On New Year's Eve, Americans may turn on their televisions and have a ball watching a sparkling orb be lowered from a flagpole at the top of One Times Square. The conclusion of the ball drop has become the annual signal that the clock has struck midnight on the first day of the year.
But, while the Times Square tradition dates back to the early 20th century, the idea of using a ball drop to mark time is much more than just a fun holiday activity.
The first “time balls” were built in England, in the Portsmouth harbor in 1829 and at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1833, according to Alexis McCrossen, author of Marking Modern Times: A History of Clocks, Watches, and Other Timekeepers in American Life and professor of history at Southern Methodist University (SMU). (The Greenwich one still exists.)
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