Forensic Science Timeline

President Theodore Roosevelt role in Forensics

1932 BCE

President Roosevelt established Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). And now we have a bureau of smart people to keep track og crims around the USA.

Goddard's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory

1930 BCE

American Journal of Police Science was founded and published by staff of Goddard's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Chicago. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and police science was then absorbed into crime fighting studies organizations.

Albert Schneider

1916 BCE

In California, Schneider first used a vacuum apparatus to collect trace evidence. Trace evidence are that may be transferred between people, objects or the environment during a crime. Investigators can potentially link a suspect and a victim to a mutual location through trace evidence. Few examples are fibers, hair, soil, wood, gunshot residue and pollen.

Henry Faulds

1880 BCE

A Scottish physician working in Tokyo, published a paper that fingerprints at the scene of a crime could identify the offender. Is one of the first recorded useage of fingerprints to solve a crime, eventually he used fingerprints to eliminate an innocent suspect and indicate a perpetrator in a Tokyo burglary. Because of fingerprints data bases were created and used to keep track of upcoming criminals to past criminals.

Odelbrecht

1864 BCE

Odelbrecht first advocated the use of photography for the identification of criminals and the documentation of evidence and crime scenes. This created a chain of evidence that is primarly used
as a evindence to convict a suspect.

Henry Goddard

1835 BCE

Goddard is one of Scotland Yard's original Bow Street Runners, first used 1835 bullet comparison to catch a murderer. His comparison was based on a visible flaw in the bullet which was traced back to a mold. Creating a chain of bullet analysis that is used first in a shooting crime.

William Nichol

1828 BCE

Nichol invented the polarizing light microscope. A light microscope is used in biology to detect small objects through its technology, which employs visible light. Commonly use these types of microscopesin crime scense to look at bacteria, which can be visible at 100x magnification.

Mathiew Orfila

1813 BCE

A professor of medicinal/forensic chemistry at University of Paris, Orfila is considered the father of modern toxicology. He also made significant contributions to test for the presence of blood in a forensic crime scene. He is credited as the 1st to attempt the useage of a microscope in the assessment of blood and semen stains.

Book: Hsi Duan Yu (the washing away of wrongs)

1248 BCE

This book read by many forensic scientists today, contains description of how to distinguish drowning from strangulation. This was thefirst record of medical knowledge to the solution of a crime.

Roman Quintilian

1000 BCE

He was an attorney in the Roman courts who was defending a blind man and was accused of murdering his mother. During the trial he used a bloody palm printfound at the scene to acquit his client. He was also the first forensic scientist.