The first public showing of a motion picture in the U.S. took place on April 23, 1896, at New York’s Koster & Bial Music Hall on 34th Street and Broadway.
The 12 short-subject films, projected on Thomas Edison’s Vitascope, accompanied a vaudeville show.
Previously, Edison’s films could only be viewed peep-show style on his Kinetoscope (invented 1891).