Individual media Reference department
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1900 Chronokey Index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references.


links and notes
  Cultural highlights | Predictions made this year  
January 1  Net Book Agreement, a voluntary arrangement by which UK booksellers will only sell books at prices determined by the publishers (on pain of cessation of supply for contravention), comes into force.  
February  Eastman Kodak introduces the Brownie amateur photographic still camera. It costs $1.00 and rolls of film, taking images 2¼ inches (57mm) square, cost 15 cents each. In the first year 150,000 cameras are shipped.  
April 15-November 12  Paris Exposition includes a large number of media innovations. Lumière demonstrates a large-screen cinema format using 50mm film and Raoul Grimoin-Sanson demonstrates his Cineorama cinema-in-the-round system using 10 70mm projectors. The Telegraphone—the first steel wire magnetic recorder, by the Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen—and the latest version of Gaumont's Chrono projector are among the Grand Prix winners. Telegraphone: see also 1903
Recent research suggests Cineorama never opened [0068]
•  Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre performances are held in the rue de Paris as part of the Paris Exposition. The sound film system, developed by Clément-Maurice and Henri Lioret, roughly synchronises film with cylinder recordings (Lioretographe). Among French theatrical stars filmed are Sarah Bernhardt and Coquelin in the duel scene from Cyrano de Bergerac. The films are subsequently taken on a European tour, organised by Félix Mesguich. The 1952 film Cinéma parlant includes some of the films
August 25  A paper by Constantin Perskyi at the International Electricity Congress in Paris describes an apparatus employing the magnetic properties of selenium and referred to as 'television'. This is probably the first use of the word.  
August 31  Coca-Cola goes on sale in the UK.  
September 13  First Australian dramatic film, Soldiers of the Cross, made by Herbert Booth of the Salvation Army, is premièred.  
November 17  James Williamson's film Attack on a Chinese Mission, almost certainly the first film ever to consist of more than two shots to show reverse angles, is shown in Hove, England. Brighton film chronology
November 30  Nederlandse Bioscope Maatschappij puts on the first Indonesian film show in Batavia.  
•  French film productions start to exceed 10 minutes’ running time: Pathé's production of Aladin (Aladdin) is 755 feet long, running 12½ minutes; Georges Méliès' productions of La Rêve de Noël (Christmas Dream) is 520 feet (nine minutes), L'Affaire Dreyfus is 240 metres (13 minutes), Jeanne d'Arc is 813 feet long, running 13½ minutes.  
•  Close-ups first intercut with other shots in Grandma's Reading Glass, made at Hove, England by G A Smith. Cecil Hepworth uses slow motion The Eccentric Dancer, a close-up of his own head in The Egg-laying Man and reverse motion in The Bathers, the second half of the film reversing the first half. Grandma's Reading Glass can be viewed by educational users and researchers at screenonline
•  G A Smith's Hove studioWarwick Trading Company builds a film studio for G A Smith at St Anne's Well Gardens, Furze Hill, Hove at the start of a two-year contract. It replaces the temporary arrangements in the Pump House at the Gardens, which Smith has used since 1897. In the three years since starting production in 1897, G A Smith has made £2,000 profit from the medium.
•  Warwick Journal is started as a regular newsreel by Charles Urban for Warwick Trading Co, London.  
•  Pathé opens an office in London.  
•  ‘Chrono de Poche’ portable camera using 15mm wide film stock and a single central perforation is introduced in France by Gaumont.  
•  Auguste Baron is granted a US patent for his sound film synchronisation system. > 1908
•  Demonstration of 35mm optical sound recording by the German inventor, Ruhmer.  
•  First recorded children’s cinema matinée in UK is held at Mickleover, Derbyshire.  
•  First advertising film made in Uruguay: Oliver, Juncal 108, directed by Félix Oliver for the family retail business.  
•  Radio is first used in warfare during the Boer War.  
•  Show of Lumière films is staged at Dakar, Sénégal.  
•  Anglo-American Tobacco Company of Shanghai sponsors free film shows in Korea; patrons surrender cigarette coupons for admission.  
•  Shah of Persia has a private showing of films at Royal Palace in Tehran, arranged by Mirza Ebrahim Khan. See also 1905
•  American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) takes over its parent, American Bell Company.  
•  In Japan 16 public telephone offices are opened for use by the public.  
•  Hachette opens bookstalls on the Paris Métro.  
•  Circulation of The Daily Mail in the UK reaches a million copies a day.  
•  Daily Express newspaper is founded in the UK by Arthur Pearson.  
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Page updated 27 December 2008
© David Fisher