Timeline Watch
1952

Breitling Manual Winding

US explodes first thermonuclear bomb at Enewetak Island

1958 Breitling ref. 1902, manual winding movement cal. L523n, 36.2mm. case.

This is not a typical Breitling, most are tool watches, but in the 50s and 60s Breitling made a lot of dress watches, they were just lost!

Breitling has been a leading innovator in high quality stopwatches and chronographs and helped define how chronographs look and function until today.

Breitling launched the first wrist chronograph with a pusher at 2:00 in 1915, presented the first dual pusher wrist chronograph with pushers at 2:00 and 4:00 in 1933 and was one of the first manufacturers to recognize the need of early aviators for wrist watches incorporating such devices.

In 1942 Breitling introduced the Chronomat, the worlds first Smart Watch, a chronograph with a rotating logarithmic slide rule that allowed complex calculations with the turn of your fingers.

Throughout the 1930s to 50s, Breitling continued creating chronographs with different scales to suit different professions, such as tachymeters for production engineers and drivers, and pulsometers for doctors.