Early animation digitised - look like GIF's today :)

I still get blown away by the internet at times. This occasion is no different.

Early animation included a viewing device called a "Phenakistoscope" which somehow or other used a spinning disk and a mirror to create the perceptions of motion. This site has a whole bunch of them that have been digitised as gif's. 

This is the first one at the link, titled Happy Halloween, 1833. Amazing.