Who Invented TIME?!

Quill missed his train by one minute, and his watch was RIGHT. So who decided what time it is? ⏰ Quill rides back 3,500 years to find out. He starts with an Egyptian stone that needed turning round at lunchtime, then Babylonians counting in sixties and a medieval clock with no face and no hands. Then come a pendulum, a giant pocket watch that saved sailors, a Bristol clock with TWO minute hands, a woman who sold time door to door, the Day of Two Noons, and a vote in 1884 that France sat out. From there it's summer time, caesium atoms, and the leap second… which the world just voted to scrap. 🧡 Got a question for Quill? Leave it in the comments. The best ones become episodes! 00:00 Late again 00:27 Shadows 01:29 Night 02:14 Sixty 03:17 Gears 04:16 Sea 05:12 Every town 06:21 One world clock 07:47 Summer time 08:41 Atoms 09:56 So who decided? 📚 Sources Egyptian shadow clock (History of Science Museum, Oxford): https://www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk/node/9784 Unequal hours and sundials (Royal Museums Greenwich): https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/time/su... Decoding the star charts of ancient Egypt (Scientific American): https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar... The water clock of Amenhotep III (McMaster, Ancient Egyptian Astronomy): https://aea.mcmaster.ca/index.php/en/... Egyptian water clock (Science Museum Group): https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup... The oldest surviving water clock (HistoryofInformation.com): https://www.historyofinformation.com/... The ancient reason there are 60 minutes in an hour (BBC Future, via The Star): https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/world... Salisbury Cathedral clock: https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk... Huygens's pendulum clock, 1656 (HistoryofInformation.com): https://historyofinformation.com/deta... A beginner's guide to longitude (Australian National Maritime Museum): https://sea.museum/article/a-beginner... John Harrison (Linda Hall Library): https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/... John Harrison (Science Museum Group): https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup... Bristol's clock with two minute hands (Free Range History): https://freerangehistory.substack.com... UK time zone history (timeanddate.com): https://www.timeanddate.com/time/uk/t... Ruth Belville (Linda Hall Library): https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/... Standard time, 1883 (Chicago Public Library): https://www.chipublib.org/standardtim... Standard time and the Day of Two Noons (Union Pacific Railroad Museum): https://www.uprrmuseum.org/uprrm/exhi... The 1884 Meridian Conference (BBC, via History News Network): https://historynewsnetwork.org/articl... French decimal time (Khalili Collections): https://khalilicollections.org/collec... France's 1911 legal time, law text (IANA tz list): https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/202... China's single time zone (Guinness World Records): https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/... Clocks and the First World War (Western Front Association): https://www.westernfrontassociation.c... When do the clocks go back? (Royal Museums Greenwich): https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/time/wh... Louis Essen (Linda Hall Library): https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/... A brief history of timekeeping (Physics World): https://physicsworld.com/a/a-brief-hi... Leap second scrapped from 2027 (Euronews): https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/16/g... Music (Pixabay): "Time Is Ticking" (chaoticwinds), "Goldminer's Daughter" (victoryolympiaday), "Music Box Twilight" (playlistsons), "Playful Marimba Background" (Joris Vermeer), "Funny Medieval Instrumental" (vifotofreesounds), "Free as a Bird" (Trygve Larsen / nesrality), "Seven Seas" (juliush), "Against the Clock" (Luis Humanoide), "It's Ragtime Baby" (Kaazoom), "Sunny Ukulele" (331music), "Bells Celesta Arpeggio" (Gregor Quendel) #QuillsQuestions #time #history #clocks #science #animation