1784: John Toms was convicted of murder on the basis of the torn edge of a wad of newspaper in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. This was one of the first documented cases of physical matching.
1835: Henry Goddard first used bullet comparisons to catch a murderer.
1864: Odelbrecht first advocated for the use of photography to document evidence of a crime scene.
1877: Thomas Taylor suggested that fingerprint markings could be used for identification in criminal cases.
1892: Juan Vucetich developed the first fingerprint classification system.
1900: Karl Landsteiner first discovered human blood groups.
1903: The New York State Prison system began the first systemic use of fingerprints in the U.S. for criminal identification.
1905: Theodore Roosevelt established the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
1916: Albert Schneider first used vacuum apparatus to collect trace evidence.
1920s: Georg Popp pioneered the use of botanical identification in forensic work.
1932: The FBI crime laboratory was created.
1950: Max Frei-Sutzer developed the tape lift method of collecting trace evidence.
1977: The FBI introduced the beginnings of its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)
1986: DNA was first used to solve a crime.
1996: The FBI introduced computerized searches of the AFIS fingerprint database.
1998: An FBI DNA database was established.