Somebody asked my mom – in the comments to this post at her blog (I just love saying that) – a question about time keeping in old times. That seemed an interesting topic to spend five minutes on.
If you are to read only one article, I suggest it to be the History of Watches. Here is a somewhat smaller time line. Here is another one. Wikipedia has more about watches.
The executive summary: first pocket watch has been created in 16th century. Until then, everybody used sun dials and other non-precise methods for time telling.
Beep. Beep. The five minutes is over.