The word animate comes from the Latin word anima, which means soul; the literal translation is “to give life to”. Animation is exactly that: giving life or movement, motion or even a voice to an otherwise inanimate object. For centuries, people have made efforts to give movement to designs; Recently, an approximately 5,000-year-old earthen cup was discovered in Iran with designs depicting a goat jumping into a tree to eat leaves. (Lealos) Similar sequential series type designs were found in Egyptian hieroglyphics and cave drawings. Throughout time and around the world, many ideas and creations have contributed to today's animations. Most started as toys based on an optical illusion. In 1824, Peter Roget published an article on the persistence of vision. Roget claimed that “the retina retains images for a fraction of a second before being replaced by subsequent images.” (randomhistory.com) This perception of one image blending into the next, as in individual frames of animation, gave the illusion of movement. It's truly amazing what the mind's eye can see. Following the publication of Roget's article, many new things were created to demonstrate the theory. The thaumatrope, invented in 1825 by Dr. John Paris, was the first of the persistent vision toys and the simplest to make. It was a round disk with a bird drawn on one side and a cage drawn on the other. The disk was held by ropes on either side which, when wound, caused the disk to spin and the images to merge to appear like a bird in the cage. The phénakistiscope was invented in 1832 by Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau. It is a disc fixed in its center so that it can rotate freely. Drawings in a sequential series went around the disk and slots were cut at regular intervals around the edge of the middle of the paper......r 2014.."Movie Time! Amazing Animation." The New Annual Book of Knowledge - Highlights of 2004. Danbury: Scholastic Library Publishing, Inc., 2005. 260.randomhistory.com. ""Meep! Meep!" A History of Animation." May 31, 2008. www.randomhistory.com. November 28, 2014..Salomon, Charles. "Animation." The new book of knowledge. Flight. Volume 1 A. Danbury: Grolier Publishing Company, Inc., 2003. 288 - 291.Waking Sleeping Beauty. Real. Don Hahn. Perf. Don Hahn. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2010. ISKANDER, WEJDAN and CURTIS, SHARON. “Using color and interactive animation in learning 3D vectors.” 2005. The Free Library. November 28 2014..