Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre

1807 – assistant to panorama painter Pierre Prèvost

1814 – exhibits Interior of A Chapel of the Church of the Feuillants, Paris (Louvre, Paris) at the Salon

1816 – stage designer for the Théâtre Ambigu-Comique and Académie Royale de Musique (Paris)

1822 – opens the Diorama in Paris with the painter Charles-Marie Bouton

1823 – opens the London Diorama in Park Square East, Regent’s Park

1824 – Holyrood Chapel by Moonlight receives Paris Salon exhibition’s Lègion d’Honneur award

1826 – begins collaboration with Nicéphore Niépce

1833 – death of Niépce; Daguerre continues working on photographic process

1835 – discovers that latent images can be fixed using mercury vapor on an iodized silver plate

1837 – invents the first practical photographic process based on the discovery that images can be fixed with a salt solution

1839 – French government buys the rights to Daguerre’s invention; daguerreotype process publicly announced; Paris Diorama destroyed by fire; rebuilt 1842-43

1840 – retires with a government pension