HISTORIA DE LA COMUNICACIÓN MULTIMEDIA (FECHAS) 1

Great Moments In Multimedia History

This chronology explores the origins and evolution of the
components that comprise modern-day multimedia. Seemingly
disparate breakthroughs often occurred within a period of months;
as you’ll discover, it’s all about convergence.

• c. 15,000–13,000 BC—Prehistoric humans paint images on the walls of their caves

(including a narrative composition) in the Grotte de Lascaux, France.
• c. 3500 BC—The roots of Western music are developed in Mesopotamia. Future artifacts
will include an undecipherable song carved in stone (800 BC).
• c. 3000 BC—Chinese entertainers use firelight to project silhouettes of puppets onto a
screen. Unfortunately for those watching these “shadow plays,” popcorn is still confined to North
America.
• c. 540 BC—Thespis of Attica introduces the actor (or protagonist) to Greek drama, which
until now had consisted of recitations and dancing by a chorus. Further innovations are added by
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
• 65 BC—Roman poet Lucretius discovers the persistence of vision. The phenomena (proved
230 years later by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy) allows the eye to see a series of rapid stills as
one moving image, the future basis of motion pictures.
• 1435—Leone Alberti writes Della Pictura, a treatise on the laws of perspective. The book
systematizes the rules for drawing three-dimensional scenes on two-dimensional planes.
• c. 1450—Johann Gutenberg invents movable type, allowing mass production of documents.
The history of art, music, and literature is too immense to cover in this chronology, but let’s just say
we owe a lot to Marcel Duchamp, the Beatles, and Shakespeare.
• 1702—The first English daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication.
• 1771—England’s Parliament formally concedes the right of journalists to cover its
proceedings.
• 1776—“The World Turn’d Upside Down.” The American Colonies declare their
independence from Great Britain. Mass production and distribution of the Declaration of
Independence and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (both based on writings by European
philosophers) help usher in a new era of personal freedom, one that stresses public education and
citizen involvement. While the transformation (even in the United States) will take many years to
reach its full potential, an informational Rubicon has been crossed.
• 1791—The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and
freedom of the press.
• 1834—Charles Babbage designs the first automatic digital computer, the Analytical Engine.
A working model is not built until 1991.
• 1837—Samuel Morse debuts the telegraph. The invention revolutionizes the transmission of
information.
• 1837—Louis Daguerre invents the daguerreotype, the first practical form of photographic
reproduction.
• 1839—Magazines begin publishing woodcuts and lithographs produced from
daguerreotypes.
• 1841—William Henry Fox Talbot patents the Calotype, a negative-positive photo process.
• 1848—Six U.S. newspapers pool their resources to establish The Associated Press. The
partnership is designed to help defray the huge expense of sending news stories via telegraph.
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• 1851—Sir David Brewster exhibits the Stereoscope at the Crystal Palace in London. Queen
Victoria is amused. Over the next 70 years, the three-dimensional picture viewer (think View-
Master) will become as ubiquitous in households as television is today.
• 1855—Roger Fenton photographs the Crimean War, but the pictures remain unseen by the
general public because newspapers cannot yet publish photos.
• 1858—Europe and North America are briefly linked by a transatlantic telegraph cable; by
1866, the system is up to stay. News that once took months to travel now takes seconds.
• 1875—The Associated Press leases its own telegraph line (from New York to Washington,
D.C.), over the objections of Western Union. The link allows AP to move news more quickly and
efficiently.
• 1876—Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call. Pizza is still another 75 years
away.
• 1877—Thomas Alva Edison invents the Phonograph. He also cuts the first recording, a
soulful rendition of “Mary had a Little Lamb.”
• 1878—Inventors in the U.S. and Germany debut the dynamic microphone.
• 1879—How about a light? Edison invents the incandescent lightbulb.
• 1880—While tabulating the 1880 U.S. census, statistician Herman Hollerith invents an
electromechanical machine that reads holes in perforated cards. In 1896 he founds the Tabulating
Machine Company, which later becomes International Business Machines Corporation.
• 1881—Development of the halftone process makes it possible to reproduce photographs in
books and newspapers.
• 1888—Now everyone gets the picture: George Eastman introduces the Kodak camera and
roll film.
• 1888—Edison and William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson debut the Kinetograph, the world’s
first motion picture camera. It will be followed by the Kinetoscope (1889) and the Vitascope
(1896).
• 1889—Dickson demonstrates the Kinetophonograph to Edison. This device synchronizes
sound from a phonograph to images from a Kinetoscope. Never successfully developed,
synchronized sound will not make its debut for another 37 years.
• 1895—Louis and Auguste Lumière make La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière
(Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory), considered the first motion picture. Also during this time,
Georges Méliès invents stop motion animation.
• 1899—Dickson (who has since formed his own company, American Mutoscope &
Biograph), films the Boer War.
• 1900—Eastman introduces the Brownie, a one-dollar camera designed for children.
• 1901—Guglielmo Marconi perfects a wireless radio system that transmits Morse code over
the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1902—Georges Méliès releases Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), his most
famous film. Besides stop motion, he also pioneers the use of split screens (you can blame him for
Woodstock) and the dissolve.
• 1903—Edwin Porter releases The Great Train Robbery, which will popularize the
Nickelodeon.
• 1903—The fax machine is invented by German scientist Arthur Korn.
• 1906—Victor Talking Machine Company introduces the Victrola. RCA will buy the
company (and its Little Nipper dog, too) in 1929.
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• 1912—David Sarnoff, a Marconi wireless operator in New York, receives the SOS from the
sinking Titanic. He stays at his post for three days, receiving and passing on news of the disaster.
Promoted by the Marconi Company, Sarnoff will go on to create RCA, and its spinoff, NBC.
• 1914—The teletype is introduced. Journalism is no longer predicated on the knowledge of
Morse Code.
• 1915—Transcontinental telephone service is established between New York and San
Francisco.
• 1915—D.W. Griffith releases The Birth of a Nation, the first modern film. Moving camera
shots and close-ups are just two of the film’s many innovations.
• 1916—Griffith follows up with Intolerance. The film eschews traditional linear narrative,
instead intercutting between four different storylines. This editing technique would have a profound
effect on subsequent filmmakers, particularly Sergei Eisenstein.
• 1919—Robert Wiene releases The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The sets are designed by
German Expressionist artists.
• 1920—KDKA-AM Pittsburgh signs on the air. Still running, it’s the world’s first
commercial radio station, and the first to present news, reporting results of the 1920 Harding-Cox
presidential race.
• 1920—“Whispering,” by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra becomes the first record to sell
one million copies.
• 1925—Potemkin is released. Director Sergei Eisenstein pioneers montage, an editing
technique that juxtaposes successive images to stir up an audience’s emotional response.
• 1926—J.L. Baird demonstrates the first practical television system (based on a spinning
mechanical disc created in 1884 by German scientist Paul Nipkow). Baird debuts the first color TV
two years later.
• 1926—American Telephone & Telegraph’s Vitaphone system allows synchronization of
sound and film. Warner Brothers releases Don Juan, the first full-length motion picture to
incorporate recorded music and sound effects.
• 1927—“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” The Jazz Singer is the first film to feature spoken
dialogue. (Clip courtesy of the Al Jolson Society.)
• 1927—Telephone service is established between London and New York.
• 1927—Philo Farnsworth transmits the first electronic TV picture. Bell Telephone
Laboratories tests wireless TV broadcasts.
• 1928—Walt Disney debuts Steamboat Willie, the second short starring a mouse named
Mickey, and the first cartoon to use synchronized sound. Disney writes the soundtrack with future
Warner Brothers composer Carl Stalling.
• 1928—WGY in Schenectady, New York becomes the first experimental television station.
• 1935—The Associated Press introduces the Wirephoto, allowing newspapers to receive
photos almost as soon as they are developed, instead of waiting for them to arrive in the mail.
• 1935—Germany begins airing regular public TV broadcasts.
• 1937–1942—John Atanasoff develops the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, or ABC, the first
electronic digital computer.
• 1937—“Oh, the humanity!” As the German zeppelin Hindenburg explodes above
Lakehurst, New Jersey, Herbert Morrison delivers the first-ever coast-to-coast broadcast on U.S.
radio. Orson Welles takes note; Led Zeppelin gets a cool album cover.
• 1938—Orson Welles scares the daylights out of America. His radio adaptation of H.G.
Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” realistically simulates news coverage of an invasion by hostile
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Martians (simply looking for a little lebensraum). Thousands fall for the hoax; panic ensues. The
next day, Welles feigns surprise at the uproar.
• 1938—Speaking of strange visitors from other planets, Superman makes his debut. The
Man of Steel (along with Batman and numerous other champions) will first help popularize comic
books, and then punch their way into the cultural mainstream. Face it: most of us know more about
Jor-El and Lara than we do about George Washington’s parents.
• 1939—The first televised baseball game takes place at Ebbets Field as the Brooklyn
Dodgers take on the Cincinnati Reds. The camera, which is stationary, can show only the action
taking place at first base.
• 1940—Walt Disney releases Fantasia, regarded as the high-water mark of animation.
• 1940—Dorothy Kunhardt’s Pat the Bunny is published. A simple book employing
multimedia and interactivity, it will teach millions of children to think outside of the box.
• 1941—Orson Welles releases Citizen Kane, a skillful blending of varied media. Hollywood
barely notices, but it will eventually be deemed the greatest film of all time.
• 1941—Both NBC and CBS launch commercial television stations in New York City;
however, the effort will be largely put on hold during World War Two.
• 1941–1945—U.S. involvement in World War Two. Great leaps forward are made in
communications and computer technologies. Disney uses animation to illustrate complex subjects
in technical training films.
• 1945—In an article in The Atlantic Monthly, Vannevar Bush proposes “memex,” a proto-
hypertext/encyclopedia system.
• 1947—Edwin Land debuts the Polaroid instant camera.
• 1948—The transistor is invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
• 1948—Columbia Records introduces the 33 1/3 RPM vinyl record (also known as the long-
playing record, or LP).
• 1949—RCA counters with the 45 RPM record (also known as the single).
• Early 1950s—Computer technology is used in flight simulators; arguably the first
application of computer interactivity.
• 1950—Ernie Kovacs makes a quantum leap from radio to television. During the next 12
years, he will poke, prod and rewrite the rules, literally knocking on America’s TV screens.
• 1951—The first U.S. coast-to-coast television broadcast takes place as President Harry S.
Truman addresses the opening of the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco.
• 1952—Bwana Devil, the first 3-D film using polarized lenses, is released.
• 1953—Ian Fleming introduces superspy James Bond in Casino Royale. In 1962, 007 will
make the transition from literature to the big screen, becoming the most successful fictional
character ever. For our purposes, the Bond movies represent the establishment of film as a mass-
marketable commodity, launching everything from toys and cologne to current-day product tie-ins
such as Omega watches and BMW automobiles.
• 1956—The Picturephone is first tested at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
• 1959—Debut of the integrated circuit.
• 1962—Telstar, the first communications satellite (based on an idea by writer Arthur C.
Clarke) is launched into orbit. The first satellite telecast soon follows, including part of a baseball
game between the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies.
• 1962–1970—The Beatles revolutionize the way music is recorded in the studio, using
increasingly complex sound and tape effects. The innovations are not only sonic: their many films
and promotional clips, especially Help! (directed by Richard Lester) and Magical Mystery Tour
(directed by the band) virtually invent the modern music video.
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• 1965—IBM introduces the word processor.

• 1966—Rock bands begin to add visual effects to their performances, most notably the
Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead in San Francisco, and the Pink Floyd in London.
• 1967—Pop music and pop art converge on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band. The concept album’s packaging features a ground-breaking cover, lyrics to the songs, a
decorative inner sleeve (instead of one hawking other releases), and a cut-out sheet that includes a
groovy moustache.
• 1968—Stanley Kubrick releases 2001: A Space Odyssey. Based on a short story by Arthur
C. Clarke, the film was the first to portray realistic space flight, and has much to say on the
dehumanizing influences of technology. Among 2001’s more questionable predictions are a
financially healthy Pan Am and Picturephones for all.
• 1969—The U.S. effort to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth pays off
handsomely. Technology spinoffs include laptop computers, small solid-state lasers (which lead to
Compact Discs), cordless power tools, solar power cells, liquid crystals, and Tang.
• 1969—Yellow Submarine is released, featuring the eponymous Tang-colored submersible.
The animated film blends a variety of artistic styles with the music of the Beatles. The
accompanying marketing blitz puts psychedelic art on main street.
• 1969—ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, is established by the U.S. Department of
Defense.
• 1969—Nonlinearity meets the masses: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is published.
In true multimedia fashion, the work will be presented as a film (1972) and a CD-ROM (1994).
• 1969—At a school demonstration, the author of this chronology hears how the Picturephone
will soon change his life. He’s still waiting.
• 1971—Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail message: most likely, it
“was QWERTYIOP or something similar.” Tomlinson also designates @ as the locator symbol for
electronic addresses.
• 1972—Nolan Bushnell introduces Pong, the first video game.
• 1974—MITS releases the first successful personal computer. The Altair is named for a
planet from the Star Trek television series (or is the planet later named for the computer?). It uses
Intel Corporation’s 8080 microprocessor, also developed in 1974. The PC will not really catch on
until the advent of the Apple II.
• 1975—Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapt BASIC to run on the Altair 8800, and sell the
interpreter to MITS. It’s the first computer language program written for the PC. By the end of
November, the duo’s new company has a name: Micro-soft.
• 1976—Personal computing’s other two wunderkinder, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs form
Apple (the name is licensed from the Beatles).
• 1977—The Sex Pistols quickly deconstruct the bloated rock ethos of the ‘70s; then they
deconstruct themselves.
• 1977—The Apple II changes everything. It’s the first PC to use color graphics.
• 1977—Beatlemania opens on Broadway. This multimedia show juxtaposes the music of the
Beatles (played by four impersonators) with film clips, photographs, and news headlines from the
1960s.
• 1980—Pink Floyd performs The Wall. The shows (performed in only four cities)
incorporate music, animations, giant puppets, a 35-foot wall, and the obligatory inflatable pig.
• 1981—MTV debuts.
• 1981—IBM releases its first PC.
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• 1982—Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan becomes the first film to utilize an all-digital
computer graphic sequence (used to depict the “Genesis Effect”).
• 1982—Can you say cyberpunk? Ridley Scott releases Blade Runner.
• 1983—The Compact Disc is introduced.
• 1983—The Internet is created.
• 1984—“They’ll never let me forget it.” William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace” in his
novel Neuromancer.
• 1984—Apple unveils the Macintosh during Superbowl XVIII. The now-classic commercial
(directed by an Orwell-inspired Ridley Scott) is a thinly-veiled broadside at IBM. The Mac also
introduces the general public to the mouse.
• 1985—Microsoft Windows version 1.0 hits the streets.
• 1985—The Commodore Amiga combines advanced graphics, sound and video capabilities
to create the first true multimedia computer.
• 1986—The Academic American Encyclopedia becomes the first CD-ROM encyclopedia.
• 1988—Macromind (now Macromedia) releases Director, a multimedia authoring tool.
• 1989—British physicist Tim Berners-Lee proposes a global hypertext system, the World
Wide Web. During the next few years, he will develop the standards for URL, HTML, and HTTP.
• 1991—The World Wide Web makes its debut on the Internet.
• 1991—James Cameron releases Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The film sets a new standard
for the use of computer-generated special effects.
• 1992—MS Windows version 3.1 is released.
• 1992—Hypertext markup language (HTML), debuts, giving anyone with an interest the
tools to build their own Web page.
• 1993—Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, is released.
• 1993—Wired makes its debut. The magazine, which chronicles the growing cyberculture,
bends many traditional graphic design rules.
• 1994—Broderbund releases Myst, the first successful interactive 3-D computer game. To
date, it has sold more than 6.3 million copies.
• 1995—Windows 95 creates a public hysteria unseen since Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the
Worlds” broadcast.
• 1995—RealAudio brings streaming audio to Web users. Streaming video will soon follow.
• 1995—Disney releases Toy Story, the first feature-length movie totally comprised by
computer graphics. The 77-minute film takes four years to make, and 800,000 machine hours to
render.
• 1996—Affordable digital cameras (another spin-off from the U.S. space program) become
widely available.
• 1996—Fifty million channels and nothin’ on. JenniCAM debuts. She and thousands of
successors redefine the way people look at the Web...and each other.
• 1996—WRAL-HD in Raleigh, North Carolina becomes the first commercial high-definition
TV station in the U.S.
• 2000—Postmodern humans project images on the walls of their pyramids. For one magical
night, we all party like it’s 1999, and the world really does seem like a smaller place. Unless you
went to bed early.