Chaka 1897

“A clever characteristic dance called the 'Yellow Kid.' Very unique. Stage is in the Sutro Baths, San Francisco, Cal., and the audience is composed largely of bathers.” (Edison Catalog)

A woman in a white gown performs a skirt dance, using her arms to produce circles and other patterns within the folds of her costume. Her legs and feet appear to be bare. (Library of Congress)

The earliest surviving Japanese film showing the martial art of kendo.

Two crooks throw a lady off a roof, and a hapless policeman tries to capture them.

A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.

Women wash clothes in a washhouse on the edge of a river.

Short clip of a football match, filmed on the Lumière cinematograph, 33 years before FIFA's 1st World Cup.

A butcher's crew make sausages from dogs and cats and old boots...

A marriage procession following the bride and her father enter a church.

A view of the Great Sphinx with two of Giza's pyramids in the background. A caravan passes the scene.

"The main feature is the toboggan slide. Some sit down while others lie down, either head or feet first."

An officer calls his sailors to the deck. They assemble around the canon while the officer scans the horizon. They all turn in the direction of the camera to look in the distance. At the same time the ship is hit! This scene is a filmed reconstruction of the 1897 Greek-Turkish war.

An incident of the Franco-Prussian War. It shows the bombardment of a house at Bazeille. It is the animated reproduction of de Neuville's celebrated painting.

A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.

A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.

Travellers, nomads and salesmen make their way along a dam next to the Nile.

A group of workers, aided by a steam-roller, are leveling the ground during the construction of the Jonage canal, a diversion of the Rhône river, which was built in order to supply the hydroelectric plant of Cusset.

Four young people throwing buckets of water at each other.

A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.