New Blacksmith Shop (1895)

A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the first motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.

Early short of a snowball fight in the streets of Lyon, France

A Serpentine dance performance, possibly featuring Loie Fuller (though the record is unclear). While the film is lost, there is a new digital version based on re-creation from a flipbook produced by Léon Beaulieu around the same time

A stationary camera, looking diagonally across a racetrack toward the infield, records the horses as they race past. Once they are out of view and the race is over, police officers run onto the infield. The crowd moves around.

Chronophotograph record of a ball falling through a soap bubble.

A young woman takes off several layers of clothing.

Two children, Ploetz and Larella, perform an Italian peasant dance.

The opening of the Kiel Canal in Germany by Kaiser Wilhelm II on 20 June 1895.

In Capitalism: Slavery, Jacobs uses a Victorian stereograph (a double-photograph) of slaves picking cotton under the watchful eye of a white overseer as the source for this wrenching silent work. Through digital manipulation, Jacobs creates a haunting illusion of depth and movement. It is as if he has "entered" the image and reactivated this historical moment; he moves among the figures and isolates individuals, creating a stuttering, pulsing effect that suggests motion even as it animates stasis.

Eight circus performers known as the Grunato family perform their famous balancing act.

Two men in white leotards and tights, and black slips over it, wrestle on a theatre stage.

A man and a kangaroo stand up in front of each other with boxing gloves, and simulate a boxing match on a theatre stage.

Students in Lyon.