The First Tick

The first mechanical clocks had a weight that would slowly lower, moving gears which moved a hand which showed the hour. They could only be build in tall towers because the weights needed to fall a great distance or else the clocks would only work for a short amount of time. People were amazed that these clocks were only off about 2 hours a day. Think if our clocks today were off by that much? If we were 2 hours late for school, we could blame it on the clock. While these clocks were inaccurate long ago, some of them were created with such care that they still work today. In Normandy, France, a big clock exists that was built in 1389. In Salisbury, England you can see the oldest clock in the world, built in 1386. Today, cuckoo clocks are still built using a weight-dropping mechanism.