Tag Archives: history

Fun Facts

International Animation Day

In honour of International Animation Day, here are 10 facts about the history of animation:

1. An early predecessor of the projector existed around 1650. This was called the “magic lantern,” and consisted of a translucent oil painting, a very simple lens, and a candle or oil lamp. The images would be projected in a darkened room, and often were used to convince viewers that they were witnessing something supernatural.

2. The flip book was patented as the “kineograph” in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett.

3. Thomas Edison announced the creation of a device he called the kinetoscope in 1889. This projected a 50 foot length of film in about 13 seconds.

4. Charles-Émile Reynaud is considered the pioneer of projected animated films. After inventing the praxinoscope, his animation Un bon bock was the first he showed publicly in 1892. It was shown alongside Le Clown et ses chiens and Pauvre Pierrot. In 1910, Reynaud threw most of his films into the Seine in Paris. Pauvre Pierrot is one of two that survived.

5. The first entirely animated film recorded on standard picture film was created in 1906. This was called Humourous Phases of Funny Faces, and was created by James Stuart Blackton. This featured scenes drawn on a chalkboard. Blackston is considered the father of North American animation.

6. In 1908, Émile Cohl created the first animated film using what became recognised as traditional animation – hand-drawing the images on paper. The film, called Fantasmagorie was made up of 700 separate drawings (cells), and is about 80 seconds in length.

7. Not one to stop trying new techniques, Cohl created another animation called En Route in 1910, which was the first paper cutout animation. This allowed the animator to save time by simply repositioning the paper drawings rather than having to redraw each new cell.

8. Walt Disney owned a studio in Kansas City called Laugh-O-Grams prior to opening Disney Studios. It went bankrupt in 1923, which is when Disney moved to Los Angeles and opened his new studio.

9. Disney originally wanted to call his famous mouse Mortimer. His wife disliked the name and suggested Mickey instead.

10. The first time computer animation was used for an entire film was with Toy Story in 1995. The last film of the franchise, Toy Story 3, was the first animated film to earn more than $1-billion worldwide.

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Fun Facts

Ten Facts About the Baikonur Cosmodrome

It’s been nearly five months since the successful launch of Anik G1 from Kazakhstan. We think this was a very proud moment in the history of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but there are plenty of other neat things to know about it. Here are some notable facts about the Baikonur Cosmodrome:

1. The Baikonur Cosmodrome was founded in 1955.

2. Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth was launched from here on October 4, 1957.

3. Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on April 12, 1963. He completed a successful orbit of the Earth in a Vostok 3KA spacecraft (Vostok 1). The launchpad is now known as “Gagarin’s Start.”

4. Valentina Tereshkova followed Gagarin shortly afterwards, becoming the first woman in Space on June 16, 1963 in Vostok 6.

5. The first piece of the International Space Station (called Zarya) was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on November 20, 1998. The main component of the Russian section of the ISS (Zvezda) was later launched on July 12, 2000.

6. A town named Leninsk was built around the Cosmodrome to provide housing, schools, and other amenities to those who worked there. Leninsk was renamed to Baikonur in 1995.

7. Baikonur is home to the world’s largest industrial railway, which is used to transport spacecraft and other parts required through all stages of launch preparation. The railway is 1524 mm gauge (also known as “Russian gauge”), which means that there is 1,524 mm – five feet – between the wheels on the train cars.

8. The Cosmodrome takes up more than 14,000 square kilometres, stretching 160 kilometres east-to-west, and 88 kilometres north-to-south.

9. The Russian government leases the land that the Baikonur Cosmodrome is situated on land in Kazakhstan for a fixed rate of $115 million USD per year. The agreement lasts until 2050, although Russia is in the process of building the Vostochny Cosmodrome to reduce dependency on Baikonur; construction is slated for completion in 2018.

10. Czechoslovakia, Poland, India, and France were among the countries that began developing their space programs at the Baikonur Cosmodrome under the Interkosmos Program.

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