The first camera phone photo. Imagine having the Internet as your baby album!

Fifteen years ago today, the first camera phone photo was snapped and sent around the world. Philippe Kahn cobbled a working camera phone earlier in 1997 from a regular phone and a digital camera, and took the shot on June 11. Luckily for us and history, it was an adorable photo of his newborn daughter, a life-affirming and awwwww-inducing way to change how we all use phones.

Today, of course, camera phones are everywhere, recording the world around us in bite-size and often unflattering ways. To drive all those politician’s junk pics and bathroom mirror shots out of our collective heads today, celebrate by snapping a pic of something important and/or beautiful, just like Kahn did a decade and a half ago.Tweet