First Photo
On January 6th, 1839, Francois Arago, the director of the Paris Observatory, announced Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre's invention of capturing images onto a thin layer of silver and revealing it using a series of chemicals. This was the first photography technique (although not coined as such until John Hershel gave it the name). It was such a revolutionary invention, that by July of that same year, Daguerre was granted a lifetime of government pension.
Tyson, N. d., & Lang, A. (2018). Accessory to war: The unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military. W.W. Norton & Company.
Public Domain
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!