This Day in History: 1891-05-20

Kinetoscope — An early prototype of cinema, Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, is first introduced on this day in 1891. The one-person viewer holds enough film for only a few minutes worth of viewing, making the device a novelty but not really a practical way to watch films.  Edison begins marketing kinetoscopes around 1893, but the reaction is mixed. In France, the Lumiere Brothersthink Edison has missed the mark, and work on a way to “get the pictures out of the box” and project them on a screen. They are successful by 1895. In response, Edison’s “Vitagraph” projected images follow in 1896.