history of graphics in motion

According to the theory of persistence of vision, the perceptual processes of the brain or the retina of the human eye retains an image for a brief moment. A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of this phenomenon[1]. Persistence of vision is said to account for the illusion of motion which results when a series of film images are displayed in quick succession, rather than the perception of the individual frames in the series.

• 15,000 to 10,000 BC - The cave paintings at Altimira, Spain, depict movement in pictures of animals with multiple legs.
  
  
• 3,000 BC - Sequential painting or sculpturing in ancient cultures.
  
  
• 130 AD - Ptolemy invented a pre -Thaumatrope, with one side color and one side white. See an online example of a Thaumatrope click here:
  
  
• 1700 - The magic lantern or Laterna Magica was the ancestor of the modern slide projector.
  
  
• 1826 - The Thaumatrope was invented by William Paris. In 1872 Eadwread Muybridge was hired by a race track owner to settle a dispute over whether or not all of a horse’s hooves ever leave the ground simultaneously. He used a new fast chemical photographic process and rigged trip wires to 50 cameras so that he could capture a series of stills as the horse’s hooves hit the track. His work proved that a horse’s hooves do in fact all leave the ground at the same time. Muybridge went on to invent the Zoopraxiscope.
  
  
• 1894 - Louis Lumiere invents the cinematograph, the first machine to show movies successfully on a screen.

[1] Coltheart M. "The persistences of vision." Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1980 Jul 8;290(1038):57-69.