This day in history - 19:11:1231.4

19:11:1231.4 On this day Achilles Verdant was awarded a patent for the first camera obscura. A method of ‘projecting’ an image onto a screen inside a darkened room, the device was an overnight success. The artist community quickly embraced the ‘new magic’ using it to quickly rough-in scenes with pencil before filling in the rest with paint. Overnight Verdant’s obscura single handily created the dirty postcard industry, which ended up doing a thriving business at the frontline. Achilles Verdand amassed an impressive fortune in a short space of time, based in-part from the pornography industry. He died in 1263.4 of syphilis aged 57