One minute clock history is fun filled and easy read...

clock history > Find clocks, from an atomic to zen clock

Serious about clock history? Yes you too can learn clock history with ease. Keeping Time, started with a really simple idea! Study what nature has given us and make use of it - with that philosophy, Ancient Civilization relied on the Celestial bodies - the Moon, Sun, and stars to tell the month and the year.

Clock making started about 5000 plus years ago in North Africa and the Middle East. The Celestial influence was still evident, as the first clocks made, were based on using the motions of these bodies.

The Sun Clocks got it's name from the sundial which was created by the moving shadows, this action enabled the Egyptians to slipt their days into time frames (not as concise as hours, but as morning, mid-day, late afternoon and evening). To this day some natives of Egypt still use these Clocks.

With the advent of water clocks meant that there was a shift from the reliance on celestial bodies to keep time.

Our real love with clocks and it's added value and extra functions really came to light when clock makers crafted Water Clocks that opened windows and rang bells.

However, there was still an insatiable appetite for accurate time keeping as the flow of water to power a clock meant inaccurate readings.

The Biggest breakthough in the making of accurate time clocks was in 1582 with the invention of the Concept by Galileo, for the pendulum clock. Unfortunately, it took three quarters of a century for the first pendulum clock to be made by the Dutch Scientist - Christiaan Huygens. This saw the first accurate mechanical clock to be made in 1656. Long after the death of Galileo.

Fifhteen years later in London, William Clement improved on the pendulum motion of accurate time clocks with his recoil and anchor invention.

A decade or so before the American Revolution (1775-83) The Willard clock-making brothers made tallcase floor clocks and the Massachusetts half clock.

Clock making gathered momemtum after the war, Simon Willard made his famous shaped banjo clock.

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The next major breakthrough in Clock making was by Eli Terry of Connecticut, (circa 1810) with his invention of the factory line production of mass clocks, it made clocks available to most people at a much lower cost. Eli Terry was also the mentor of famous Clock Makers Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley.

Just before 1850 in New York, The american clock company became the first firm to streamline the mass marketing of Clocks to the public. It created a big Warehouse to store all the different makes & brands of clocks, itemised the clocks in a catalogue and sold them to the public.

Up until the 1850s, most Clocks were powered by Weights. Then with the advent of Spring driven movements, most clocks were made with that preferred mechanism.

About 18 years later the electric clock operated by battery was sold to the public. Meanwhile in the 1870's, an American songwriter, uses an English Folklore to compose the now World famous song:

"My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf, So it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by a half than the old man himself, Though it weighed not a pennyweight more!"

The song was such a hit in the US that Americans started calling floor clocks grandfather clocks.

Must Know clock history just one minute long

In 1880 the first alarm clock with illumination was made by H J Davis. A year later Novelty Clocks were launched to the public by the Yale Clock Company.

1885 almost 36 years after a Company in New York introduced mass marketing of clocks, another New York Company became the first Clock Herald with The Sidney Adverstisng Clock.

Just at the turn of the century, chelsea clock company started making some of the finest marine and auto clocks from Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Meanwhile accuracy in astronomical observatories had improved immersely with Siegmund Riefler's Clock invention of the almost free pendulum.

Two decades later, the days of clock makers relying on pendulum and balance-wheel escapements were numbered as the invention of the quartz crystals was to set the highest standard in time-keeping.

Market domination by Clocks using the quartz technology to this day is unmatched for both price and performance.

The above statement reminds me of the true quote from the Head of the UK patent office in 1899 "Everything which can be invented has already been invented" Yeah....right?

Along comes atomic clocks three decades later, but quartz performance was still superior for another 18 years until The cesium atom's natural frequency was formally recognized as the new international unit of time in 1967:

Now the timekeeping performance of quartz clocks has been substantially surpassed by atomic clocks.

How is this possible? Simple, atoms make up a potential "pendulum" which has a reproducible rate that sets the standard and it's transmitted via microwave and satellite technology for much better accurate clocks.

This led to the creation in 1972 of the International (UTC) Universal Time Co-ordinating Center

Today the Atomic Clock Systems from over 25 countries World-Wide and the USA, feed continous data to the UTC.

We have come a long way! In the US radio signals beamed from the National Institute of Standards (nist) in fort collins, colorado can now keep your clock accurate to within one second over one million years. Which means you will never have to reset your clock again, not even for daylight-savings time.

LATEST Breaking News!

New optical clock promises more accuracy than cesium atomic frequency clocks. NIST researchers have demonstrated a new kind of atomic clock that has the potential to be up to 1,000 times more accurate than today’s best atomic clock.

Do you want to know more about the atomic clocks? Check out the most comprehensive one-stop review of the different atomic clock types