Adapted from http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/%7Ejeff/115a/remotesensinghistory.htmlBy the late JOHN E. ESTES(July 21, 1939 - March 9, 2001)- last revised 2003 by Jeff HemphillSome Important Dates in the Chronological History of Aerial Photography and Remote SensingCentral Themes• Theoretical understanding of electromagnetic radiation.• Innovative, practical application of theory – cameras, optics, photo-chemistry, filters, sensors.• New Platforms.• Co-sponsorship in science, defense and commercial sectors.• Rapid escalation in the last 50 years.• The term "photography" is derived from two Greek words meaning "light" (phos) and "writing" (graphien). • Despite the significant complexity of some modern equipment all cameras rely on the same essential features.– Light enters a darkened enclosure (the camera, from the Latin word for room) through a small aperture, the size of which can often be controlled mechanically.– A shutter is opened and closed to admit light for a specified period of time.– Inside the camera, a ground glass lens gathers and concentrates the light, focusing it on a light sensitive field at the back of the camera - the film. Today we can have digital camera which essentially employ arrays of detectors to record incident energy levels. • No one knows when man first constructed a device that would record images by means of light1038 AD - Al Hazen of Basra is credited with the explanation of the principle of the camera obscurahttp://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/CAMERA_OBSCURA.htmlhttp://home.att.net/~mleary/alhazen.htm) The camera obscura (Latin for 'dark room')1646Portable 'Tent' Camera Obscura, Johannes Kepler(1571 - 1630)1490 - Leonardo daVinci was intrigued by the atmosphere and by its effects on the colors and distinctness of distant objects. Though other artists had already begun to mimic the influences of the atmosphere, he was the first to make careful measurements and suggest rules for applying them realistically. He called this subject aerial perspective. In painting the Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo applied his understanding of aerial perspective to create the sense of mountains a great distance away1666 - Sir Isaac Newton, while experimenting with a prism, found that he could disperse light into a spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Utilizing a second prism, he found that he could re-combine the colors into white light1802 - Thomas Young puts forth basic concepts of the Young-Von HelmholtzTheory of color vision: Three separate sets of cones in the retina of the eye, one tuned to red, one to blue, and one to green.1827 - Niepce takes first picture of nature from a window view of the French countryside using a camera obscura and an emulsion using bitumen of Judea, a resinous substance, and oil of lavender (it took 8 hours in bright sunlight to produce the image)•1839 - Daguerre announces the invention of Daguerrotype which consisted of a polished silver plate, mercury vapors and sodium thiosulfate ("hypo") that was used to fix the image and make it permanent 1839 - William Henry Fox Talbot invents a new method of photography, a system of imaging on silver nitrate of silver chromate treated paper and using a fixative solution of salt.In Britain, Talbot made the earliest known surviving photographic negative on paper in the late summer of 1835, of the oriel window in the south gallery of his home.1830's - The invention of stereoscopes.1855 - James Clerk Maxwell, a scottishphysicist, describes color additive theory for the producing color photographsBoston from a captive balloon at 1,200 feet, October 13, 1860, James Wallace Black 1858 - Gasper Felix Tournachon "Nadar" takes the first aerial photographfrom a captive balloon from an altitude of 1,200 feet over Paris1889 - Arthur Batuttake the first aerial photograph using a kite of LabruguiereFranceThomas Edison and George Eastman (early 1900s) 1899 - George Eastman produced a nitro-cellulose based film type that retained the clarity of the glass plates which were in use at the time and introduced the first Kodak camera. "The idea gradually dawned on me, that what we were doing was not merely making dry plates, but that we were starting out to make photography an everyday affair.""You press the button, we do the rest"1900 - Max Planck's revelation of 'quanta' and the mathematical description of the 'black body' lays the foundation for numerous developments in quantum mechanics...1903 - The Bavarian Pigeon Corps uses pigeons to transmit messages and take aerial photos, and someone named Julius Neubronne patented the breast mounted pigeon camera.1908 - Wilbur Wright was the pilot, and together with L. P. Bonvillain on board, he acquired the first remotely sensed image from an airplane in France. The next year, the first aerial motion pictures were recorded in Italy with another photographer on board. 1906 - Albert Maul, using a rocket propelled by compressed air, took an aerial photograph from a height of 2,600 feet, the camera was ejected and parachuted back to earth.1914 - WWI provided a boost in the use of aerial photography, but after the war, enthusiasm waned.1946 - First space photographs from V-2 rockets.1954 - Westinghouse, under sponsorship from USAF, develops first side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) system.1954 - U-2 takes first flight1957 - Russia launches Sputnik-1, this was unexpected and encouraged our government to make space exploration a priority.1960 - TIROS-1 launched as first meteorological satellite.http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/%7Ekclarke/Corona/Corona.html1960's - US begins collection of intelligence photography from Earth orbiting spy satellites, CORONA.1962 - Zaitor and Tsuprunconstruct prototype nine lens multispectral camera permitting nine different film-filter combinations Also during this year our country came very close to nuclear war when military intelligence photography was brought into the lime light by the Cuban Missile Crisis.1964 - Nimbus Weather Satellite Program begins with the Launch of Nimbus 1.Late 1960's - Gemini and Apollo Space photography.Brazil DeforestationLandsat mss June, 19 1975 vsLandsat TM August 19, 1986 1972 - Launch of ERTS-1, the first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (later renamed Landsat 1). Carried return beam vidicon (RBV) and multispectral scanner (MSS).1972 - Photography from Skylab, America's first space station, was used to produce land use maps. DMSP imagery declassified.1977 - Launch of Meteosat-1, the