Australia's Salvation Army produces an ambitious presentation of film and slides in Soldiers of the Cross

Charles Pathé develops film facilities capable of mass production, in Vincennes near Paris

French film pioneer Georges Méliès uses trick effects for his film Journey to the Moon

Edwin S. Porter directs The Great Train Robbery, providing a big commercial success for Thomas Edison's film company

Charles Pathé opens the first purpose-built luxury cinema, the Omnia-Pathé, in Paris

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, created by New Yorker J. Stuart Blackton, introduces the concept of the animated cartoon

The Story of the Kelly Gang, produced in Australia, is the first feature-length film, with a running time of nearly an hour

The Polyscope Film Company releases the first horror movie, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, filmed from a popular stage production

Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger patents cellophane, a flexible transparent film made from cellulose

Mary Pickford begins her film career at sixteen, when she is hired by D.W. Griffith

The Selig Polyscope Company sets up the first film studio in the Los Angeles region, at Edendale

D.W. Griffith directs In Old California, the first film shot in the California village of Hollywood

The Nestor Film Company opens the first film studio in Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard

Lillian and Dorothy Gish make their screen debut with the Biograph Company

Mack Sennett sets up the Keystone studio in California, soon to be famous for the knockabout farce of the Keystone Kops

Cecil B. de Mille, Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn join forces to form a film production company

Charlie Chaplin introduces his most famous character, the little tramp, in Kid Auto Races at Venice

D.W. Griffith's epic film The Birth of a Nation has its premiere in New York

Australian author C.J. Dennis creates the Sentimental Bloke, featuring first in a book of poems and four years later in a film

Charlie Chaplin makes The Tramp, giving prominence to the famous character he launched the previous year in Kid Auto Races at Venice

In his ground-breaking film Intolerance D.W. Griffith intercuts four parallel stories from different historical periods

Silent film comedian Harold Lloyd adopts the glasses and the straw hat that become his familiar props

Comedian Buster Keaton makes his first appearance in a film, The Butcher Boy

Lillian Gish stars as a Cockney girl in D.W. Griffith's inter-racial film romance Broken Blossoms, set in London's slums

The actors Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin establish United Artists with the director D.W. Griffith