Events: 1895 • February-March - Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres build and run the first working 35 mm movie camera in Britain, the Kineopticon. Their first films include "Incident at Clovelly Cottage", "The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race" and "Rough Sea at Dover". • In France, the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, design and built a lightweight, hand-held motion picture camera called the Cinématographe. They discover that their machine can also be used to project images onto a large screen. The Lumière brothers create several short films at this time that are considered to be pivotal in the history of motion pictures. • February 13 - Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector. • March 22 - First display of motion pictures by Auguste and Louis Lumière (private screening). • May 27 - Birt Acres patents the Kineopticon under his own name. • Late September - C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat demonstrate their Phantoscope, a motion picture projector, in Atlanta, Georgia at the Cotton States and International Exposition. • November - In Germany, Emil and Max Skladanowsky develop their own film projector. • December 28 - The Lumière brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Café Boulevard des Capucines in Paris - this date is sometimes considered the debut of the motion picture as an entertainment medium. • December 30 - The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company motion pictures is founded in New Jersey by the KMCD Syndicate of William Kennedy Dickson, Henry Marvin, Herman Casler and Elias Koopman. • Annabelle the Dancer is a sensation in shorts such as "Annabelle Serpentine Dance". • William Kennedy Dickson and his sister Antonia publish "History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kinetophonograph" in the United States with a preface by Thomas Edison, the first history of the subject. • Gaumont Pictures founded by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont. Woodville Latham and his sons develop the Latham Loop - the concept of loose loops of film on either side of the intermittent movement to prevent stress from the jerky movement. This is debuted in the Eidoloscope, which is also the first widescreen format (1.85:1). • Herman Casler of American Mutoscope Company, a.k.a. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company manufactures the Biograph 68 mm camera, which will become the first successful large format 68mm (70mm) film. • Henri Joly debuts his Joly-Normandin 60 mm format. 1896 • January - In the United States, the Vitascope film projector is designed by Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. Armat begins working with Thomas Edison to manufacture it. • January 14 - Birt Acres demonstrates his film projector, the Kineopticon, the first in Britain, to the Royal Photographic Society at the Queen's Hall in London. This is the first film show to an audience in the U.K. • February 20 - In London: Robert W. Paul demonstrates his film projector, the Theatrograph (later known as the Animatograph), at the Alhambra Theatre. The Lumière Brothers first project their films in Britain, at the Empire Theatre of Varieties, Leicester Square. • April - Edison and Armat's Vitascope is used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. • May 14 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia is crowned in Moscow, the first coronation ever recorded in film. • July 11 - First films screened in Venezuela by Luis Manuel Méndez and Manuel Trujillo Durán at the Baralt Theatre in Maracaibo. • July 26 - "Vitascope Hall" opens on Canal Street, New Orleans, the first business devoted exclusively to showing motion pictures at a fixed location. • September 28 - The Pathé Frères film company is founded. • October 19 - "Edisonia Hall" in Buffalo, New York, the first building constructed specifically for showing motion pictures. • November 3 - Marius Sestier films the Melbourne Cup, a major sporting event in Australia. • In France, magician and filmmaker Georges Méliès begins experimenting with the new motion picture technology, developing early special effect techniques, including stop motion. Films that year included "The Devil's Castle", "A Nightmare", "A Terrible Night". • William Selig founds the Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago. • Demeny-Gaumont work on a 60 mm format, first known as Biographe (unperforated), then Chronophotographe (perforated). • Casimir Sivan and E. Dalphin create a 38 mm format. 1897 • January 28 - The first Venezuelan-made films are screened at the Baralt Theatre in Maracaibo, two locally-made actuality shorts, "Un célebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa" and "Muchachos bañándose en la laguna de Maracaibo". • May 4 - During a film screening at the Charity Bazaar in Paris, a curtain catches on fire from the ether used to fuel the projector lamp. The fire spreads and becomes catastrophic, ultimately resulting in 126 deaths. • June 20 - Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession filmed. • The American Vitagraph Company is founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in Brooklyn. • Mitchell and Kenyon go into a film-making partnership at Blackburn in the north of England. • Enoch J. Rector develops a 63 mm film format called Veriscope, which films "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight" on March 17. • Thomas Henry Blair develops a 48 mm film format called Viventoscope. 1898 • May 19 - Vitagraph is founded in New York. • August 27 - Alfred John West gives a Royal Command Performance to Queen Victoria of film from the cruise of HMS Crescent at Osborne House. • Birt Acres invents the first amateur format, Birtac, by splitting 35 mm film into two halves of 17.5 mm. 1899 • September - King John, a silent compilation of three short scenes from a forthcoming stage production by Herbert Beerbohm Tree with film direction by William Kennedy Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando, is filmed in London, the first known film based on a Shakespeare play. • September - Mitchell and Kenyon of Blackburn in the north of England release three fiction films under the 'Norden' brand which attract national attention - "The Tramp's Surprise", "The Tramps and the Artist" and "Kidnapping by Indians", the latter being the first Western. • November - The oldest surviving Japanese film, "Momijigari", is shot by Tsunekichi Shibata in Tokyo as a record of kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari. • T. C. Hepworth invents Biokam, a 17.5 mm format which also is the first format to have a center perforation. • John Alfred Prestwich invents a 13 mm amateur format.