1510
This was when the first watches were made. The drum-style pocket watches only had an hour hand, and were not accurate enough to display minutes.

1675
The first time minute hands appeared on pocket watches.

1868
The first wristwatch was made by Patek Philippe. At first worn only by women, original wristwatches were fragile; any sudden movement could damage the mechanism. This eventually changed with the invention of waterproof casings.

1880
The Austrian Imperial navy issued wristwatches to all its officers - the first sign that men had finally accepted wristwatches.

1912
The Longines watch company made the first wire-cutting timing device for athletic meets.

1927
Ms Mercedes Gleitze, a London typist and part-time professional swimmer from Brighton in the United Kingdom, wore a Rolex Oyster - the first wristwatch to be considered waterproof - as she swam the English Channel. Both swimmer and watch had a successful crossing.

1932
Longines built the first aviator-specific watch: The Lindbergh wristwatch was made for Charles Lindbergh. It showed the time in degrees of an arc, making it easier to read longitude accurately.

1953
Sir Edmund Hilary became the first man to reach the summit of Mt Everest - wearing a Rolex Oyster.

1957

The first battery-powered watch was released by the Hamilton Watch Company. This was the world's first commercially available electric watch.

1966
The start of the quartz revolution, when Girard-Perregaux introduced the first Swiss quartz watch to the world. Quartz watches drastically increased watch precision and reliability, while reducing cost. They also brought Japanese watchmakers, such as Citizen, Seiko and Casio, to the fore.

The Omega Speedmaster, now called the Omega Speedmaster Professional, became the first watch in the world to be worn in outer space, on the wrist of Edward H. White on the Gemini 4 mission.

1969
American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon wearing an Omega Speedmaster. The watch not only had to survive extreme temperatures and the lower gravity on the Moon's surface, but it also had to ensure failsafe timekeeping throughout the mission.

1970
The first digital watch, a Pulsar prototype, was developed jointly by Hamilton Watch Company and Electro-Data. Originally a manufacturer of microwave products, the digital watch was Electro-Data's first foray into making consumer products.

1973
Seiko introduced the first six-digit liquid crystal display (LCD) watch. LCD watches use less battery power.

1982
Casio introduces the first digital-analog watch on the market.

1990
Atomic watches hit the market. These wristwatches receive a radio signal from one of the national atomic clock facilities around the world. The radio signal tells the wristwatch exactly what time it is, precise to a fraction of a nanosecond. It will also reset itself in temperate countries when daylight saving changes. Atomic watches can be as cheap as quartz watches.

1999
A Patek Phillipe watch that belonged to Henry Graves, Jr. became the most expensive timepiece ever sold (top) when it fetched US$11,002,500 (approximately S$18.7 million) at a Sotheby's auction in New York City. The Supercomplication gold watch weighs 0.7 kg and has two faces, nine dials, 18 pointers, and displays 24 types of information, including a rotating picture of the stars and phases of the moon over New York City on any given night.

2002
For 60 seconds on Wednesday, Feb 20, 2002, time on digital watches read in perfect symmetry: 20:02, 20/02, 2002. The next time this will happen is at 21:12, on 21/12, 2112.