The pounding hooves of a horse and rider racing down the track snap the strings and trip the shutters. Each camera takes a different picture of the horse's stride.
In 1878, photographer Eadweard Muybridge used this method to capture the exact movements of a galloping horse on film. He was interested in the science behind a horse's gait. The sequence of photos proved that all four of a horse's hooves leave the ground at one point during a gallop.
Muybridge also introduced the Zoopraxiscope. It was a flat, discshaped device. When spun, it made sequential images on its outer edge appear to be in motion. With his images and his device, Muybridge created an important link to motion picture development.
Magic Lanterns
The evolution of moving pictures weaves together many concepts. Those concepts began with magic lanterns. They were devices that used a source of light to project an image painted on a glass slide through a lens and onto a makeshift screen.
Magic lanterns were in use for centuries in Europe. By the 1700s, people used them in homes as entertainment and in laboratories as educational tools. By the late 1700s, people used them to present "horror shows," to project frightening images to an audience. By the 1890s, elaborate magic lanterns had become popular forms of entertainment in the United States. They sometimes consisted of three lenses projecting multiple still pictures onto a single screen. They often were part of vaudeville shows.
Let Them Spin
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Eye in the Sky
An interview with Joe Piotrowski
Airborne Animals
Humans have taken to the skies in balloons, gliders, and airplanes-but we're not alone among the clouds. Animals of all sorts have evolved to harness wind power.
TAKING OFF
The Wright brothers expected airplanes to “take off,” but even they might be amazed at the way the airline industry has become big business. In the past, it was expensive to send something by plane.
GROWTH OF AN INDUSTRY
After their historic flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright returned to Dayton, Ohio. They spent the next few years making adjustments and building additional versions of their powered aircraft in their bicycle shop.
WHY KITTY HAWK?
The Wright brothers searched carefully for the best place to test their gliders and flying machines. Their main concern was for good, steady winds. But they also hoped to find a remote location to allow them to perform tests away from the public eye.
Two Brothers From Ohio
Most people do not realize that the Wright brothers—Wilbur, born in 1867, and Orville, born in 1871—performed various scientific experiments before inventing their aircraft. For as long as anyone in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio, could remember, the Wright boys had worked on mechanical projects.
A Helping Hand
May 6, 1896. A group of people who had gathered beside the Potomac River, just south of the U.S. capital, grew quiet. Then, it erupted in cheers as a small, unmanned aircraft took to the skies and flew for more than half a mile. The flight came seven years before the Wright brothers’ first manned, powered flight. The inventor of the aircraft was Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley.
THE IDEA MEN
People dreamed of flying thousands of years before the Wright brothers found success near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. These dreamers, such as Leonardo da Vinci, studied birds flying and imagined how humans might do the same—if only they had wings. Other men developed a more hands-on approach to the topic. Early inventors made wings of cloth, glue, and feathers and tied these creations to their arms in an attempt to imitate nature.
Da Vinci's 4 Designs
Have you ever wondered how a bird flies? Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) did. He thought that understanding how a bird flies would provide the key to human flight. So, what did da Vinci learn from birds?
Silken Wings
Seven hundred years before the Wright brothers began experimenting with human flight, the Chinese had already mastered its secrets—with kites.
