, a similar device for projecting an image onto a flat surface to be traced.

In 1554, the English poet Henry Howard invents blank verse, (unrhymed iambic pentameter). Blank verse will become widely used in poetry, for example, in the plays of Shakespeare.

In 1569, Gerardus Mercator invents the Mercator projection, a way of drawing maps of the Earth with straight lines for longitude and latitude that made it easy for navigators to plot courses on the sea. The projection's graphic distortions of the relative sizes of countries and continents affects global thinking for four hundreds years. He also invents the word atlas, to describe a book of maps.

In 1570, Abraham Ortelius invents the modern atlas, when he publishes his Theatrum orbis terrarum, a collection of uniform map sheets and text bound in a book. The first edition had 70 maps, growing to the 31st edition in 1612 with 167 maps. Ortelius' atlas is currently in the collections of the U.S. Library of Congress.

In 1570, Andrea Palladio writes The Four Books of Architecture, that even today remains an essential item on architect's bookshelves.

In 1578, English writer John Lyly invents euphuism, in his book, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit. The writing style of euphuism is characterized by extensive use of simile and illustration, balanced construction, alliteration and antithesis.

In 1580, French writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne invents the personal essay in his two books, Essays, where he writes about his ideas and feelings in a personal voice.

In the 1590s, the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio invents Bohemian art, paintings meant to shock and offend, opposing tradition and secularizing the predominantly religious art of the times.

In 1597, Jacopo Peri invents opera with his Dafne. Ten years later in 1607, Clause Monteverdi's opera Orfeo is considered to be the first masterpiece in opera, and revolutionizes music by establishing a tonal system and giving the recitative a more flexible accompaniment.

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1600s - Spectacle of Baroque

In 1603, a shrine attendant in Japam, O-kuni, invents kabuki theater. The word "kabuki" has connotations of shocking and unorthodox (Bohemian theater for Japan). The original kabuki troupes were of women, who supported themselves with prostitution. Bans on such activities led to kabuki's eventual domination by male actors.

In 1605, the English philosopher Francis Bacon invents the scientific method, in his book The Advancement of Learning, where the advance of human knowledge depends on experiment and observation. In 1605, he invents inductive reasoning, in his book Novum Organum (New Instrument), supplementing the deductive reasoning found in Aristotle's book Organum.

In the 1610s, Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi invents radical feminist art, painting women who wreak violence against men who have wronged them, for example, her 1614-1620 painting Judith Slaying Holofernes. Her style is motivated by her being raped, and then tortured in a trial to get her to recant, as well as being motivated by the work of Caravaggio. A low point in this sub-genre is the 1977 movie I Spit On Your Grave. Two religious literature pre-cursors include the legendary Story of Esther in the Old Testament, and stories of the Indian goddess Kali.

In 1632, English mathematician Thomas Harriott invents modern algebra, disclosed in his book, Treatise on equations. His work is built upon in Rene Descartes' 1637 book La geometrie and John Wallis' 1672 book A treatise of algebra - both historical and practical.

In 1642, German painter and engraver Ludwig von Siegen invents mezzotint, a method of engraving in tone.

In the early 1650s, Italians Antonio Maria Abbatini and Marco Marazzoli invent the comic opera with their Dal Male du Violon performed in Rome in 1653.

In 1657, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac invents science fiction with his story Les Etats et empires de la lune about a trip to moon. One might also attribute this invention to the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, who in the year 125 wrote the story The True History in which he describes a trip to the moon.

In 1663, a publisher in Germany invents the magazine, titled Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (Edifying Monthly Discussions). In 1731, the first modern magazine, The Gentleman's Magazine is published in England.

In 1665, Parisian scholar Denys de Sallo invents the scientific journal, titled Journal des Scavans. 340 years later, there are about 20,000 scientific journals publishing more than one million pages a year.

In 1676, English glassmaker George Ravenscroft invents lead glass, by adding lead oxide to silica (sand) before it was melted in a furnace, perfecting his formula by 1681. Lead glass is more brilliant and sparkling than Venetian glass, which had been the leading glass for the three hundred years. Lead glass is also easier to cut than Venetian glass, leading to a rapid growth in the use of optical lenses in telescopes and microscopes, helping to spur science. For more info, click here: Kinsale Crystal or British Glass.

In 1683, Elias Ashmole in Oxford invents the public museum, called the Ashmolean. In the 1750s, more formal public museums are created, the picture gallery of the Palais de Luxembourg in France, and the British Museum in London. In 1793, Napoleon uses part of his palace as a public museum, the Musee Napoleon, to establish the Louvre. The word museum derives from the Greek word mouseion, "house of muses", which were more libraries and learning centers than museums as we know them today, with mouseions dating back to 300 BCE. The Internet brings out the more unusual museums in collections.

In 1696, French music master Etienne Loulie invents the metronome, a device for beating time.

In 1697, Charles Perrault invents the word ogre, to refer to a fairy tale giant living on human flesh.

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1700s - Splendor of Rococo

In 1704, German painter Heinrich Diesbach and pharmacist Johann Konrad Dieppel, both alchemists, invent the paint color Prussian blue, according to legend by mixing animal blood with potash and other ingredients to try to make a crimson. Instead, he got an intense blue that artists prize for its high 'tinting strength'. Prussian blue, i.e., ferric hexacyanoferrate, is a combination of cyanide and iron. In the 1960s, American scientists determined that Prussian blue can be used to remove radioactive cesium and radioactive thallium from blood in a human body, and thus act as an antidote for radioactivity exposure. Ref.

In 1710, the British government invents copyright law, by passing the The Statute of Anne, "an act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned". In 1785, the philosopher Immanuel Kant publishes an essay, On the Wrongfulness of Unauthorized Publication of Books, in which he reflects on the philosophical basis of the rights of authors. Click here for a chronology of the history of copyright law in the United Kingdom,

In 1711, English trumpeter John Shore invents the tuning fork.

In 1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele invent the use of a single consistent tone in narrative text, when they publish The Spectator, a set of essay-novellas.

In the early 1700s, menko are invented in Japan. Menko are small flat dried mud or clay objects with faces or animals depicted, used in games and for trading between boys. In the 1890s, cardboard is used as the substrate, the forerunner of baseball/sports trading cards.

In the 1730s, English artist William Hogarth invents the precursor to comic strips by painting sequences of ancedotal pictures that poked fun at the foibles of the day. He also invents politcal cartoons where he satirizes the aristocracy and corrupt politicians.

In 1736, Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler invents graph theory in his paper The Seven Bridges of Konisberg. Over 200 years later, graph theory is used to analyze and generate works of art, including music and imagery.

In 1740, Empress Anne of Russia invents ice architecture, when she funds the construction of a palace of ice upon the banks of the river Neva. The ice palace is 52 feet in length, 16 feet in breadth, and 20 feet high, made of large pieces of ice cut in the manner of free-stone. The walls are three feet thick.

In 1761, the American Benjamin Franklin invents the armonica, a musical instrument with spun glass bowls on a spindle, with music produced by pressing wetted fingers to the rotating bowls.

In 1760s, German weaver Christophe Oberkampf invents Jouy cloth, named for the town Jouy in northern France where he had his workshop. Oberkampf had developed and patented processes and equipment for printing calico and chintz cotton fabrics. Ref.

In 1770, Thomas Gainsborough, in his painting Blue Boy, makes much use of blue in the foreground, contrary to the pre-1860s dominant practice of using blue in the background (for sky and water).

In 1773, Phyllis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral is the first book published for an African-American.

In 1774, Josiah Wedgwood in England invents Jasperware, a dense vitreous pottery that could be turned on a lathe.

In 1780, Spanish ballet dancer Sebastian Cerezo invents the bolero, danced to guitar and castanets.

In 1787, Amadeus Mozart invents algorithmic music with his Musikalisches Wurfelspiel, a musical composition dice game where dice are used to choose and combine pre-written measures of music. Click here for a history of automated music composition.

In 1789, Erasmus Darwin, father of Charles Darwin, writes The Loves of the Plants, 2000 lines of poetry describing in scientific detail the reproductive processes of many different plants.

In 1791, James Boswell publishes one of the first comprehensive biographies, Life of Samuel Johnson.

In 1797, French chemist Louis-Nicolas Vacquelin discovers the metalic element chromium, when asked to analyze a sample of an orange-red mineral called Siberian red lead, discovered in the Ural mountains in 1765, which when ground is used as an orange pigment by artists. Vaquelin uses chromium to invent many new colors, including a brilliant emerald color called viridian green. Ref.

In 1798, the German printer Aloys Senefelder invents lithography, a process for printing images based on the incompatibilty of oil and water.

In the 1790s, German monks invent ice wine, when after a cold weather snap freezes grapes on the vine before they could be normally harvested. The monks pick the grapes anyway, press the grapes to get a highly concentrated juice rich with sugars and acids, and then ferment the juice, producing an intensely sweet wine. Ref.

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1800s - NeoClassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Edo

In 1801, textile manufacturer Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the Jacquard loom, a loom for weaving controlled by punched cards, considered to be the first stored-program computer, and an inspiration to future developers of computers such as Charles Babbage.

In 1814, the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya invents tragic current event painting in the form of his work, Tres de Mayo, depicting the execution of Spanish insurrectionists in Madrid by occupying French troops sent there by Napoleon. Previous historical paintings dealt with the glory of distant battles or victories. Goya was the first to adapt this painting sub-genre to contemporary tragic events. Fifty five years later, in 1869, Edouard Manet creates Execution of Maximilian, inspired in part by Goya's Tres de Mayo.

In 1816, Mary Shelley invents modern science fiction and modern literary horror in her story Frankenstein. In 1931, the first film called a horror movie, Frankenstein, is an adaptation of her book. In 1926, the first magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction, Amazing Stories, is published. Another early science fiction story, The Centurion, written in 1822 by Honore de Balzac is about scientifically induced immortality.

In 1816, Joseph Nicephore Niepce invents the first photograph, using paper coated with silver chloride which was "fixed" with nitric acid. He later partners with Louis Jacques Monde Daguerre, for which the Daguerrotype (the first modern form of photography) was named. Some argue this was the second photograph, the first being the Shroud of Turin dating from the early 1300s and thought to have been prepared by using silver nitrate on linen. A Web site about Niepce. A precursor to Niepce was the work of Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphrey Davy, who in 1802 presented a paper titled "An account of a method of copying paintings upon glass and of making profiles by the agency of light upon nitrate of silver." Wedgwood and Davy were unable to fix the image, unlike Niepce (though Niepce had difficulties doing so, and it was not until Daguerre and Talbot in 1839 does the process become more reliable).

In 1816, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres invents the technique of resolution contrast, where human faces in drawings/paintings are done in high resolution with the rest of the image in lower resolution(s), for example, his drawing Mrs. Charles Badham.

In 1816, David Brewster invents the kaleidoscope, a tube with mirrors and lenses and loose pieces of glass.

In 1829, the Austrian Damian invents the accordion, a portable reed instrument.

In 1826, Lydia Maria Child in Massachusetts invents the first American children's magazine, Juvenile Miscellany. In 1833, she writes An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans called Africans, one of the earlist (Northern) books attacking slavery as repugnant. Not a first, but the business backlash destroyed her magazine and publishing opportunities. A very high price to pay for defending the truth - to be remembered - as opposed to any book defending slavery in any context to be remembered as obscene.

In 1830, German glassmaker Josef Reidel invents flourescent/uranium glass, a glass that has a striking greenish-yellow color that also glowed in the evening sun due to flourescence from the radioactive uranium. By the 1960s, non-radioactive chemicals that produced a similar color were used instead of uranium.

In 1832, German musician and silversmith Theobald Boehm invents the modern flute, the first to use mechanical levers as keys to allow for the control of multiple tone holes. In 1847, he develops an improved version which becomes the basis of modern flutes. Click here for more on the history of flutes.

In 1833, Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice invents minstrel shows, where white men painted in black performed comedy and sang black songs and spirituals that had been turned into formal compositions. Minstrel shows did popularize the banjo, the Americanized version of the African banza/banshaw/banjar.

In the 1830s, painter, art professor and design engineer Samuel Morse invents the telegraph. Morse is also one of the first portrait photographers.

In the 1830s, the invention of the achromatic lens revolutionizes optics, including removing much of the distortion of microscope images. Scientists and artists use microscopes to prepare drawings of cellular life with subtle coloring and fine detail useful to scientists and popular with the public.

In 1833, American builder Augustus Deodat Taylor invents the balloon frame house, which becomes popular for its sturdiness and ease of construction.

In 1835, Richard Adams Locke, reporter for the New York Sun daily newspaper, invents tabloid journalism, when in a series of stories over the course of a few weeks, he reports that famed astronomer John Herschel, using his powerful telescope, had discovered life on the moon. Locke makes up stories about bipedal beavers, man-bats, and small buffalo all living together on the moon.

"Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not landscape painting be considered as a branch of [physics], of which pictures are but the experiments?" - John Constable - Hampstead lectures, July 1836

In 1836, Austrian composer A.W. Ambros invents the word leitmotiv to refer to a musical theme invariably associated with a certain person, situation or idea throughout an opera - in an article about Wagner's operas.

In 1837, Charles Dickens invents in English literature the child as central character, in his book, Oliver Twist. Dickens is later to visit America, where he publicly criticizes America's copyright theft of European literature, and upon returning to England writes a satire about America Martin Chuzzlewit.

In 1837, the German scientist Friedrich Froebel invents structured educational entertainment for children, i.e., kindergarten. One student of Froebel's kindergartens was Piet Mondrian, who with Theo van Doesburg, started the De Stijl style of art in 1917.

In 1839, French inventor Louis Daguerre invents the daguerreotype, where a direct positive image is made on a silver-coated plate. Another French inventor of the time, Hippolyte Bayard is thought to have been the first to invent photography, but Daguerre gets the government support because his process is more commercially viable. Paralleling Daguerre's efforts are those of William Henry Fox Talbot, who published his results about fixing photographs in 1839 when he heard of Daguerre's work. Talbot's 1841 Calotype process of positives and negatives was the forerunner to today's conventional photography. Talbot's first photograph was made in 1835.

In 1841, British physicist William Henry Fox invents calotype, photography where paper positives are printed from paper negatives. His process displaces daguerreotype.

In 1841, the American painter John Rand invents collapsible metal paint tubes, replacing pig bladders in which paint tended to dry out quickly. Pierre-Auguste Renoir remarked that "without paints in tubes, there would have been no Cezanne, no Monet, no Sisley or Pissarro, nothing of what the journalists were later to call Impressionism". In 1842, the English firm Winsor & Newton improves upon Rand's tubes, and starts marketing tube colors. Ref. Alexander Katlan has written a review of 19th century developments with regards to artists tools and materials for onsite oil sketching.

In 1841, Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax invents the saxophone, obtaining a patent in 1846.

In 1843, Edgar Allan Poe invents the mystery novel, with his book The Gold Bug.

In 1843, Anna Atkins invents the photographically-illustrated book, with her book British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.

Also in 1843, W&SB Ives Company invents the first modern board game, The Mansion of Happiness. More on general history of such games at tradgames.org.uk . The best-selling board game in history, Monopoly, was first sold in 1934, and was the antithesis of an earlier patented board game, The Landlord's Game, sold circa 1904 (the year of its patent), invented by Elizabeth Magic Phillips to teach players the anti-social nature of unscrupulous land owners.

In 1849, Scottish scientist David Brewster invents stereophotography with his Stereoscope which combines two slightly different photographs to create the illusion of three dimensional depth perception. The idea of so combining photographs dates back to the work of English scientist Charles Wheatstone in 1833. A brief history of stereography.

In 1850, English designer and gardener Joseph Paxton and English manufacturers invent mass-produced buildings, with their Crystal Palace building of the 1851 World Fair in London. It was the first entirely mass-produced building, using new construction materials and a gridiron plan that later is to become the basis for constructing skyscrapers. 400 tons of glass are used as walls throughout the building. Paxton bases his iron-and-glass design on the giant Amazonian water lily, whose six-foot-wide leaves are ribbed in such a way that they can bear the weight of a sixty-three-pound child. The 1851 World Fair is also the first world fair. Thiry eight years later, getting rid of the glass and emphasizing vertical construction, Gustave Eiffel designs, constructs and funds the building of the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 Paris World Fair.

In 1851, the American Levi Hill invents the color photograph, a way to add color to daguerreotypes that were invented in 1839. In 1861, the physicist James Clerk Maxwell, the father of modern electrodynamics, helps develop the field of color photography. Traditionally, the invention of color photography is attributed to DuCos du Hauron in 1876.

In 1853, the public aquarium, is invented with the opening of an aquarium at the Regent's Park Zoological Garden in London.

In 1853, the first printed book with photographs and text is published. The book, Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns, was written by Anna Atkins. She created the book's cyanotypes by laying plant specimens on to light-sensitive paper.

In 1856, Robert Lowe, vice-chairman of London's Board of Trade invents the corporation, when he leads an effort to create the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856, a business entity where each shareholder's liability was limited to his or her stake. In 1862 a more comprehensive Act is passed that firmly establishes the legal nature of corporations. In about 100 years, industrial corporations come to dominate the production and distribution of art and entertainment.

In 1856, English chemist William Henry Perkin invents the first synthetic dye, mauve, while trying to synthesize the drug quinine from aniline, and noticed a violet substance being produced in his experiments. Aniline itself was a chemical derived in 1826 by the German chemist Otto Unverdorben from the natural dye, indigo. Ref.

In 1857, Gustave Flaubert publishes Madame Bovary, in which he conceals his personal point of view and uses multiple points of view.

In 1859, French chemist Jean Salvetat invents the color cobalt-violet. The artist Claude Monet was later to say about cobalt violet: "I have finally discovered the color of the atmosphere. It is violet.", a discovery needing the help of the scientist.

In 1862, Edouard Manet invents non-linear alignment, using no horizontal or vertical lines but rather using curved or askew edges, in his painting Music in the Tuileries (an outdoor party scene in the woods).

In 1863, Edouard Manet invents multiple subject painting, rejecting 1000 years of requiring that art had to be understood (by having a consistent subject depicted) in his painting Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, by having four subjects all disconnected and not looking at each other, as well as disconnecting the perspective of the foreground from the background by eliminating the middleground, and lighting subjects in the painting from different directions.

Around 1865, Jules Cheret in Paris invents chromolithographs, allowing multicolor posters to be printed using stones, for example, the 1866 poster Bubbles by the painter Sir John Millais of a young boy blowing bubbles, used to advertise soap.

In 1865, Lewis Carroll invents the literary use of distorted space and time in his story Alice in Wonderland.

In 1865, opera singer Ludwig Leichner invents grease paint for actors to apply to their faces as makeup.

In 1866, Fyodor Dostoyevsky reinvents the literary use of time compression by writing Crime and Punishment, where all the events happen within a few days (the first inventors being the early creation myth writers such as the book of Genesis).

In 1866, Eduoard Manet invents the solitary depiction of children (ages 5-15) as the focus of a painting, for example, in his 1866 Fifer.

In 1868, Americans invent burlesque, theatrical variety shows with dancing by chorus girls.

In 1868, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the words "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are invented.

In 1871, the skyscraper building is invented, with the completion of the Equitable Building in New York City. Another early skyscraper is the Home Insurance Building constructed by the American architect William Jenney in Chicago in 1885, comprising a ten-story steel framed marble building.

In 1872, the photographers Eadweard Muybridge and Jules-Etienne Marey use multiple cameras to prepare photographs of moving objects, serial photomontages, the precursors to motion pictures. Muybridge's photographs of running horses helped Degas with his sculptures of horses.

In 1872, mathematician and author Lewis Carroll publishes the book, Through the Looking Glass, a sequel to his earlier 1865 book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Through the Looking Glass is famous, amongst other reasons, for including the Jabberwocky poem in Chapter 1. Chapter 8, 'It's My Own Invention', is interesting for making use of inventions in the story.

In 1872, the Montgomery Ward supply house invents the mail-order catalog, to be followed in 1895 by Sears Roebuck with their 780-page illustrated catalog. By 1915, Sears Roebuck has over $100,000,000 in assets. Ref.

In 1873, San Franciscans Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis invent and patent blue jeans, synthetic indigo colored denim waist overalls with rivets to strengthen the seams. 140 years later, the Levi Strauss company has annual sales of $4-5 billion, and the Levi's trademark is one of the most recognized in the world.

In 1873, Eduoard Manet invents the use of non-linear horizon lines, where he slightly bends the primal horizon line, eliminating the horizon line in his 1874 painting Boating.

In 1873, April 25, French art critic Louis Leroy, writing in the publication Le Charivari invents the name of a new art movement, Impressionists, refering to painting spontaneously and painting light using complementary colors. For the 1873 Salon (an art show in Paris), Edmond Renoir had complained about the boring titles of seascape paintings being submitted by Claude Monet, asking Monet for a more interesting title. Monet responded "Why don't you just put 'Impression'?", for which Renior used as a title 'Impression: Sunrise'. In general, the style represented by such paintings didn't please Leroy, who somewhat insultingly titled his review article: 'Exhibition of the Impressionists', for which people started to use to refer to these painters. In this year, the first Impressionist show is held in Paris, and included works by Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. Other impressionists included Manet, Degas and Cezanne. A partial re-creation of the first Impressionist Exhibition can be seen online.

In 1876, Auguste Rodin invents modern sculpture in his The Age of Bronze, by sculpting a male figure with extreme, realistic naturalism as opposed to the smoother, stylized form of Classical sculpting. His 1897 sculpture Balzac takes sculpture to the brink of abstraction.

In 1877, American inventor Thomas Edison invents the phonograph, a machine for recording and replaying sound and music. Click here for a list of 1098 US patents awards to Thomas Edison.

In 1879, American author Ella Cheeber Thayer invents the idea of online romance, in her book Wired Love: a romance of dots and dashes, a story about two American telegraph operators who conduct a romance using telegraph messages.

In the 1880s, American painter Thomas Eakins invents nude human figure drawing in education, requiring both his male and female students to learn to draw by viewing nude humans. The controversy gets him fired from the Pennsylvania Academy in 1886, despite his impressive artistic career.

In the 1880s, the decorative style art nouveau is invented, a style which emphasizes curvilinear patterns, often plant and flower forms. The term is first used in 1884 to describe the work of the Belgian group Les XX.

In 1880, E.A. Abbott writes Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a story about an encounter between a 3D sphere and 2D beings living on a plane.

In 1882, Eduoard Manet invents the use of multiple time depiction, in his A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, where he depicts a bar scene seen from two points in space at two different moments in time.

In 1884, Georges Seurat invents pointillism, creating a painting by juxtaposing small dots/dabs of pure unmixed color over the whole canvas. He theorized that complementary colors, set side by side, would mix in the viewer's eye with greater luminosity than if mixed on the painter's palette, for example as seen in his 1884-1886 painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Pointillism, also known as Divisionism, was the basis for the neo-Impressionist movement. Precursors of pointillism include Mi Fei's use of ink blots to replace precise outlines around 1090, Vermeer's use of paint dabs in the mid 1600s, and Jean Antoine Watteau's juxtaposing pure colors (for example, his 1717 painting L'Embarquement pour l'Ile de Cythere).

In the 1880s, Argentinians invent the tango, dance and music that is a mix of African, Indian and Spanish rhythms. The first forms of the tango dance are based on the "acting out" of the relationship between prostitutes and pimps. In the early 1900s, the Argentinian musician Carlos Cardel transformed tango's racy bordello lyrics and melodies into tragic and/or erotic laments.

In the 1880s, American painter William Michael Harnett invents trompe l-oeil, microscopically accurate paintings of ordinary objects, for example, his 1888 painting Still Life - Violin & Music. A forerunner of trompe l-oeil can be seen in Albrecht Durer's 1503 lifelike painting Muzzle of a Bull.

In the 1880s, American painter Winslow Homer invents watercolors as finished works of art, in addition to watercolors primarily being used as sketches for paintings.

In 1886, Paul Gauguin launches the Symbolism painting style, a style where there are large flat areas of color, figures and motifs are outlined in dark contours, the palette is bright and intense, and the colors strong and evenly applied, with themes that evoke feelings, dreams and visions such as the mystical and religious. The basis for Symbolism is French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans' 1884 book A Rebours (Against the Grain).

In 1887, linguistic researchers invent a new human language Esperanto.

In 1888, Paul Cezanne invents the technique of universal perspective, in his Still Life with Fruit Basket, portraying objects from various perspectives.

Also in the 1880s, Paul Cezanne invents the technique of object distortion, by elongating objects in his paintings (adopted by many others like the German Expressionists and taken to the extreme in Alberto Giacometti's 1947 sculpture Man Pointing). A precusor to Cezanne are artists such as the Italian painter Francesco Mazzola Parmigianino whose 1521 painting The Marriage of Saint Catherine makes use of linear figure painting with elongated forms.

In 1888, French poet and playwright Alfred Jarry invents avant-garde drama, with his marionette parody play, Ubu-roi. The play is performed live in 1896.

In 1889, artist Carl Akeley invents the habitat diorama, a three-dimensional recreation of a part of the natural world, in this case, a display of a muskrat habitat, at the Milwaukee Public Museum. One of the best, and earliest examples, based on his designs, is the Hall of African Mammals at the Amerian Museum of National History, completed in 1936. In 1822, Louis Jacques Mande invented dioramas, large semi-transparent paintings that light could be projected through to create dramatic effects, one of the precursors of movies that will be invented by the Lumiere's in 1895.

In 1890, Emile Jaques Dalcroze invents eurhythmics, a system of musical training through physical movement.

In 1891, Claude Monet invents the technique of unfreezing time in images by painting the entrance to the cathedral in Rouen at 40 different times of the day (similarly painting the same haystack at 20 moments in a year), a technique inspired by Katsushika Hokusai in his 1820's paintings of Mount Fuji from 36 points of view.

In 1892, Paul Gauguin invents cultural artistic fusion, making use of non-Western art techniques while living in Tahiti, by using minimal perspective, arbitrary bright colors, simply fixed forms and exotic subject material, for example, in his painting Fatata te Miti.

In 1895, Henri Rousseau invents the technique of deliberate "childlike" painting, for example, his Boy on the Rocks.

In 1895, publisher Joseph Pulitzer invents the first serial comic strip, The Yellow Kid, in the New York World newspaper. In 1897, Rudolph Dirks invents the comic strip, Katzenjammer Kids. In 1905, Winsor McCay invents the comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland. In 1907, the first daily comic strip appears in the San Francisco Chronicle titled Mr. Mutt and invented by Bud Fisher (to be renamed Mutt and Jeff).

In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere offer the first for-pay public movie in Paris. They also invent the first newsreel and documentary. In this year, they get a patent for their Cinematographe, a combination camera and projector.

In 1896, the German engineer Karl Lautenschlager invents the revolving theater stage.

In 1897, American composer Scott Joplin invents ragtime, with his song Maple Leaf Rag.

In 1897, the city of New Orleans invents the American urban sexual art and entertainment district, by passing Ordinance No. 13,032, which regulated sex establishments to Storyville, a 20 block area just northwest of the French Quarter. The district remains until 1917, when a World War I federal order shuts down prostitution near naval bases. But it is in Storyville houses that some of the early founders of jazz such as Jelly Roll Morton honed their art.

In the 1890s, Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski invents the first system for acting, the Stanislavski Method for character development by actors. In his method, actors would research the situation created by a script, break down the text according to their character's motivations and recall their own experiences, thereby causing actions and reactions according to these motivations while performing as the character. In 1898, he helps for the Moscow Art Theater where he applies and teaches his methods.

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1900s - Modern Art & Technology

In 1902, Thomas Tally of Los Angeles invents the modern movie theater, when he opens his Electric Theater in the spring of 1902, which was devoted to movies and other high-tech devices of the time, such as audio recordings. His theater was so popular that it inspired countless imitators with their theaters, later to be known as "nickelodeons".

In 1902, Paul Cezanne invents the technique of indeterminate time, in his painting Mont Sainte Victorie, painted so that the sources and direction of light in the painting are not discernible, making it impossible to determine time in the painting.

In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invent the teddy bear toy, based on a cartoon of a bear saved by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1903, Auguste and Louis Lumiere invent the three dimensional movie with their one minute movie, L'Arrivee du Train. The early 1950s has Hollywood pushing 3D movies as the next big fad, making 65 films from 1952 to 1954. One of the best was the 1953 House of Wax directed by Andre de Toth. The 1950s 3D movie craze was started by Arch Obler's 1952 movie Bwana Devil.

In 1904, Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, Andre Derain and others invent Fauvism, the use of vibrant colors in paintings without reference to actual appearance, as seen in Derain's 1905 painting Big Ben. The name "Fauvism" is invented in 1905 by French art critic Louis Vauxcelles, when after seeing a classic-style statue in the midst of works by Matisse and his colleagues, comments "Donatello au milieu des fauves (Donatello among the wild animals)".

Around 1905, Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton combine ragtime, the blues, and spirituals to invent what is to become known as jazz.

In 1906, French fashion designer Paul Poiret invents modern women's fashion by introducing drapery dresses with bold colors. Up until then, much of such fashion was corset-based with dull color palettes. Not only were his shapeless dresses popular with women, they inspired new thrusts in dress design, with a boldness that 100 years later one could think was a new design, if one didn't know Poiret. He was also the first designer to develop a life-style brand by selling accompanying accessories such as perfumes and hats, marketed in part by another by innovation, the use of celebrities. Other of his innovation include the "hobble" skirt (it had a narrow cut that restricted movement), and cocooning coats and day dresses.

In 1907, Pablo Picasso invents Cubism with his painting of five prostitutes, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Another Cubist pioneer is Georges Braque, whose 1908 painting House at L'Ebstaque was commented upon by Henri Matisse to art critic Louis Vauxcelles (who derisively describe's the painting as being composed of cubes). Early cubists were inspired by current theoies of mathematics and physics, especially the relativity of Poincare-Lorentz-Einstein, as introduced to them by mathematician Maurice Princet.

In 1907, Georges Melies, in his film Tunneling the English Channel, invents a variety of special effects: stop-motion photography, split-screen photography, stop action animation, and live action combined with full-scale mechanical backgrounds. In 1929, Russian film director Dziga Vertov pioneers the use of many of these techniques in Russia in his documentary Man with a Movie Camera about the lives of ordinary people.

In 1908, Chicago police invent movie/television censorship when they ban the showing of the movie The James Boys in Missouri.

In 1909, Italian poet Filippo Thommaso Marinetti invents Futurism, in his manifesto Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, in which he encourages artists to celebrate "a new beauty, the beauty of speed". Futurist painters combined the bright colors of Fauvism with the fractured planes of Cubism to express mechanization, movement and propulsion.

In 1910, American movie producer Carl Laemmle invents the movie star, by stealing and publicly naming an actress from another movie studio, Florence Lawrence, as a publicity stunt. Until then, actors and actresses were not identified by name.

In 1913, French painter Georges Braque invents collage, also a form of Synthetic Cubism, in which pieces of decorative paper are incorporated into a painting.

In 1913, Arthur Wynne, a writer for the New York World newspaper, invents the crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles become popular nationally when, to launch their new book publishing company, Dick Simon and Lincoln Schuster, publish a book of crossword puzzles from the New York World.

In 1915, Frank Powell invents the film vision of woman as seductress in his screen adaptation of Porter Emerson Browne's Broadway drama A Fool There Was, with Theda Bara as the vamp.

In 1915, the cartoonist W. E. Hill invents the psychological phenomenon multistable images with his drawing My Wife and My Mother-in-Law, an image which can appear to depict either a young woman or an old woman.

In 1916, Universal Studios produces the movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the first movie with extensive underwater photography.

In 1916, Charlie Soderstrom chooses brown as the color for his new transportation company's automobiles and uniforms. He was inspired by the rich brown color of the railcars of the Pullman company, which symbolized elegant travel to the American public, quality which Soderstrom wanted the public to associate with his company, the Merchants Parcel Delivery company. Ninety years later, the color brown is associated with the professional quality of MPD's descendant, the United Parcel Service (UPS).

In 1917, Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg invent the De Stijl art style, a style based on the use of pure geometry, often intersecting horizontal and vertical black lines, forming rectangles (some of which are colored with pure red, blue and yellow).

In 1918, American cartoonist Winsor McCay, invents the feature length animated film, with the movie The Sinking of the Lusitania.

In 1919, Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford invent the artist's movie studio, United Artists, to have more control over the movies they made.

In 1919, the German producer Rovert Wience, invents the horror film, with his movie Das Cabinett des Dr. Caligari.

In 1919, Lev Theremin invents the first electronic music instrument, the theremin, played without touching by moving hands near an antenna. Click here for a list of electronic instrument firsts over the last 120 years.

In 1920, Marcel Duchamp invents intellectual property art in his 1920 Fresh Widow, a wooden window on which he painted the word "copyright" for an object that typically would be patentable.

In 1920, Westinghouse Company's radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh invents broadcast politainment, broadcasting the returns of the US national elections of 1920. KDKA was formed in 1920 when Westinghouse noticed that radio sales increased when Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad broadcasted music from a radio transmitter in his home.

In 1920, Czechoslavakian playwright Karel Capek invents the word robot to refer to a machine capable of acting and speaking in a human manner, in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots).

In 1921, American post-Cubist painter Stuart Davis invents pop art, with his painting Lucky Strike, using lettering such as 'Lucky Strike' and 'The American Tobacco Co' to refer to an commercial product. In 1954, Lawrence Alloway invents the phrase 'pop art' to refer to a trend in the 1950s to base art on popular culture, an early work in 1956 being British painter Richard Hamilton's collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home So Different.

In 1922, Brig. General George Owen Squier reinvents engineered music, Muzak, by producing music that has no vocals, no tempo changes and no brass instruments. Earlier in 1562, Pope Pius IV had ordered that church music eliminate all instruments except the organ, and any evidence of secularism, harmony or folk melody.

In 1922, radio station WGY in Schenectady, New York, invents radio drama by broadcasting Eugene Walter's play The Wolf. The station soon formed the radio show The WGY Players which presented radio adaptations of popular stage plays.

In the 1920s, Ford Motors invents product placement in movies, by donating Model T Fords to be used in the comedy movies of Mark Sennett.

In 1923, Charles Francis Jenkins invents broadcast television, by transmitting the first synchronized transmission of pictures and sound using the US Navy station NOF in Anacostia, broadcasting a ten minute film of a miniature windmill in motion. For more history, check a timeline of American television from 1875-1970.

From 1923 to 1926, Hollywood directors James Cruze, John Ford, and King Baggott establish the principle formulae for American Western films, with their movies The Covered Waggon(JC), Pony Express(JC), Three Bad Men(JF), The Iron Horse(JF), and Tumbleweed(KB).

In 1924, French writer Andre Breton reinvents surrealism in his publication Surrealist Manifesto. Surrealism is art based on dream and fantasy imagery, the forerunner being works of the German artist Hieronymus Bosch around 1503.

In the 1920s, Konstantin (Alexeyev) Stanislavski invents Method acting, where actors research scenes to map the characters' motivations into their own personal experiences, and then act the scenes with a more emotionally personal basis. The 17th century melodrama Tsar Fyodor was the first production in which Method acting was used. In the 1950's, American actor Marlon Brando's film performances showed how powerful Method acting could be.

In 1926, Fritz Lang invents science fiction movies in the modern sense of dynamic visual and spacial effects with his movie Metropolis. Earlier in 1902, Georges Melies films the first science fiction movie, A Trip to the Moon.

In 1928, General Electric invents broadcast drama when on September 11th the play, The Queen's Messenger, is broadcasted from the studios of its station WGY.

In 1928, director Carl Theodor Dreyer uses the newly invented panchromatic film in his movie La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc to be able to film facial expressions of actors and actresses without them having to use make-up to emphasize their expressions. Use of panchromatic film leads to the dramatic use of faces in close-up shots.

In 1929, director Josef von Sternberg invents film noir in his movie Thunderbolt, with his 1927 movie Underworld being the transition from earlier gangster films.

In 1929, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali invent the surrealist film with their movie, Un Chien Andalou, which includes the infamous eyeball-slicing scene.

In 1930s, Coca Cola invents the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus as a jolly figure in order to bolster winter sales of soft drinks. The original image of Santa Claus as a man with twinkling eyes and a white beard was drawn in 1862 by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly magazine for Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas.

In 1932, Alexander Calder invents mobiles, where he suspends sheets of metal painted black, white and primary colors, from wires and rods. His inspiration was seeing the colored rectangles covering the walls of Mondrian's studio. His art forms are named by Marcel DuChamp.

In 1932, Edgar Rice Burrough invents an alien language, Amtorian, as part of his book Pirates of Venus, which included a glossary of the language. 60 years later, a similar entertainment alien language, Klingon, invented for the Star Trek series, becomes an established human language. In 1879, scholar Johann Maria Schleyer invents the universal human language Volapuk.

In 1933, San Francisco high school student Hank Luisetti invents the one-handed push shot for the game of basketball, as opposed to the two-handed set and hook shots. His invention signficantly changed basketball.

In 1933, auto products salesman Richard Hollingshead Jr. invents the movie drive-in theater, where automobiles parked in front of large outdoor screens.

In 1934, American director Frank Capra invents the screwball comedy, in his movie It Happened One Night, a comic love story.

In 1935, Technicolor releases the first movie using a three-color process, Becky Sharp. Two color process movies had been around since 1922, but were not as attractive to audiences.

In 1936, Walt Disney invents a device (U.S. patent 2,201,689) which greatly speeds up the process of making cartoons with more realistic shading, demonstrated in the 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Disney's technological skills, combined with his artistic skills (his use of anthropomorphic animals, painterly backgrounds and a cozy, folklorish tone) made Disney the most successful early animator. Disney's style was easily adopted by the Russian Socialist-Realism animator Ivan Ivanov-Vano, for example, his 1952 animation, The Snow Maiden.

In 1936, anti-drug movies are invented in the films Reefer Madness and Marihuana, though people are still trying to figure out if such movies discourage or promote drug use.

In 1938, Orson Welles invents broadcast virtual reality with his radio production of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, a broadast so realistic that it caused a panic in much of the reception area.

In 1938, the Frenchman Alfonso Laurencic invents art torture in Barcelona, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Leftist Republicans build jail cells with distorted geometries and walls painted with Modernist and Surrealist paintings. Bunuel/Dali's 1929 movie (see above) Un Chien Andalou is projected on the walls. Stanley Kubrick, in his 1971 movie A Clockwork Orange, uses this idea of art torture in a few scenes.

In 1939, Irvin Morton invents celebrity corporate speaking, when he forms the entertainer marketing company Jack Morton Productions. His company helped corporations and associations invite celebrities such as Bob Hope to speak at conventions and promotional events, especially as conventions expanded from just discussing business to entertaining customers and employees.

In 1940, the writer Walter van Tilburg Clark invents American Western literature, with his book 'The Ox-Bow Incident'. He took the standard ingredients of the western story - the people, the land, the cattle (think Zane Grey), and added intense moral drama and big themes - justice, the law, etc.

In 1941, Robert Merton invents the focus group at Columbia University, during surveys of the public to determine the popularity of radio shows. The entertainment industry makes great use of focus groups in the decades that followed.

In 1941, the first television commercial is broadcasted in New York. During a July 1st baseball game between the Dodgers and the Phillies, the game is interrupted by an image of a Bulova watch face, superimposed on the screen and accompanied by a voice-over announcing, "America runs on Bulova time". Bulova paid $9 for the air time.

In 1942, graphic artist Martin Webber invents posterization, a technique for making photographs appear to have depth. His technique comprised creating three different color negatives of a photograph, and then printing them together, each slightly off register. The resulting images appear somewhat multidimensional. The technique was first appeared as the last cover of the graphics art magazine PM/AD in 1942, and was frequently used in the late 1960s to create posters a psychedelic look.

In 1946, the DuMont network invents television soap operas with their show, Faraway Hill.

In 1946, French film critics invent the term film noir to refer to a group of American movies (finally available after World War II) that reminded them of the dark tones of American hard-boiled fiction published in a paperback line called Serie Noire. Not only did the movies have a dark tone to their plot, most were shot in black and white, often making use of shadows. One of the most noir of noir films is the 1946 movie Detour, about a murder and the furiest of furious women.

In 1946, Uruguayan artist Carmelo Arden Quin invents the MADI movement in Argentina. MADI is an art style known for polygonal shapes; mirrored surfaces; oddly shape frames; and three dimensional parts that move. It combines Picasso's cubism, the geometric shapes of Mondrian and the contrasting colors of Miro and Matisse. The movement is started in defiance of censorship under the Argentine dictator Juan Peron.

In 1947, the NBC network invents news shows with their show Meet The Press.

In 1947, pilot and aeronautic engineer Herbert von Thaden invents the bent plywood chair, a chair made of two sheets of bent plywood held together with metal fasteners, at the time, a radical Modernist furniture design.

Around 1947, the lawyer Edward Colton is one of the first to invent the theatrical limited partnership, a method for allowing people to invest in theater productions with financial liability restricted to the amount they invested.

In 1948, Florence Melton invents foam rubber slippers, with billions sold in the decades to follow. The top covering is typically terrycloth or velour. While reading an article in a 1947 Popular Mechanics on how Firestone Tire and Rubber created foam rubber for tank helmets, it occurred to Florence to replace the cotton in her patented female shoulder pads with foam rubber. On the way back from a trip to Firestone to sign a deal to so use the foam rubber, turning to her son, Aaron, she said: "Aaron, you know what we ought to do with foam rubber? We ought to walk on it." (New York Times, 14 Feb 2007, C11]. At her death, she had about 20 patents on her fashion inventions.

In 1949, French color dealer Henri Sennelier invents oil pastels. Ordinary pastels - powdered pigments mixed into a paste, had been popular for 200 years but crumbled easily. Sennelier had been asked by the Parisian painter Henri Goetz to develop something better for his friend Picasso. Sennelier's oil pastels were more robust and could be used on a wide range of surfaces.

In 1949, American painter Dan Robbins invents paint-by-number kits. Robbins was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's practice of assigning numbered sections of his paintings to apprentices.

In 1950, Californian C. J. Hart invents drag racing entertainment, when he arranges for the first commercial competition in drag racing. These first races occur on 19 June 1950, a Sunday, on the rented runways at the Orange County Airport south of Los Angeles. The airport was paid ten percent of ticket sales. Drag racing goes on to become a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

In 1952, television show technical director Charles Douglass invents the Laff Box, a device for adding artificial audience reactions (such as laughter) to broadcast television shows, for shows where there is no audience, or for live shows that are unable to get an audience to react.

In 1951, Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner invent rock and roll music, with their two minute song, Rocket 88, a rhythm and blues song with enough musical extras that some consider it the first rock and roll song. That year, Bill Haley recorded a version of the song. Some argue that Haley invented rock-and-roll in 1953, when he combined guitars, saxophones, piano, bass and snare drums in his song, Crazy Man Crazy. In 1955, the first rock and roll song used in a movie, Blackboard Jungle, is Haley's Rock Around the Clock. Earlier in 1949, Paul Williams had written the rhythm-and-blues song The Hucklebuck, an important precursor to rock and roll. Another precusor to rock and roll was skiffle music, which combined country, blues, gospel, jazz and folk music, played with an energetically strummed guitar over a churning accelerating rhythm, as seen in the classic 1954 song Rock Island Line by the English group Jazz Band featuring Lonnie Donegan.

In 1953, David Mullany invents the whiffle ball, after watching his son and his friends in their Connecticut backyard trying with difficulty to throw small plastic balls with a little curve or slide. Ref.

In 1954, Swanson Food salesman Gerry Thomas invents the TV dinner, selling ten million in the first year. The first TV dinner comprised a foiled tray with three separated compartments: one for turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, one for sweet potatoes, and one for buttered peas. He was inspired to invent the TV dinner after seeing a foiled one compartment dinner prototype for airline food.

In 1954 and 1955, movie graphic designer Saul Bass invents the modern movie title sequence, for the 1954 movie Carmen Jones and 1955 movie The Man With The Golden Arm.

In 1956, comedian Jonathan Winters invents the use of videotape in television entertainment, when he uses the newly available videotape recorders and superimposing techniques to be able to play two characters in the same scene for his NBC television show.

In 1957, scientists at the University of Illinois in Urbana invent computer assisted musical composition, completing their work titled the Illiac Suite for String Quartet.

In 1957, Japanese saltmaker Momofuku Ando, invents instant noodles, basically long noodles sprayed with chicken soup. The secret to making them "instant" was to flash-fry the cooked noodles in palm oil (a trick he learned from his wife's vegetable tempura cooking style). In 2005, over 86 billions servings of instante noodles were eaten around the world. The people of Japan voted instant noodles their most important invention of the 20th century.

In 1957, two designers, Edouard Hoffmann and Max Miedlinger, invent the Helvetica typeface, a san-serif script originally named 'Neue Haas Grotesk' to compete with a popular predecessor, 'Akzidenz Grotesk'. The typeface became part of the 1960s' and 1970s' much-adopted modernist Swiss deisgn style, and in 1980 was included as one of the original 11 typefaces supplied with publishing-friendly Apple Computers. By the 2000s, it became of the most widely distributed typefaces in the world.

In the late 1950s, the actor Jerry Lewis, with the help of engineers at Paramount, invents the video assist, a tiny television camera inside/mounted-above a movie camera.

In 1959, New York artist Lenore Tawney invents the genre of fiber art, by combining several techniques - plain weave, gauze weave, slit tapestry and open-warp weaving - to invent large, abstract, free-hanging sculptures from fibers. Ms. Tawney had earlier been trained as both a sculptor and a weaver, and her new genre united the worlds of arts and crafts, which had been mostly disjoint until then.

In 1960, the French artist Yves Klein obtains a patent on a color, International Klein Blue.

In 1962, Houston surgeons invent breast implants, inserting silicon implants into Timmie Jean Lindsay (who as of 2003 was alive, healthy and with the implants). Breast implants in the decades to follow become an important fashion accessory for women in various entertainment industries.

In 1962, a television show, The Corner Bar, has the first regular gay character on a network sitcom (the character, Peter Panama was played by Vincent Schiavelli).

In 1962, students at MIT, using a PDP-1 computer, invent the first graphical computer game, Spacewar. Earlier in 1958, Willy Higginbotham at Brookhaven National Laboratory had invented an electronic circuit, with pushbutton input and oscilloscope output, to let two people play a simple game of tennis.

In 1962, ATT Bell Laboratories achieves the first satellite broadcast entertainment, when they launch the Telstar satellite into Earth orbit in July, and relay television signals from Europe to the United States. In the decades to come, satellite signals are used to broadcast entertainment into homes around the world.

In 1962, In 1962, Hughes and Sheila Potiker invent the coupon book, a printed publication of coupons to local restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers. The books were distributed or sold by charities, schools and religious organizations for fundraising. The company they form, Entertainment Products, eventually expands their booklet idea to cover 100 of cities in the United States and overseas.

In 1963, the Italian journalists Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi invents the shockumentary, in his film Mondo Cane. The movie presents bizarre, humorous, exotic, and frightening imagery about strange activities around the world (for example, a woman in New Zealand suckling a pig). Within forty years, cable television (Fox) renders this genre trivial. Ref.

In 1963, Osamu Tezuka in Japan invents anime, with his anime Tetsuwan Atomu. A brief history of anime is available.

In 1963, Nam June Paik (www.paikstudios.com) invents video art with his work "Exposition of Musik / Electronic Television". One of his well known works is "Video Fish", an array of 52 live video monitors each obscured by fish-filled aquariums. In 1969, along with Shuya Abe, he invents the video synthesizer.

In 1965, aesthetic philosopher Richard Wollheim invents the use of the word Minimalism to describe a new category of art, in an article in Arts Magazine.

In 1965, the music group the Byrds invent folk rock by electronically amplifying folk music such as Bob Dylan's song Tambourine Man.

In 1966, Spanish author Julio Cortazar invents hypertext in his book Hopscotch. His book has 155 chapters, with chapters 1 to 56 meant to be sequentially as in the normal fashion. However, at the end of each of these chapters is the number of an alternative chapter the reader can select. For example, chapter 2 ends with a link to chapter 116, which itself has a link to chapter 3, giving the reader the choice of reading chapter 116 or not. Cortazar's book is cited by computer programmers creating the first computer-based hypertext systems. Cortazar, in his book, does not indicate if he was aware of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Atlantic Monthly articles on his proposed Memex information system which has an associative-indexing feature, hyperlinks. Click here for an interesting Web site with artistic maps of Internet connections.

In 1966, television producer Chuck Barris invents reality television with his game show The Dating Game, to be followed by the The Newlywed Game and the Gong Show. By the late 1990s, with television creativity nearly impotent, reality television shows dominate schedules (along with pseudo-reality television, police and law shows).

In 1966, high school chemistry teacher Paul Zindel writes the play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, which ran for 819 performances on Broadway starting in 1970, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. The play is later turned into a movie directed by Paul Newman.

In 1967, Italian critic Germano Celant names the Arte Povera art movement, describing a group of Italian artists who designed art with minimal forms combined with conceptual irreverence and a sense of rustic chic regarding humble materials and objects. Such artists included Mario Merz, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, and Gilberto Zorio.

In 1968, the Plato's Stepchildren episode of the television show Star Trek invents the broadcast interracial sex when Kirk(white) kisses Uhura (black). This kiss is more controversial than the first broadcast intercultural kiss in the 1950s on the show I Love Lucy. The kiss is less entertaining than a kiss on the cheek a few years later between Archie Bunker and Sammy Davis Jr.

In 1968, Henry Lewis is the first African American to lead a symphony in the United States. Like many consumer-product oriented businesses, art and entertainment businesses have deferred to their customers' racial biases for too long.

In 1970, modern disaster movies are invented with the movie Airport. Precursors can be seen in movies such as the 1953 Titanic, or the 1935 Last Days of Pompeii.

In 1971, filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles invents the blaxploitation film genre with his film Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song". In 1972, televised crime in progress is invented when broadcasters televise a bank robbery in Brooklyn, New York. John Wojtowicz and an accomplice (who is killed) rob a bank to get money to take John's lover, Ernest Aron, to Denmark for a sex change operation. In 1975, Al Pacino stars in a movie based on the robbery and broadcast, Dog Day Afternoon.

In 1972, Alberto-Culver, manufacturers of the popular Alberto VO5 hair conditioner creates and broadcasts the first one minute television commercial, combining two of then standard thirty-second commercials.

In 1973, New York artist Clive Campbell, at a community room party in the Bronx, invents hip-hop. As a DJ at a party in August, he combines snippets of classical favorite songs from musicians such as James Brown and altered their timing and beat for the better enjoyment of dancers at the party.

In 1978, the actor George Nader in his book, Chrome, for the first time depicts a science fiction homosexual romance. A precursor is G. Stanley Hall's 1920 story Recreations of a Psychologist (Fall of Atlantis), about a world with an abundence of women who use abstinence as a weapon to get men, with the men revolting by going into homosexuality.

In 1979, Sylvia Robinson invents the rap record business when she produces and markets the first rap song, Rapper's Delight, at what is to become Sugar Hill Studio in Englewood, NJ. The opening line of the song, "I said a hip hop, the hippie the hippie, to the hip hip hop, and you don't stop" is used by music critics to name the hip hop sub-genre.

In 1979, Daniel Okrent invents fantasy sports leagues by developing rules for a game based on baseball. In 1984, a rule book is published Rotisserie Baseball. Click for more information.

In 1980, teenage slasher movies are invented in the movie Friday the 13th. A 1978 precursor was the classic teenage horror movie Halloween.

In 1981, the MTV cable channel invents broadcasted music videos, when on August 1st, it broadcasts the English group The Buggles' video to their song, Video Killed the Radio Star.

In 1981, British musicians Brian Eno and David Byrne invent sampling of lyrics and melodies, when they use cassette recorders to cue and record musical tracks on top on one another.

In 1982, Scott Fahlman, a researcher at IBM, invents emoticons, combinations of letters, numbers and symbols from standard keyboards to express emotion. In an email message, he added the emoticon    :-)    to indicate a smile (when visualized sideways).

Some first occurences in the art world are not only not inventions, but also a discredit to the art world. In 1986, for the first time, the standard college text, History of Art, by H.W. Janson, starts to include women artists in a book that includes mention of over 2300+ artists in history. In 1986, the book managed to find 19 women artists across thousands of years of art history.

In 1987, Nadia and Daniel Thalmann produce the first movie using computer generated celebrities in their Rendez-vous a Montreal, a seven minute film with a synthetic Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart.

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2000s - the Future

In 2000, Eduardo Kac invents transgenic animal art when he creates the GFP Bunny , a transgenic rabbit whose cells are augmented with the Green Fluorescent Protein gene, which causes the rabbit to glow under a black light. For more information on natural bioluminescent organisms, Click here. In 2007, South Korean scientists create red fluorescent cats, using similar techniques. See Korea Times article, followed by Chinese scientists creating green fluorescent pigs ( AP article).

In 2002, the Spanish female singing group Las Ketchup invents the word budidipi (guidibidi) in their song Asereje.

In 2003, scientists at Britain's National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, lead by Richard Brown, invent the blackest black coating, a black that reflects one tenth the amount of light reflected by current black coatings. The process works by immersing an object for five hours in a solution of nickel sulphate and sodium hypophosphite. The surface of the object is then etched with nitric acid.

In 2003 (April), the first American daytime television-series lesbian kiss occurs on the television soap opera All My Children between two of the characters, Bianca and Lena.

In 2003, the play, Anna in the Tropics, is the first Broadway show to have an all-Latino cast. The play also has a Latino playwright, Cuban-American Nilo Cruz. Ref.