1952: To help fight off competition from the new television medium, Hollywood introduced the first 3-D film. The first full-length 3-D movie was "Bwana Devil".

1953: The Academy Awards were broadcasted on TV for the first time.

1954: "Dragnet" became the first Hollywood movie based on a TV show.

1955: Movie studios first started to offer their films for television rentals and sales. Also in 1955, Disneyland opened its first theme park in Anaheim, California.

1956: The first practical videotape recorder (VTR) had been created by AMPEX Corporation in 1951 and in 1956, the first commercially feasible VTR for TV studios, with 2 inch tape reels, were sold for $50,000. 1956 also saw the construction of the largest billboard ever made, the now famous Times Square billboard in New York city.

1958: The number of drive-in theaters in the U.S. peaked at close to 5,000. After seeing their numbers dwindle to less than 800 in 1998, drive-ins had started making a comeback by 2005 (or earlier).

1963: Ampex began to offer its first consumer version of a videotape recorder through the Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalogue for $30,000.

1964: The first feature-length made-for-TV movie, "See How They Run", was broadcasted on NBC. Also in 1964, Sony began selling the first reel-to-reel video tape recorder (VTR) designed specifically for use in the home.

1965: Director John Lamb's film, The Raw Ones, became the first movie in the U.S. to show genitalia.

1966: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" became the first movie to receive the MPAA's Production Code seal of approval that contained profane expletives and frank sexual content.

1967: Sony began selling a portable, video camera system (video tape recorder or VTR) Portapak for consumers.

1968: The movie rating system was first introduced in November of 1968 and consisted of four ratings: G, M, R and X. M was later changed to GP, then PG.

1969: Sony introduced the video cassette recorder (VCR).

1970: The IMAX wide-screen format first premiered in Osaka, Japan.

1971: "Billy Jack" became the first film to be marketed in wide-release. Previously, any given film had always first been introduced in a few markets to test its potential, before expanding its market to the entire country.

1972: HBO transmitted its first cable television programming to subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, PA, marking the start of pay-TV cable service. Also in 1972, the AVCO Cartrivision vcr system was released. It was a combination receiver, recorder and playback unit. It was also the first vcr with pre-recorded tapes of popular movies available for sale and rental.

1973: "Westworld" became the first movie to make use of digitized images, which would later develop into CGI (computer generated imagery).

1975: Sony first began selling its Betamax format video cassettes and VCRs for home use to consumers.

1976: JVC first introduced the VHS (video home system) video format to compete with Sony's Betamax system. 1976 was also the year that Dolby stereo was first used in the movies in "A Star in Born". However, It was the success of 1977's "Star Wars" and how it used Dolby stereo that really caused the use of Dolby stereo to take off.

1977: This was the year of the video cassette. RCA began marketing the first VCRs in the United States based on JVC's system The same yaer, Andre Blay started the first video cassette distribution company in Detroit to license, market and distribute both Betamax and VHS video cassettes to consumers. It was also the first company to sell pre-recorded videos. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, George Atkinson began to advertise the rental of 50 Video titles from his own personal collection in the Los Angeles Times and also started the first video rental store, Video Station. Atkinson was threatened with a lawsuit for renting his videos, but soon learned that U.S. copyright law gave him the right to rent and resell videos that he owned. Within five years, he had franchised more than 400 Video Station stores around the country.

1978: Philips introduced the video laser disc and player. This was the first optical disc storage device for the consumer market, with discs that were just under 12 inches in diameter. "Jaws" was the first movie released on a laser disc.

1982: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" became the first film to use computer-generated images (CGI).

1984: In a landmark case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that home videotaping did not violate copyright laws. Also in 1984, the PG rating for movies was split into the separate ratings of PG and PG-13.

1995: "Toy Story" became the first completely computer-generated feature-length animated movie.

1997: DVDs were sold to consumers for the first time and by the start of 2007, over 121 million DVD playback devices had been sold in the U.S.

1998: The FCC approved the digital television standard, the first HDTV receivers were introduced, and HDTV broadcasts first began to appear in the US.

2000: A Hollywood movie used high definition television (HDTV) technology for the first time in "Space Cowboys".

2003: By summer, DVD rentals surpassed those of VHS videotape for the first time.

2006: Amazon.com and Apple both began offering full-length, on-demand movies on their websites.

Sigourney Weaver (Ripley) was reportedly paid $11 million for her role in Alien: Resurrection (1997), which was as much as the total estimated $11 million production cost of the original Alien (1979). Webmasters: place our "Movie Trivia of the Day" on your site

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