Short answers, pulled from the story.
Eadweard Muybridge captured the concept of time using twelve cameras on a racetrack in 1878. This mechanical arrangement produced the groundbreaking study The Horse in Motion and laid the foundational logic for all future time-slicing techniques.
The Japanese anime series Speed Racer introduced a frozen mid-air camera arc shot in 1966. This sequence predated the digital revolution by decades and showed that the effect could be applied to moving narratives.
The film The Matrix released in 1999 transitioned bullet time from niche experiments to a global cultural phenomenon. John Gaeta and Manex Visual Effects combined techniques to create a sequence that allowed the camera to move around objects in motion.
The video game Max Payne allowed players to control the flow of time during gameplay in 2001. This title was the first true implementation of a bullet-time effect that enabled players to have added limited control such as aiming and shooting.
Bullet time was first used in a live music environment by the band Creed in 2009. This application appeared on the live DVD Creed Live and demonstrated the technique's versatility beyond film and video games.