History
The version of the passport invented by King Henry V of England is considered by some to be the earliest identity document.
Photographs began to be attached to passports and other "photo IDs" in the early decades of the twentieth century, after photography became widespread.
Before World War I, most people did not have or need an identity document.
The shape and size of identity cards was standardized in 1985 by ISO/IEC 7810.
Some modern identity documents are smart cards—they include a difficult-to-forge embedded integrated circuit—standardized in 1988 by ISO/IEC 7816.
Read more about this topic: Identity Document
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)