Classical Light - Ancient Greece to Maxwell
last updated: Jun 10, 2024
https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Light_1/
The biggest breakthrough in ancient times was made by al-Haytham around 1000 AD. He argued that sight is due only to light entering the eye from an outside source and there is no beam from the eye itself. He gave a number of arguments to support this claim, the most persuasive being the camera obscura, or pinhole camera.
A nice quick walkthrough of the history of optics