Happy Anniversary to ‘Fred Ott’s Sneeze,’ the First Known Copyrighted Documentary Film

On January 9, 1894, one of the first films to ever be copyrighted by the Library of Congress received that honor after arriving in the mail that very day. The title was Edison Kinetoscope Record of a Sneeze, though it was popularly called “The Sneeze” and is now more commonly known today as “Fred Ott’s Sneeze.” Shot a few days earlier by William K.L. Di…