Aerial photography goes back to days when the aviation itself had just left its cradle. I can only imagine, as flying was becoming more and more sustainable, how great might be a temptation experienced by some pioneer aviators then, - to lift up a camera, and bring back to Earth some imagery taken right from the ‘eagle’s point of view’.
A few thematic displays gathered in one corner of the Winnipeg Aviation Museum attracted my attention.
On them there’s some information about surveying and mapping the vastness of Canada in early decades of the last century. I read in one text box:
In 1922 less than 7 % of Canada was accurately mapped. The advent of aerial photography and the resulting expansion in the coverage of Canadian maps assisted in northern development.
If you are interested in the topic, I guess this book will be alright to fulfill your thirst for this kind of knowledge
Speaking of today’s aerial photography, I’d like to put a remark - nevertheless how funny it may seem - about the stuff that us, ‘amateur enthusiasts’, are posting on sites such as Flickr 
In my opinion, it’s worth to do. Whereas those photographs are far away from any decent standard of precision required for specifically ‘mapping’, - we can leave the business of mapping to professionals - they may create a pool of images filled with the air of ‘actuality’, - you know, sometimes we happen to see forest fires in remote areas, for example, or some weather developing . I can spur my visioning a bit further: one day we will be able to install on our aircraft systems based on the wide-band data-link capable to transfer imagery to a sort of centralized portal for further processing, and distributing the information product based on that data to all the interested in it. Don’t forget how many planes are being in the air at any given moment! Just a few images coming from each one at some intervals would help create a whole picture of the environment across the entire continent. Not to mention the fact that some aircraft are already equipped with capability of sending weather elements read by the plane’s FMS. By combined effort of many we can create a great ‘real time environment monitoring system‘!
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