"The Sprinkler Sprinkled"

There are few cinematic milestones as significant as this one. Maybe not as earth-shattering today as D.W. Griffith's 1915 The Birth of a Nation (which heralded the birth of modern cinema as we know it), but The Lumiere Brothers' The Sprinkler Sprinkled (L'Arroseur arrosé) from 1895 is the first fictional film ever shown in public. Most of the films by the Lumiere Brothers, Edison, et al had been records of actual events, such as the minute long Workers Leaving the Factory, which was the first film ever projected in public.

It also happens to be the first comedy. Enjoy this piece of cinematic history: