Lights, camera, patent!
Charles Jenkins received patent No. 536,569 for the device he dubbed “motion picture projecting box.” The device, which focused on mechanical movements, illuminated pictures successively before the preceding picture had faded.
Jenkins filmed a short reel and showed it to his parents, friends, and newsmen in 1894. The demonstration is regarded as one of the first times an audience watched a projected movie.
Jenkins eventually improved the design with a classmate from the Bliss School of Electricity in Washington, D.C. then sold his interest in the projector to the classmate, who sold it to Thomas Edison, according to research from the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Jenkins turned his attention to the television, founding the Jenkins Television Corporation in 1928, which eventually evolved into RCA.
During his career in cinema and television, Jenkins secured hundreds of patents. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2011.