Charles Francis Jenkins

American motion picture pioneer and creator of over 400 inventions. Invented and patented the Phantoscope in early 1890s, a projector using continuously moving film. He is credited by many film historians as having shown the first motion picture before an audience on June 6, 1894 in his hometown of Richmond, Indiana. Later, having bought Jenkins out, his former partner Thomas Armat sold the marketing rights to Thomas Edison, whom changed the name to Edison's Vitascope. Upon further improvements to the projector, the Vitacope was patented in 1896 by Edison. Jenkins was later active in television, becoming the first person to publicly demonstrate synchronized transmission of silhouette pictures and sound in June 1925. Three years later, he inaugurated America's first TV station, W3XK, broadcasting from Washington DC as part of the Jenkins Television Corporation.