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 true theater of history is therefore the temperate zone.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)