• Volume 1, No. 1
  • Letter from the president
  • Letter from the museum chair
  • Museum site map
  • The vision
  • Exhibition design
  • Architect selection
  • Museum facts
  • Timeline
• Volume 2, No. 1

Timeline

As we begin our research into the history of movies, museums, and Hollywood, we are constantly reminded how interrelated individual stories and moments can be. We've begun to develop this timeline to illustrate this complex past, including a few of the actions and milestones that speak to mankind's interest in moving images and storytelling throughout time.

Key: Film History | Architecture Timeline | Hollywood History | Academy History

• 360 B.C. Plato describes a proto-cinematic apparatus
• 1000 Narrative shadow puppet plays become a common visual art form in China and India
• 1420 Magic lanterns are invented
• 1560 The Uffizi opens in Florence – the first museum open to visitors on request
• 1753 The British Museum is founded as the first specifically public museum
• 1826-39 The invention of photography sets the stage for the development of motion pictures
• 1846 The Smithsonian Institution is founded in Washington, DC
• 1870 The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded in New York
• 1886 Developer Harvey Wilcox’s wife Daeida names her ranch “Hollywood”
• 1892 W.K.L. Dickson builds the first movie studio for Thomas A. Edison, the “Black Maria”
• 1895 The Lumière brothers show their films in Paris using the cinématographe
• 1896 The first movie projection in the United States takes place at Koster & Bial’s New York Music Hall
• 1902 Georges Méliès makes the first science fiction film, A Trip to the Moon
• 1906-10 Nickelodeons become popular with American working-class and immigrant audiences
• 1907 Chicago-based Selig Polyscope Company arrives in Los Angeles to scout locations, and later establishes the first-ever studio there
• 1910 D.W. Griffith comes to Los Angeles with Mack Sennett, Mary Pickford and the Biograph Company
• 1914 World War I begins, effectively destroying European film production and allowing American films to dominate
• 1915 D.W. Griffith releases The Birth of a Nation to great commercial success and ongoing controversy
• 1919 Lenin nationalizes the Russian film industry
• 1919 United Artists Corporation is founded by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin
• 1923 The Hollywoodland development opens with a soon-to-be-iconic sign
• 1926 Rudolph Valentino is buried at the Hollywood Cemetery
• 1927 The Academy’s first Organizational Banquet is held
• 1927 The success of The Jazz Singer hastens the demise of silent films
• 1927 Sid Grauman opens his Chinese Theatre
• 1929 The first Academy Awards® Ceremony is held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
• 1939 The Museum of Modern Art opens in New York
• 1939 The releases of such films as Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach and The Wizard of Oz highlight what is often referred to as the greatest year in film history
• 1939 World War II begins, closing the whole of continental Europe to American film distribution
• 1944 The Academy Foundation, the cultural and educational arm of the Academy, is incorporated
• 1948 The “Hollywood Ten” are charged with contempt of Congress and imprisoned
• 1950 The rise of television brings a decline in movie attendance
• 1953 The first Academy Awards® show to be broadcast on television takes place at the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard
• 1955 Disneyland opens in Anaheim
• 1956 James Dean receives a posthumous Best Actor nomination for Giant
• 1959 The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in New York
• 1960 The first star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame is awarded to Joanne Woodward
• 1961 The first in-flight movie is shown on a commercial airline
• 1963 The Cinerama Dome Theatre opens in Hollywood, featuring the world’s widest screen
• 1965 The Sound of Music surpasses Gone with the Wind as the biggest box office hit of all time
• 1968 A new voluntary ratings system is adopted by the MPAA
• 1977 The Centre Pompidou opens in Paris
• 1982 Tron is released, marking an important milestone in digital evolution
• 1983 741 films are made in India in 27 different languages
• 1991 The Academy celebrates the grand opening of its Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study
• 1996 The Getty Center, designed by Richard Meier, opens in Los Angeles
• 1997 Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opens in Spain
• 2002 The Kodak Theatre opens at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, and becomes the new home of the Oscars®
• TBD Our museum opens in Hollywood