Revolutionary decimal time

Name: Revolutionary decimal time
Start: 1793
End: 1795
Location: Paris

1793–1795 · Paris · Europe · Science

Ten hours a day, 100 minutes an hour: France remakes time

Along with the metre, revolutionary France brought in decimal time: ten hours a day, 100 minutes an hour, 100 seconds a minute. Clockmakers built ten-hour dials, but habit won, and the requirement was dropped within two years.

State: French First Republic, French First Republic

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century

Did you know

France once had clocks on which noon came at five. The Revolution split the day into 10 hours of 100 minutes, but decimal time never caught on and was dropped in 1795, while the metre and the kilogram stayed. Share →

The metre is a slice of the Earth: one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator. Two astronomers spent six years surveying the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona, through revolution and war, to fix it. Share →

Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)

Eastern Europe & Russia

c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — 25 years earlier
1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — 21 years earlier
1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — 10 years earlier
1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — 19 years later

Africa

1798 Battle of the Pyramids — 5 years later
1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — 11 years later
1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — 12 years later

Asia

1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — 22 years later
1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — 24 years later

Americas

1776 US Declaration of Independence — 17 years earlier
1787 US Constitution — 6 years earlier
1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — 2 years earlier
1803 Louisiana Purchase — 10 years later
1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — 17 years later

Oceania

1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — 25 years earlier
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