Ever wondered why do we divide our days into 24 hours and not, say, 10? Who came up with the clock, or how it got refined to the one we have today?
To give a short summary, our 24-hour day originated from the ancient Egyptians who were the first to divide day-time into 10 hours by measuring them with devices such as shadow clocks. They added a twilight hour at the beginning of the day and another one at the end of the daytime while dividing the night-time in 12 hours, based on the observations of stars. This was the start of our 24 our day.
The hours were then subdivided into 60 minutes by the ancient Babylonians who loved using numbers to the base 60. For example, they used III II (using slightly different strokes) which meant three times 60 plus two or 182.
To find more about this interesting question, you can watch the video from the “Big Questions” hosted by Craig Benzine.
Now that’s a pretty cool answer to a seemingly simple question!