1800 - 1900
| 1812 | October 8: | John Benjamin Dancer born in London. |
| 1819 | March 17: | Rene Prudent Patrice Dagron born in Beauvoir, Sarthe, France. |
| 1826-27 | Niepce produces the world's first camera photograph from nature. | |
| 1835 | February: | Fox-Talbot makes first permanent paper contact prints from negatives. |
| 1839 | January 7: | Announcement made to the French Academy of Sciences that Daguerre has perfected a practical method of photography named the daguerrotype. |
| Autumn: | Dancer makes first microphotograph on a daguerrotype plate at 160X reduction. | |
| 1852 | February: | Dancer makes collodion microfilms. |
| 1853 | March 3: | Rosling shows microfilm of a newspaper before the Photographic Society of London. |
| May 21: | Notes and Queries publishes numerous suggestions for library microfilming. | |
| July 9: | Athenaeum publishes letter on Herchel's "old idea" for microfilming reference materials. | |
| Autumn: | Sidebotham produces microfilms by Dancer's instructions. | |
| 1854 | January 28: | Notes and Queries describes Diamond's microfilm of Fifteenth Century manuscript. |
| Early March: | Shadbolt makes microfilms 5/8 mm in size. | |
| March 29: | Shadbolt puts first consignment of 24 microfilms for sale. | |
| 1855 | September: | Taupenot publishes details of the collodio-albumen process and the first practical dry collodion plate. This is the process Dagron used. |
| 1856 | Spring: | Dancer shows his novelty microfilms to Sir David Brewster. |
| 1856-57 | Winter: | Brewster shows Dancer's microfilms in Italy and France. Suggests their use in jewelry and trinkets and for espionage purposes. |
| 1857 | September: | Microfilms by Dancer and Bertsch exhibited before The British Association for the Advancement of Science. |
| November 5: | Shadbolt publishes his claim to invention of micro filming, based on his 1854 work. | |
| 1859 | May 15: | Shadbolt publicly acknowledges Dancer's priority of microfilm experiments. |
| June 21: | Dagron receives world's first microfilm patent for "a novelty microscope giving an illusion of depth". | |
| _______: | Microfilms exhibited at the Paris Photographic Salon were "the marvels of the Exposition". | |
| 1862 | Summer: | Dagron exhibits microfilms at the London World's Fair, receives Honorable Mention; presents a set to Queen Victoria. |
| _______: | Dagron publishes his "Cylindres photo-microscopiques montes et non-montes sur bijoux, brevetes en France et a l'etranger". | |
| 1863 | October 12: | Col. Pike publishes his experiments with the Dagron process in America. |
| 1864 | January: | Brewster addresses the Photographic Society of Scotland on the Dagron process. |
| _______: | Dagron publishes his "Traite de Photographie Micro scopique". Gives details of his process and price list of his equipment and supplies. This is the world's first book on microfilming techniques. | |
| _______: | John H. Morrow opens the first American commercial microfilm laboratory. | |
| 1865 | _______: | Simpson proposes publication of books on microfilm. |
| 1867 | Summer: | Dagron wins Honorable Mention at Paris World's Fair. |
| 1870 | July 19: | Emperor Napoleon III declares war on Prussia. |
| September: | Prussians surround Paris and cut last communication with unoccupied France. | |
| November 10: | Central government in Paris signs contract with Dagron And Fernique to produce official microfilm dispatches. | |
| November 12: | Dagron and Fernique leave Paris by balloon No. 27, the Niepce. | |
| November 21: | Dagron arrives in Tours. | |
| November 29: | Delegation finally authorizes Dagron to replace the microprint service of Blaise with his own improved microprint service. | |
| December 5: | Dagron makes first official microfilm dispatches. | |
| 1871 | January 28: | Paris and Free France surrender: Dagron has delivered 115,000 messages to Paris by pigeon. |
| April: | Pigeon post microfilms offered for sale in U.S.A. | |
| Summer: | Dagron reproduces 130,400 letters on a microfilm frame 0.5mm square. | |
| Summer: | Dagron publishes his "La Poste par pigeons voyageurs". | |
| 1876 | Summer: | Many microfilms in trinkets shown at Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. |
| 1878 | Summer: | Dagron receives Silver Medal at Paris World's Fair. |
| 1887 | March | Journal of the Franklin Society in Philadelphia announces that The Century Company, publishers of encyclopedias, has microfilmed over 25,000 page proofs on frames 1 ¾" x 2" in size for protection against loss and "the greatest convenience in storage and handling". |
| Summer | Dagron publishes a lengthy description of his method of processing microfilm in the Philadelphia Photographer and The Camera. | |
| November 24: | John Benjamin Dancer dies in Manchester at age 75. | |
| 1889 | Summer: | Eastman begins manufacture of nitrocellulose film. |
| September 2: | Thomas Edison establishes 35mm as the first standard film gauge for nitrocellulose film and buys his first motion picture film from the Eastman Company. | |
| 1891 | March 17: | Madsen receives U.S. Patent No. 448,447 on a microfilm camera. |
| 1900 | August 14: | Jansen, Gardiner and Kandler receive U.S. Patent No. 655,977 on a check microfilming camera. |
| June 13: | Rene Prudent Patrice Dagron dies in Paris at age 81. |