History of GIF

In 1987, the GIF was invented by an American computer scientist named Steve Wilhite who was looking for a way to animate images in the smallest file size. On June 15, 1989, Wilhite released the first prototype GIF that he created was a picture of an airplane called 87a. After seeing Wilhite's first GIF, his colleagues created various animated GIFs. The most well known GIF was the classic "dancing baby" in 1996. In 2013, Wilhite was awarded with a Webby Lifetime Achievement award.