| 1919 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January 8 |
American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) is founded through the merger of the Static Club of America and the Cinema Camera Club. |
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| February 10 |
Vladimir Gardin gives a lecture on the montage theory of film editing to the Re-editing Department of the Moscow Film Committee. In the audience is Lev Kuleshov, who subsequently conducts experiments to prove that meaning is given by juxtaposition of shots. |
Gardin founds Soviet film school |
| April 17 |
United Artists production studio is formed by Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D W Griffith. The company’s purpose is to capitalise on the stars’ power. |
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| April |
First of the cinema trains, known as Agit-trains, begins to tour the Soviet Union under the direction of M I Kalinin to show agitki revolutionary agitprop films. |
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The film industry in the USSR is nationalised but remains weak. |
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| April or August |
Following creation of the soviet-style Republic of the Councils in Hungary, the film industry is nationalised. Among members of the film-makers’ council are Sándor Korda (later Sir Alexander), Béla Blaskó (later Lugosi) and possibly Mihály Kertész (later Michael Curtiz). |
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| June 15 |
Alcock and Brown fly across the Atlantic—the first non-stop flight. |
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| June |
Munich film producer Peter Ostermayr buys 37 hectares of land at Gastelgasteig to build a studio for his company EMELKA (Münchner Lichtspielkunst), later to become Bavarian Film Studios. |
> 1932 |
| June 26 |
First edition of the New York Daily News. |
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| August 14 |
Dutch engineer Steringa Idzerda is officially assigned the call letters PCGG for his radio station. |
< 1917 |
| August 27 |
V I Lenin signs a decree promulgated by the Council of People’s Commisars of the RSFSR ‘On the transfer of the photographic trade and industry to Narkompros’ placing photographic and film industries under the USSR Peoples’ Commissariat of Education, effectively nationalising cinema. |
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| September 3 |
Premiere of the first Felix the Cat cartoon, Feline Follies.
 'Felix kept on walking.' |
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| September |
First experimental broadcasting station to be licensed in Canada is XWA. The licensing authority, Chief Inspector of Radio Donald Manson, had earlier worked with Marconi. |
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| October 1 |
US ban on experimental and amateur wireless broadcasting imposed in 1917 is lifted. |
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| October 17 |
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is incorporated in Delaware, formed by the merger of the General Electric Company and the Marconi Company of America. Under political as well as economic pressure, all US patents are granted to RCA in exchange for Marconi receiving all RCA patents in UK. |
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| October 17 |
Experimental radio station 8XK at Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania—set up by Dr Frank Conrad, a manager at the Westinghouse plant in nearby Pittsburg—broadcasts music from records. Due to widespread interest, Conrad announces that 8XK will broadcast music for two hours on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. His local record store, Hamilton Music Store, provides records free in return for a mention of its name on air—the first radio advertising and sponsorship deal. Live music is later included. |
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| October 27 |
Westinghouse is granted a licence by the US Department of Commerce to broadcast on 360m. KDKA Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bedcomes the first sound broadcasting station in the US. |
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| November 6, 20:00-23:00 |
Inauguration of the world's first regular daily radio service in Netherlands by Steringa Idzerda, an engineer acting independently. The first programme is Soirée Musicale, sponsored by Philips. UK magazine Wireless World appeals for funds to help him. |
< August 14 |
| November |
Lavishly decorated Capitol Theatre in New York opens with 5,300 seats. [0058] |
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| • |
Famous Players-Lasky, later to become Paramount Pictures, is the first surviving attempt to form a vertically integrated film production, distribution and exhibition company. Famous Players-Lasky forms Famous Players-Lasky British Producers Ltd in London and converts a former railway power station at Poole Street, Islington into a two-stage film studio. Among its employees, working as a signwriter, is Alfred Hitchcock. |
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Samuel Goldwyn sets up a company called Eminent Authors Pictures in an effort to attract eminent authors to write for the movies. |
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British Instructional Films is formed. |
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Tickets for the premiere of D W Griffith's film Broken Blossoms for United Artists cost a record Ł3.00. |
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Technicolor switches colour film experiments from two-colour additive to a two-colour subtractive process (see 1868). |
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| • |
Johannes Vogt experiments with a sound film system. |
> 1922 |
| • |
Svenska Biografteatern merges with Film Scandia to become Svenska Filmindustri, with vertically integrated interests in Sweden and flourishing export trade, partly due to Swedish neutrality during the Great War. |
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| • |
In Russia, Dziga Vertov (Denis Arkadevich Kaufman) propounds his Cinema-Eye (Kinoglas) theory, the forerunner of ciné-verité and documentary. |
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| • |
Soviet film school, the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), is founded by film director Vladimir Gardin. |
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| • |
Board of Censorship is established in Helsinki, Finland, replacing film vetting by local police. |
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| • |
National film censorship coimmission established in France does not override local mayors' authority under a law of 1790 to ban shows that might cause a public disturbance. |
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| • |
British experiments in electrical recording and reproduction begin. |
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| • |
First short-wave (under 100m) radio experiments. |
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First feature film made in the south of India is Keechaka Vadham (The Assassination of Keechak), directed by R Nataraja Mudaliar (1885-unknown), made in Madras by his newly formed Indian Film Company with a second-hand Williamson camera. |
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