In June of 1878, the photographer Eadweard Muybridge confirmed that horses fly through the air when they run.

At the time, the question of whether horses become fully airborne had vexed humankind, having eyes too slow to fully process the animals’ rapid gait. Leland Stanford, the former California governor and an avid horseman, was convinced the answer was yes and he commissioned Muybridge to settle the matter. To do so, the pioneering English photographer arranged 12 cameras along a racetrack in Palo Alto with trip wires that released the shutters as a horse galloped by.

The resulting work, appearing under the title “The Horse in Motion,” astounded reporters and established that the camera could unlock worlds of knowledge inaccessible to the human eye.

But the discovery also produced another unforeseen outcome: The photos represented an early form of animation — call it the first GIF — paving the way for the motion-picture industry as we know it. 

Read more: Smithsonian 

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