Hearty thanks to Holzkern for sponsoring today's sidequest! Get unique watches and jewelry from Holzkern with 15% off using the promo code "SIDEQUEST15" until September 24: www.holzkern.com/en_world/sidequest
Wow, you took what could have been an awesome topic with a huge amount of genius inventions to explain, and turned it into a short list of totally unexplained inventions serving to barely separate 2 ad reads in 6 minutes.
I hope he gets the message about the double ad. A sponsor slot at the end to pay the bills is more than fair, but two slots in a 6 minute video is excessive and makes it feel like an ad
Sundials get all the love, but the first worn "watch" was probably a _horologium nocturnum_ , which could be worn as a pendant. You lined up the pole star in the central hole and moved an arm to line with Kochab to get your local time. They also could be used to predict tides.
The earliest "hour glass" was a bag of sand with a hole in it. The reason we don't see hour "GLASS" before a certain time is due to the glass part of it. It was hard enough to form glass as it is, but forming it into an hour glass shape that you could see through that also had a very precise diameter so it was useful to let sand pass at a steady rate was very difficult and expensive in the early days. Again, a bag of sand was much easier and a scale that would, by how much it had moved, tell you the time. And of course, delayed mechanisms used bags of sand as well. A delayed trigger for a ballista aimed at a Chinese escape artist for example.
Nicely done as always, but this episode felt more like a high-quality ad than an actual SideQuest episode. Makes you wonder if the sponsor came first or the idea for the video. Oh well, hoping this isn't going to be a trend moving forward.
It bugs me that this video doesn’t actually answer the question, instead it just talks about the history of timekeeping with a long ass ad for a watch brand shoved in the middle (and is probably why this video was made in the first place). The proto pocket watch referenced in the video was made by a German Watchmaker called Peter Henlein around the late 16th century. The first two major advancements in portable watch design which allowed for the slimmer and more accurate portable watch movements were know today were made in the mid to late 17th century by a few different people, most notably the balance spring and wheel (the wheel which goes back and forth in a watch to regulate the movement of the pallet fork) and the lever escapement (the most common form of movement escapement). That’s also when we start to see names like Breguet pop up and the ‘modern’ era of horology began. The first actual wrist watch, which I feel captures the essence of the question “who wore the first watch” was a wrist watch made by Breguet for the queen of Naples in 1810. It’s worth noting that the concept of wearing a watch on the wrist was predominantly a feminine thing as the movements of the time were too delicate and affected by motion to be worn every day as a modern watch would allow, they were mainly fancy jewellery pieces (what’s changed lmao). Pocket watches reigned supreme as the functional way of keeping time until the late 19th century when military needs dictated that a wrist worn watch would be infinitely more practical for tactical timing and use on the battlefield, but these early wrist watches were simply just pocket watches with a strap on them, this meant they weren’t the most accurate things in the world and the aforementioned problem of damage and inaccuracy were common. This began to change in the early 20th century when characters such as Louis Cartier started to design watches with movements designed to be worn on the wrist. I personally argue that the first person to ever wear something approaching what we would define as a wrist watch was Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont, who wore a watch designed by Cartier in the early 20th century. This shift was also brought along by people such as Hans Wilsforf (who started Rolex) who started pushing the concept of watches worn on the wrist instead of held in the pocket. That’s why Rolex is so ‘young’ in the watchmaking world, Hans was super infatuated with the idea of wrist worn watches being the way of the future and pushed for movement manufacturers to develop movements with wrist wearing first and foremost in mind. Funnily enough, the first Wilsdorf and Davis watches were looked at as similar to wearable technology today, a weird fad thing that wouldn’t really take off. From there, the three major leaps forward in horological design were the first waterproof watch in 1926 by Rolex (it was called the Rolex Oyster, so that’s why all Rolexes are called ‘oyster’), the first automatic movement in 1922 by John Harwood (NOT Rolex, but they did perfect the design into what we know today) and the first Incabloc shock protection movements in 1934.
I like your Videos and Your style, but i have to say, the ad Part was too mutch and too long for your videos. Interesting Video-idea, Even if its a sponsor-related, but more Information and less ad would be better i think. This way it feels like an idea by the sponsor, done with Not that mutch more reason than that. If i remember candels with marks where a thing to measure Time too, and at least looking up the First wrist Watch would be nice Too, even a better Connection to the sponsor if You want to See it that way. I hope this helps a Bit, keep up the great work, i like The Channel a lot :)
Nearly a third of this video was an advertisement. 😬 The watch company and Patreon. I don’t begrudge him for making money. I love his videos. This seems a bit egregious, though.
Fun fact: The name "watch" comes from when sailors would use the Pomander watch during their "watch". A Pomander watch was also known as a "Nuremberg egg".
The 1250s are absolutely not the "Early Renaissance." That's just the Middle Ages, man. I don't know why people are so hesitant to attribute genius to the people of the Middle Ages. Medieval times were a period of astounding development in Europe!
And even more so outside of it, especially in the Islamic world, which is why this time period is called the Islamic Golden Age. As a medieval historian, I think it's long past time to do away with the misleading and inaccurate idea of the Dark Ages. While some use the term to describe the lack of historical records and/or societal collapse in the 5th-7th centuries, the term has given the general public the notion that from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance, humanity was compromised of illiterate unwashed peasants living in mud hovels. Sorry for my rant, it's one of my biggest pet peeves!
@@Cara-39 No worries, dude, it's a pet peeve of mine too. Even if you limit the "Dark Ages" moniker to just Christendom--thereby ignoring the, as you say, efflorescence of Islamic civilization--that strikes against the fact that the Eastern Romans/Byzantium were doing quite well and not in any sort of "Dark Age."
This comment section is peak Dunning-Kruger. Where should I start? NO, the Middle Ages did not have "astounding" development lmfao. 😂🤣 They were so bad in this regard, take any two centuries after and they will have the same, if not more development in a fifth of the time. Or take any three centuries in Classical or Late Antiquity for that matter.
@@Cara-39 1. The Middle Ages are only valid in a European context, as from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance. 2. The Islamic Golden Age was just the first century of Abbasid rule, lmao 😂. Anything beyond it renders the concept of a golden age have no meaning anymore. Some would say even less, like until the Mutazilist persecutions or the Fourth Fitna.
I hate to be that guy, that you forgot candle clocks, used in Asia from 500 AD to the 10th century, some would last for multiple days and accurately marked the time regardless of weather or time of day, making them a major improvement over sundials for keeping accurate time for astromers and night watchmen.
I'm just starting to wander if they get a sponsor that fits their video perfectly or.......If they make a video because they found a sponsor. a bit of a shame as I really enjoy(ed) their content
What a poorly presented mash of facts. You mentioned that the hourglass was the next big chronometric leap after sundials but say that there is no evidence of them prior to 1338. Then later in the video you guys go over several devices from the 1200s that are obviously represent large leaps. While I love your animation style, after each video I'm struck with the feeling that the only reason the video was made was to serve as a commercial for the sponsor
I felt the same way, a double sponsor slot in a 6 minute video is excessive and I feel like there was more to say. For example, the first wrist worn watch
The first wrist watch was ordered by Brazilian polymath Santos Dummont, the first man to fly an aeroplane, when he needed the pocket watch to be more fixed in his arm so he could chronometer his own times. By the way, technically Santos Dummont's aeroplane is technically the first exoskeleton considering how he would connect the whole thing to different parts of his body and would control the plane as an extension of his own body.
The first men's wristwatch, women had been wearing them since the early 1800's. "As far as history knows, the very first wristwatch was designed for the Queen Caroline Murat of Naples in 1810 by Abraham-Louis Breguet."
SideQuest u missed India's achievements in Time. Measured through Solar and Luna Calendar. India aslo had large sundial in Rajasthan. i am dissapointed
I don't mind ads in videos, and you certainly give your own flair to them, but considering the length of the video, don't you think it was a bit too much? To matters worse, it feels like the whole theme of the video was thought up just so you could take this ad. Do better, and don't take advantage of your audience because right now it kinda feels that you are...
Along with an elephant whose name in Arabic meant “the father of intelligence,” Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid presented Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne with a mechanical clock powered by water in 807. At noon a weight dropped, bells sounded, and twelve brass horsemen emerged from twelve windows.
I love your content, but I do feel the need to complain this time. I understand that Holzkern sponsored the video, but the way in which the publicity was incorporated really felt like you rubbed it on my face. I suggest that you only mention your sponsor 1 time and that you leave it at the very end or the very beginning.
The disturbing thing is the it probably isn't actually 2023 considering that the age of the world is an approximation and humanity didn't record time for the first couple thousand years of its life.
The first modern wrist watch that we would recognize today as a modern design of a wrist watch was made in 1810. Watches before that were not worn on the wrist in the same way a wrist watch would be worn today. Even though the first came in 1810, they were extremely expensive and not very popular and pocket watches mostly dominated the market for at least the next century until the early 20th century when finally wrist watch movements became cheap enough to make in large numbers and more in fashion with the times to be much more mainstream.
Ummm, the first mechanical clock was the one gifted to Charlemagne from Harun al-Rashid..... and there is a possibility that an earlier mechanical clock was inented in China in the 8th century AD
