They’ve shown up in a number of movies, including Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. But a wristwatch in Lawrence of Arabia wouldn’t be a blooper, for the simple reason that wristwatches already existed in that time period, and the war made them very popular.
It would take a global war to catapult the wristwatch onto the arms of men the world over. Though the wristwatch wasn’t exactly invented for World War I, it was during this era that it evolved from a useful but fringe piece of military kit to a nearly universal necessity. So why this war? Firstly, the development of the wristwatch was hastened by the style of warfare that soon became symbolic of the First World War: The trenches.
Of course, there’s always this…
