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The keeping of time dates back to the beginning of civilization. Historians ( believe that portable sundials were probably developed in Egypt and Mesopotamia before 1500 BC. One of the first actual watches was created in Italy almost 3000 years later, around 1524 AD. But these timepieces were nothing like the watches we've come to know today, and normally had to be wound at least twice a day. The implementation of a spiral balance spring in 1675 AD changed watch making forever. This innovation allowed the accuracy of a watch to go from fractions of an hour to fractions of a minute. With a spiral balance spring, a watch would only have to be wound once a day instead of twice. Throughout the 1700's, watch technology continued to develop. John Harrison made one of the most significant advancements in 1761. He made a clock that was so accurate it was used to measure longitude during sea voyages. Over an 80-day period, Harrison sailed from England to Jamaica and his watch lost only 5 seconds. Harrison 's clock, called the Marine Chronograph, was a great breakthrough in the timekeeping industry, and saved many ships from crashing (many crashes and deaths prior to this breakthrough were due to faulty time and direction equipment). More modern methods like using jewels as bearings were also developed in this time frame. Self-winding watches began to be produced in the last quarter of the century and as the 1800's were ushered in, the pocket chronometer became a readily available...