Big Bang, formation of the universe
World Events
History of time
-13'700'000'000
World Events
-9'200'000'000
World Events
Formation of the Sun.
-200'000
World Events
Appearance of Homo Sapiens.
-5'000
History of time
First megalithic sites.
-4'800
History of time
Goseck circle (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany), the oldest observatory in Europe.
-3'400
World Events
Development of writing in Mesopotamia.
-3'000
History of time
Introduction of the base 60 (sexagesimal) numeral system in Mesopotamia
-3'000
History of time
Erection of the circle of menhirs in Stonehenge, England.
-2'500
World Events
Construction of the pyramids of Cheops, Kephren and Mykerinos in Giza, Egypt
-2'350
History of time
Invention of the polos in Mesopotamia.
-2'000
History of time
Babylonian clay tablets prove the existence of clepsydras.
-1'600
History of time
Making of the Nebra disc.
-1'505
History of time
Egyptian fire clock.
-1'450
History of time
The oldest known shadow clock.
-1'400
History of time
The danna was introduced in the city of Tello. This unit of measurement was equivalent to about 11 kilometers (7 miles) but was used for measuring time as well as distance, representing the time it took a man to walk this distance (approximately two hours).
-776
World Events
First Olympic Games in Greece.
-753
World Events
Foundation of Rome.
-450
History of time
Introduction of the Mesopotamian calendar.
-400
History of time
Vitruvius names Parmenion as the inventor of the pros pan clima, a universal portable sundial.
-330
History of time
Large water clocks are erected in Greece.
-300
History of time
Aristarchus of Samos presents the first heliocentric theory.
-240
World Events
Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the Earth.
-140
History of time
Antikythera mechanism, the oldest surviving geardriven mechanism in the world.
-45
History of time
Introduction of the Julian calendar with 365 days and 12 months.
79
World Events
Pompeii and Herculaneum in southern Italy are buried beneath volcanic ashes when Mount Vesuvius erupts, Italy.
324
World Events
Foundation of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire).
476
World Events
Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
1'153
World Events
Foundation of the University of Oxford, England.
1'173
World Events
Construction of the Tower of Pisa, Italy.
1'200
World Events
Advent of the Inca civilisation, South America.
1'200
World Events
Foundation of the University of Paris, France.
1'230
History of time
Introduction of the first clock with gears, weights and regulator at the middle of the 13th century.
1'271
World Events
Marco Polo sets sail from Venice to China.
1'364
History of time
Giovanni Dondi of Padua, Italy, constructs his Astrarium, an astronomical clock.
1'410
History of time
Filippo Brunelleschi, Italian sculptor and architect, adapts the spring to the clock, doing away with driving-weights and hence making it portable.
1'434
World Events
Gutenberg invents the printing press.
1'453
World Events
Constantinople falls to the Turks, led by Mehmed II.
1'492
History of time
First mechanical watches in Italy, Germany and France.
1'492
World Events
Christopher Columbus discovers America.
1'518
History of time
François I acquires two watches set in daggers for 200 gold écus.
1'519
World Events
Hernan Cortés and his men arrive in Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire.
1'554
History of time
Watchmaking arrives in Geneva.
1'556
History of time
Under Calvin, goldsmiths in Geneva are forbidden from making jewellery and turn instead to watch cases.
1'582
History of time
The Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1522-1610) arrived in Macao. He introduced horology to the Chinese Emperor's court.
1'595
World Events
Invention of the microscope.
1'601
History of time
Establishment of the Watchmakers Guild in Geneva.
1'630
History of time
Jean Toutin develops a technique for enamel painting on cases and dials.
1'650
History of time
The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal was reputed to wear his watch on his wrist.
1'657
History of time
Christiaan Huygens adapts the pendulum to the clock.
1'666
World Events
Great Fire of London.
1'667
World Events
Completion of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City.
1'675
History of time
Christiaan Huygens invents the balance spring for the watch.
1'685
World Events
In France, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, thus encouraging the exodus of Huguenots to more welcoming countries.
1'685
World Events
Construction of Place Vendôme in Paris.
1'695
History of time
The halfquarter repeater watch appears in England.
1'700
History of time
Following Huygens' inventions to improve accuracy, the minute hand gradually came into general use in the early 18th century.
1'704
History of time
The first watch with jewels was produced by the French watchmaker de Beaufré using a drilling method invented circa 1700 by the Genevan astronomer and optician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (1664-1752).
1'710
History of time
Samuel Watson invents the five-minute repeater.
1'714
History of time
The English Parliament offers £20,000 to whomever invents a means of precisely calculating longitude.
1'720
History of time
Around 1720, George Graham builds a mechanism which can theoretically display 1/16th of a second.
1'727
History of time
Birth of Ferdinand Berthoud in Plancement sur Couvet (Switzerland). He settled in Paris (where he died in 1807) and became known as one of the most outstanding manufacturers of marine timekeepers of his era.
1'728
World Events
Birth of the English navigator, explorer and cartographer James Cook.
1'741
History of time
In his treatise on watchmaking, Antoine Thiout the Elder described the principle of the minute-repeater watch, possibly first made by Thomas Mudge.
1'741
World Events
Invention of degrees Celsius
1'747
History of time
Birth in Neuchâtel of the Swiss watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet whose genius revolutionized all facets of watchmaking.
1'750
History of time
The first rose engines for guillochage or engine-turning were made.
1'751
World Events
Publication of the Encyclopaedia of Diderot and d’Alembert in France.
1'755
History of time
Parisian watchmaker Caron makes a ring-watch for Madame de Pompadour.
1'757
History of time
English watchmaker Thomas Mudge invents the lever escapement.
1'766
History of time
John Harrison's marine chronometer N°4 wins the challenge set by the English Parliament to resolve the longitude problem.
1'770
History of time
The French watchmaker Jean-Antoine Lépine imagines a simplified and thinner calibre using bridges, known as a Lépine calibre.
1'776
History of time
Genevan watchmaker Jean-Moïse Pouzait invents the independent deadseconds watch, precursor of the chronograph.
1'776
World Events
United States Declaration of Independence.
1'777
History of time
In his travel diary, the physicist de Saussure notes a visit to "Monsieur Perlet (sic), the inventor of watches that wind themselves."
1'783
World Events
The two Montgolfier brothers fly a 400 m³ hot-air balloon carrying a cockerel, a duck and a sheep above Versailles.
1'784
History of time
English watchmaker Thomas Earnshaw introduced a new spring detent escapement for pocket chronometers and marine chronometers. His invention was widely used by subsequent watchmakers.
1'789
World Events
French Revolution.
1'800
World Events
Start of the century of industrialisation.
1'801
History of time
Abraham-Louis Breguet is awarded a patent for the tourbillon.
1'801
World Events
Alessandro Volta presents his electric battery.
1'822
History of time
Nicolas-Mathieu Rieussec is awarded a patent for a "timekeeper or counter of distance covered", referred to by its inventor as a "seconds chronograph".
1'822
World Events
The French egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, reveals the mysteries of hieroglyphics.
1'828
History of time
Louis-Frédéric Perrelet and his son are awarded a patent for a split-seconds "physics and astronomy counter".
1'830
History of time
Development in the 1830s of various pendantwinding systems by LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet and Adrien Philippe.
1'838
World Events
Construction of the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia.
1'839
History of time
Vacheron & Constantin begin using the pantograph invented by the Swiss watchmaker Georges-Auguste Leschot.
1'840
World Events
Britain issues the first postage stamp.
1'844
World Events
Samuel Morse sends the first telegram.
1'851
World Events
Great Exhibition in London.
1'858
World Events
First transatlantic telegraph cable.
1'859
History of time
Big Ben is brought into service.
1'863
World Events
Creation of the Red Cross by the Swiss businessman Henri Dunant.
1'875
History of time
Nemitz discovers calcium sulphate as the first luminescent substance for hands and numerals.
1'876
History of time
The Philadelphia Exhibition is a showcase for the American watch industry, whose quality and strength becomes clear to Swiss watchmakers.
1'877
World Events
Thomas Edison files the patent for the first phonograph.
1'878
History of time
Braceletwatches, manufactured in small quantities, are seen for the first time in Vienna.
1'880
History of time
Genevan watchmaker François Borgel makes the first screw-down, water-resistant case.
1'884
History of time
The United States and Canada adopt Universal Time. The Earth is divided into 24 identical time zones, measured from the prime meridian in Greenwich, England.
1'886
World Events
Dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
1'889
World Events
Inauguration of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1'892
History of time
Minute-repeater wristwatch by Audemars Piguet and Louis Brandt.
1'895
World Events
Foundations laid for the Nobel Prize.
1'896
World Events
First modern Olympic Games.
1'898
World Events
Pierre and Marie Curie discover polonium and radium.
1'904
History of time
Wristwatches play an essential role in the Boer War.
1'911
History of time
Paris accepts to use the Greenwich Meridian to define its legal time.
1'912
World Events
Shipwreck of the Titanic.
1'914
World Events
Creation of the Olympic Rings symbol.
1'924
History of time
John Harwood is awarded the first Swiss patent for an automatic wristwatch with central oscillating weight.
1'925
History of time
Patek Philippe makes the first known perpetual calendar wristwatch using a pendant-watch movement.
1'926
World Events
Scottish engineer John Logie Baird demonstrates his system for receiving images through a cathode ray tube, which he calls a "televisor".
1'931
World Events
Inauguration of the Empire State Building in New York.
1'946
World Events
Presentation of the first computer.
1'947
History of time
Omega makes its Calibre 30I, the first tourbillon movement for a wristwatch.
1'948
World Events
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
1'948
History of time
American Harold Lyons invents the ammonia-beam maser atomic clock.
1'956
History of time
The second is calculated as 1/31,556,925,947 of the solar year.
1'957
World Events
Soviet R-7 rocket launches Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to be put into space.
1'961
World Events
Youri Gagarine becomes the first man in space.
1'963
World Events
Valentina Tereshkova, 26, becomes the first woman in space.
1'966
History of time
First prototype quartz wristwatch, dubbed Bêta 1.
1'967
History of time
The second is defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.
1'969
World Events
First man on the Moon.
1'969
World Events
Concorde makes its first supersonic flight.
1'970
History of time
Quartz's domination of the mechanical wristwatch in the late 1970s plunges Swiss watchmaking into crisis.
1'979
History of time
Launch of the Delirium, the world's thinnest watch (1.95mm). This is the first time a wristwatch uses the case back as its main plate, a principle later reprised by the Swatch watch.
1'979
World Events
Launch of the "Walkman" by Sony.
1'982
History of time
Launch of the first Swatch watch prototypes in the United States.
1'983
History of time
Development and production of mechanical watches relaunched. Integration of complications into the wristwatch.
1'994
World Events
Opening of the Channel Tunnel.
1'994
World Events
First digital camera for the consumer market.
1'997
World Events
Dolly the sheep is the first cloned mammal.
1'999
World Events
The Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union adopts the Euro as its single currency.
-200000
1975
1999