Dec 31

Dec 31 Great balls of time!

In the mean time… check out the ball on the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It’s been dropping the ball at 1pm every day since 1833.

One of New York’s honoured New Year’s Eve traditions is the Times Square ‘ball drop’ which starts at 11:59pm on December 31 and ends at precisely 0:00 on New Year’s Day. The ‘time ball’ was originally a visual way to signal time to ships in harbours so they could synchronise their ship clocks - accurate time being a critical way to know your longitude at sea.

Bonus Bubblegum

The New York ball is located on the roof of One Times Square - the headquarters of the New York Times. In 1907, New York Times owner Adolph Ochs commissioned sign manufacturer Artkraft Strauss to build the first time ball to help usher in 1908. It’s been dropped every year except 1942 and 1943 when there were wartime blackouts.

Artkraft Strauss is probably most famous for creating the ‘Smoking Camel’ billboard for Camel Cigarettes.