A watch is a portable timepiece designed to maintain accurate timekeeping despite movement. Wristwatches are worn on the wrist with straps or bracelets, while pocket watches are carried in a pocket, often with a chain. Stopwatches are a specialized type of watch used for measuring time intervals.
In 1902, Mappin & Webb accelerated production of their successful "campaign watch" for soldiers during the Second Boer War.
In 1903, Dimier Frères & Cie, a Swiss company, patented a wristwatch design with the now standard wire lugs.
In 1904, Louis Cartier produced a wristwatch for his friend Alberto Santos-Dumont to allow him to check flight performance in his airship.
In 1905, Hans Wilsdorf moved to London and established Wilsdorf & Davis with Alfred Davis, offering quality timepieces at affordable prices.
The First World War of 1914 dramatically shifted public perceptions of men's wristwatches and opened a mass market in the postwar era.
In 1915, Wilsdorf & Davis changed its name to Rolex.
In 1917, the UK War Office began issuing wristwatches to combatants during World War I.
By the end of World War I in 1918, almost all enlisted men wore wristwatches, leading to a fashion trend after demobilization.
In 1923, British watch repairer John Harwood invented the first "self-winding", or "automatic", wristwatch.
In 1923, John Harwood invented the first successful self-winding system for watches.
In October 1930, Glycine began mass-producing automatic watches by incorporating a self-winding module into its watches.
By 1930, the wristwatch vastly exceeded the pocket watch in market share by a ratio of 50:1.
In 1954, the Raketa Atom became the first known example of watches with built-in geiger counters.
On January 3, 1957 Hamilton released the Hamilton 500 electric watch, the first model, that was produced into 1959.
In 1957, the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania released the first electrically powered watch, the Hamilton Electric 500.
In 1959, Seiko placed an order with Epson to develop a quartz wristwatch, codenamed project 59A.
In 1959, production of the Hamilton 500 ceased due to issues with contact wire misalignment in the electric watch model.
In 1960, Bulova introduced tuning-fork watches, which use an electromechanical movement with a precise frequency to drive a mechanical watch.
In March 1961, a Russian "Pobeda" watch was sent into space on the Korabl-Sputnik 4 attached to the wrist of a dog named Chernuchka.
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin wore a Shturmanskie wristwatch during his historic first flight into space.
On May 24, 1962, the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was first worn in space by U.S. astronaut Scott Carpenter in the Aurora 7 Mercury capsule.
By the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Seiko had a working prototype of a portable quartz watch which was used as the time measurements throughout the event.
In 1964, Seiko's timekeeping devices at the Tokyo Olympics were portable quartz watches, not wristwatches.
Since 1964, the watches of the First Moscow Factory have been marked by the trademark "Полёт", transliterated as "POLJOT", which means "flight" in Russian and is a tribute to the many space trips its watches have accomplished.
From 1965, CEH research laboratory in Neuchâtel, Switzerland pioneered development work on a miniaturized 8192 Hz quartz oscillator and thermo-compensation module.
In 1965, a modified Breitling Top Time geiger counter watch was used in the James Bond movie Thunderball.
In 1967, the BETA 1 prototype set new timekeeping performance records at the International Chronometric Competition held at the Observatory of Neuchâtel.
In 1968, advertising a watch as waterproof became illegal in the United States due to Federal Trade Commission regulations.
On December 25, 1969, the Seiko 35 SQ Astron became the first quartz watch to enter production and hit the shelves, quickly followed by the Swiss Beta 21.
In 1969, Buzz Aldrin wore the Omega Speedmaster Professional during the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
In 1969, the Seiko Astron 35SQ was commercially introduced, marking a revolutionary improvement in watch technology with the use of a quartz-crystal resonator.
In 1970, 18 manufacturers exhibited production versions of the beta 21 wristwatch, including the Omega Electroquartz, Patek Philippe, Rolex Oysterquartz and Piaget.
In 1970, the Omega Beta 21 quartz watch was introduced, using a quartz-crystal resonator.
On April 4, 1972, the Pulsar watch, the first digital electronic watch, was released in an 18-carat gold case and sold for $2,100. It featured a red light-emitting diode (LED) display.
In 1972, various early LCD watches with a four-digit display were marketed, including the Gruen Teletime LCD Watch and the Cox Electronic Systems Quarza. The Quarza featured the first Field Effect LCD readable in direct sunlight.
In March 1973, Ebauches Electronic SA presented a prototype eight-digit LCD wristwatch showing time and date at the MUBA Fair, Basel, using a twisted nematic LCD manufactured by Brown, Boveri & Cie, Switzerland.
In 1974, Casio adopted the twisted nematic LCD manufactured by Brown, Boveri & Cie, Switzerland for the CASIOTRON watch.
In 1975, Sinclair Radionics' Black Watch faced production problems and high return rates, leading to the cessation of production.
In 1975, Texas Instruments began mass-producing LED watches in plastic cases, retailing for $20.
In 1976, Texas Instruments reduced the price of their LED watches to $10, leading to a loss of $6 million for Pulsar and the subsequent sale of the Pulsar brand to Seiko.
In 1982, Seiko produced the Seiko TV Watch with a built-in television screen, and Casio released a digital watch with a thermometer (the TS-1000).
In 1983, the new SWATCH brand was launched, marked by bold new styling, design, and marketing.
In 1985, Casio produced the CFX-400 scientific calculator watch.
In 1987, Casio produced the DBA-800 watch that could dial telephone numbers, and Citizen introduced a voice-reactive watch.
In 1994, the Timex Datalink wristwatch was introduced, featuring a wireless data transfer mode to receive data from a PC.
Since 1994, Fortis has been the exclusive supplier for crewed space missions authorized by the Russian Federal Space Agency.
In 1995, Timex released a watch that allowed users to download and store data from a computer to their wrist.
In 1999, Seiko introduced the Spring Drive, combining quartz and mechanical movements, in a limited domestic market production.
In September 2005, Seiko's Spring Drive, a combination of quartz and mechanical movements, was released to the world.
At BaselWorld 2008, Seiko announced the creation of the first watch designed specifically for a spacewalk, the Spring Drive Spacewalk.
In 2010, Miyota (Citizen Watch) of Japan introduced a newly developed movement that uses a 3-pronged quartz crystal exclusively for Bulova's Precisionist or Accutron II line.
In April 2013, the Swatch Group launched the sistem51 wristwatch, which has a mechanical movement consisting of only 51 parts and a novel self-winding mechanism.
On July 11, 2013, Eone Timepieces launched its first tactile analog wristwatch, the "Bradley", via Kickstarter, designed primarily for sight-impaired users.
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