Today in 1888, Louis Le Prince shot Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving motion picture.
Less than two years later, at the age of 56, he boarded a train from Dijon to Paris and was never seen again. His disappearance remains officially unsolved, though his English-born wife, Lizzie Whitley, had one working theory: He had cracked the mystery of a machine Edison wanted for himself, and was killed for it. (From The New York Times review of The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies by Paul Fischer).
Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded on Eastman Kodak photographic film using Le Prince's single-lens camera. In the 1930s, the Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative, before it was lost. The copied frames were later printed on 35 mm film.
In late October 1888, Le Prince filmed traffic crossing Leeds Bridge.