Thanks to the invention of photography, the 19th century marks the earliest point in history that we can see as it actually was. Steadily less blurry images tell a story of industrialisation and modernisation but also of colonisation, capturing images of the people and places that laid the groundwork for the modern world. From the first photos ever taken to celebrated snapshots of some of history's most important moments, here we track how early photography developed – and then helped develop the world.

Devastating natural disasters, brutal war zones and the view from a Parisian window – click through this gallery to see what the world looked like in the 1800s...

The world's first photograph took at least eight hours of exposure time. Titled View from the Window at Le Gras, this collage of dots and smudges was taken in 1826 (or possibly 1827) by amateur scientist, inventor and artist Joseph Nicephore Niepce, and required an exposure so long that sunlight strikes buildings on both sides of the frame. The shot used a technique called heliography to depict part of Niepce's estate in eastern France, roughly sketching the lines of buildings and trees. It wouldn't get much attention on Instagram, but every food pic you've ever uploaded owes this 'photograph' a debt.

If taken on a modern smartphone, this photo would depict a bustling Paris street full of carts and people. But the image is an early 'daguerreotype', a complex photographic method pioneered by Louis Daguerre that involved silver-plated copper, hot mercury and sodium thiosulphate, and required exposure times between three and 15 minutes. The pavements appear empty because the process could not capture movement, but the photo is still thought to be the first to preserve people for posterity. Two of the street's occupants stayed still enough to appear in the finished version – a shoe-shiner and his client visible in the bottom left, totally unaware of their unique place in history.

Daguerreotype technology was announced publicly at the French Academy of Sciences in 1839, and within a year its proponents had hopped both the Channel and the Atlantic to bring the process to the English-speaking world. This photo was taken by Monsieur de St Croix as part of a public demonstration in London and focuses on the statue of a mounted Charles I in Charing Cross, the point from which all distances to and from the capital are measured. If you look closely you can make out the ghostly forms of Londoners who stayed still just long enough to leave a murky imprint, preserved forever as dustings of light.

This austere daguerreotype of American statesman John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States and son of founding father John Adams, is the earliest surviving image of a US president, snapped in a studio in Washington DC 14 years after the end of his time in office. It might not, however, be the oldest photo of a US president ever taken – that honour probably belongs to President William Henry Harrison, who was reportedly photographed on his inauguration day two years earlier. Both image and president were ill-fated: the picture has long been lost to time and Harrison became the shortest-serving president in history when he died on his 32nd day in office. 

Considered by some to be the first ever 'news photograph', we know little else about this candid snap. We don't know the name of the photographer, the man being arrested or the man doing the arresting. Nor do we know where in France it was taken, the man's supposed crime or his eventual fate. But even with his face part-obscured by grainy blotches, there's no missing the suspect's defiant stare.

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1848 was known as 'the year of revolutions', as a wave of mass protest swept Europe, from Paris to Palermo. French king Louis Philippe was forced to abdicate in February, but in June a workers' revolt in the Parisian suburbs met with less success. This photo shows the last stand of the rebels – a barricaded street in eastern Paris that would be attacked and overrun by the army the following day. Taken by Charles-Francois Thibault, some claim that it's the world's first photojournalism, as it was published as an engraving by the newspaper L'Illustration.

French painter-photographer Eugene Constant spent four years in Rome between 1848 and 1852, taking a remarkably well-produced series of pictures of the city's greatest landmarks – from the Villa Medici to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. In one sense, his photos are remarkably un-illuminating. The Pantheon for instance, pictured here, is a marvel of ancient engineering that had already stood stoically unchanged since AD 125, so it's hardly surprising that this roughly 176-year-old photo could almost have been taken today.

The United States is young enough that we have photographic evidence for most of its history – including the Civil War, the construction of the railways and the California Gold Rush. This scramble for gold – and instant fame and fortune – was kickstarted in 1848 when the precious metal was unearthed in the Sierra Nevada foothills in the now aptly-named El Dorado County. Around 300,000 migrants descended on the region from home and abroad, devastating Indigenous communities and paving the way for Californian statehood. This 1852 photo shows white and Chinese miners at a sluice box in Auburn Ravine, near modern-day Sacramento.

Taken as part of a series by travelling British photographer Roger Fenton, this photo of Moscow is one of the earliest surviving images of imperial Russia in its pomp. At this time, the Russian Empire was ruled by the autocratic Tsar Nicholas I, and it is estimated that around 40% of the population still lived as serfs – peasants bought and sold with stretches of land. The Moskva River dominates this picture, with the domes of St Basil's Cathedral and the spires of the Kremlin visible on the right-hand bank. The very next year, the Crimean War would see Russia clash with Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire, and Fenton would make his name documenting the disastrous conflict.

Roger Fenton's 360 photographs of the Crimean War – all taken in 1855 – were captured in extremely difficult circumstances and are known today as history's first serious attempt at war photography. Fenton travelled under royal patronage and with the assistance of the Navy and British government, and he did not (or was not allowed to) depict combat scenes, injuries or the bodies of the dead. Nevertheless, his photos of grizzled groups of officers, cannonball-strewn valleys and lines of artillery remain a grim reminder of the realities of war. This photo depicts the camp of the 5th Dragoon Guards, a British heavy cavalry regiment that fought at the Battle of Balaclava.

Many of Fenton's photos are posed pictures of British soldiers – photography still struggled with too much movement – including this group from the 71st Highlanders. On the left stands a Colour Sergeant wearing full marching order and holding a long rifle, observed by three other officers resplendent in tartan with swords at the ready. The large majority of British casualties from the war died not from gunfire but disease, and Fenton's photos – along with the advent of the telegraph – helped bring their stories to the public back home.

Australia's first ever photo was a daguerreotype portrait taken in the mid-1840s, but this 1858 landscape shot was much more groundbreaking. It's one of 12 images that form a full panorama of the burgeoning Sydney skyline, taken by Swedish-born snapper Olaf William Blackwood by carefully moving his camera in a 360-degree rotation. Captured from the tower of Government House, a stone's throw from where the Sydney Opera House now stands, the images show three-masted ships anchored in Sydney Harbour backed by the sprawling cityscape of the north shore. At this time British convicts were still being shipped to Australia by the boatload, and would be for another decade.

In this photo, Blackwood captures Sydney on a much smaller scale with a remarkably well-made snap of Wiley and Son's basket shop on Park Street, which was published in the Sydney Morning Herald in August 1858. A gentleman presumed to be the proprietor stands jauntily outside the store, defying the scorching Sydney sun in a white three-piece suit and top hat, while a woman thought to be his wife sits draped over a chair just inside.

Photography came too late for the Napoleonic Wars (Napoleon died in exile in 1821), but they were still within living memory. In 1858 a series of portraits, probably taken in Paris, captured the faded glory of Napoleon's Grande Armee by picturing some of its last remaining veterans in full military dress. This swaggering fellow is Quartermaster Fabry of the 1st Hussars, proudly sporting his Saint Helena Medal – awarded in 1857 to all surviving servicemen from Napoleon's campaigns.

The Pope remains one of the world's most powerful men, and in the mid-19th century his influence was even greater. Pope Pius IX's 32-year tenure was the longest papal reign in history (aside from St Peter, whom tradition holds served for at least 34 years), and it's clear from this 1860 image how people flocked to hear his blessing, delivered from the steps of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. We can only imagine how far some of those horses and carts must have travelled to witness this holy occasion.

The US Civil War was documented more diligently than any previous conflict – and is sometimes called the first properly photographed war. A far cry from Roger Fenton's staged shots of British officers staring solemnly into the distance, American snappers in the 1860s were depicting razed towns, squalid trenches and body-strewn battlefields. This c.1861 shot by Mathew Brady shows an artillery drill near Fredericksburg and is said to be the first image to capture the Union Army in action. There would be many, many more.

In the 1860s, Wall Street's cloud-piercing glass-and-metal skyscrapers were still many decades away, but the area already had a grandeur above and beyond most parts of the city. An international recession in 1866 sparked a spike in unemployment – particularly problematic for the Civil War veterans flooding into the city – but the street continued to grow. On the left of this photo, you can make out the eight columns of Federal Hall – the 1842 customs house that adorns Wall Street to this day.

Enjoy the earliest photos ever taken of the United States

International mass tourism was still a century away in the 1860s, but in the UK the Victorian seaside town was enjoying its moment in the sun. The strange-looking sheds on wheels in this picture were so-called 'bathing machines' – mobile changing rooms that protected female modesty by rolling down the beach and into the water. Queen Victoria herself owned a bathing machine at her residence on the Isle of Wight, and at their height, the 'machines' were common across Western Europe and North America.

Japan almost entirely isolated itself until the mid-19th century, so modern technology was slow to seep in. For centuries, only the Dutch were allowed to trade in the country – and then under the tightest conditions. The first ever photo of Japan – painstakingly shot on an imported daguerreotype camera – was an 1857 portrait almost obscured by imperfections, so this image, taken a few years later by Dutch physician Antoon Bauduin, seems a better starting point. Bauduin was appointed to run a Nagasaki hospital in 1862 and compiled an impressive portfolio of pictures, capturing traditional kabuki plays (a classical Japanese form of theatre), peasant-farmers and these two solemn samurai, their dual swords visible at their waists.

It may lack the drama of Watergate and the gravitas of the Gettysburg Address, but the event depicted in this photo was among the most important in US history. In 1869, a ceremonial gold spike was driven into the final rail of America's brand-new Transcontinental Railroad in Promontory, Utah, joining the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines together to span the entire nation for the first time. The 1,776-mile (2,858km) line was a mammoth undertaking and had huge consequences: settlement of the west, industrial-scale freight commerce, simmering racial tensions and a newfound sense of national identity.

Hong Kong became a British colony in 1841, a year before the first Opium War ended – just as photography was gearing up as a credible international medium. The earliest photos of China were daguerreotypes taken by French customs officer Jules Itier in the 1840s, but the surviving shots are of poor quality and depict limited subject matter. This 1869 image captures a much grander spectacle – the arrival of the then-Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, in Hong Kong Harbour for a rare royal visit.

British photographer John Thomson was already in Hong Kong, having travelled extensively around Southeast Asia, and was contracted to take pictures of the royal visit for a commemorative book. As you can see, no expense was spared to welcome the 25-year-old prince – this street, Bonham Strand, was decked out with decorative chandeliers and hanging gondolas filled with mechanical figures.

On leaving Hong Kong, Thomson travelled around the Chinese mainland and took a series of photographs of Peking (now Beijing), which offer rare insight into imperial China during the decline of the Qing Dynasty. This photograph was taken from the city wall in the early 1870s and shows one of the capital's main streets, which leads directly to the imperial palace. The picture is dominated by Beggar's Bridge, a white-marble edifice giving way to dirt tracks bearing horse-drawn carts, two-storey tiled houses and ceremonial arches.

Another of Thomson's photos shows the house of a Peking mandarin – a high-ranking imperial official – which is ornately decorated with a courtyard and a balcony stocked with children in traditional dress. In China the mid-19th century ushered in the so-called 'century of humiliation' – a period of military reversals, territorial losses and political decline at the hands of Britain, France, Russia and Japan – after spending millennia as one of the world's premier powers.

Photography would eventually bring the devastation of war onto newspaper stands the world over, and it fulfilled the same role for fires, earthquakes and floods. This image shows downtown Chicago levelled almost completely by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 – probably the most infamous fire in US history. A third of the city was destroyed, with 300 people killed and more than 90,000 left homeless, while Chicago's position at the heart of America's nascent telegraphic industry meant it was an instant global news event.

No, it's not a still from The Planet of the Apes. This extraordinary image shows the Statue of Liberty's head on display in the Champs-de-Mars in Paris before it was shipped across the Atlantic to Liberty Island. Lady Liberty was fully constructed in France before being disassembled and then rebuilt on American soil, and the French showed off their handiwork at the 1878 Paris Exposition – called to celebrate France's recovery following the disastrous 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War.

Read the rest of the Statue of Liberty's remarkable story

By the 1880s, photography was widespread, and we start to have documentary evidence for most of the world's most important people, places and events. The technology now existed to showcase other new technologies, and this photo captures an even more world-changing piece of kit – the first automobile. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was a three-wheeled vehicle with a combustible engine, designed by engineer Carl Benz. He unveiled and demonstrated his work in the city of Mannheim in modern-day Germany, where it hit top speeds of 10 miles per hour (16km/h). As you may have guessed, Benz's work and name became the foundation for an important modern car company.

The 19th century was the era of industrialisation, and the advent of factories mass-producing metals, textiles and armaments would fund the burgeoning economies and terrifying war machines of the early 20th century. Workers in British and American factories could spend 10 or 12-hour days performing repetitive tasks in unsafe conditions for minimal pay, and as the century wore on, reform came at a crawl. This image shows women working at complex 'power looms' at a blanket factory in the British town of Witney.

This fascinating photo depicts a state visit by Russia's Crown Prince Nicholas Alexandrovich – soon to be Nicholas II, Russia's last tsar – to the kingdom of Siam in 1891. The crown prince sits second from left in the front row, embossed with great emblems of state, halfway through a grand tour of Asia that also took him to India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, China and Japan. Siam is modern-day Thailand and was the only country in Southeast Asia never colonised by Europeans. King Chulalongkorn sits in the middle of the front row, with Crown Prince Maha Vajirunhis on the far left. The still-teenage prince would die unexpectedly of typhoid a few years later.

By the turn of the century, photography was on its way to becoming a mass-market medium. In 1888, American entrepreneur George Eastman marketed the Kodak No. 1 box camera with the slogan 'you press the button, we do the rest', and in 1900 his groundbreaking Brownie camera hit the market at the meagre price of one dollar (that's $36.50/£29 today, but even so). In this photo, a woman at the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition peers into her camera in a pose that remained popular until the age of the smartphone.

Now check out these incredible early images of the world's best-known landmarks