The Silver Screen's Ancestry

The five moments in this challenge

The scenes are shown below — tap a card to reveal its place and year.

1. 

   Round 1 · 1964

   Filming The Sound of Music

   Salzburg, Austria

   Julie Andrews famously spun in the lush Alpine meadows of the Untersberg during production of the beloved musical, bringing unprecedented global tourism and cinematic fame to the Austrian city.

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2. 

   Round 2 · 1974

   Filming Monty Python and the Holy Grail

   Doune, Scotland

   Because the National Trust abruptly withdrew permission to use their properties, the legendary comedy troupe used Scotland's medieval Doune Castle to represent almost every single fortress in the film.

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3. 

   Round 3 · 1921

   Filming Nosferatu at Orava Castle

   Oravský Podzámok, Czechoslovakia

   F.W. Murnau shot crucial location scenes for his unauthorized Dracula adaptation at Orava Castle, helping establish the foreboding, atmospheric visual style that defined early German Expressionist cinema.

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4. 

   Round 4 · 1659

   Huygens Demonstrates the Magic Lantern

   The Hague, Dutch Republic

   Christiaan Huygens developed the first working magic lantern projector, using lenses and a candle to project hand-painted slides of dancing skeletons onto his study wall, a precursor to modern cinema.

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5. 

   Round 5 · 1020

   Alhazen's Camera Obscura Experiment

   Cairo, Fatimid Caliphate

   While under house arrest, Arab polymath Ibn al-Haytham proved light travels in straight lines by projecting an inverted image of the outside world through a pinhole, establishing the camera obscura.

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