Wrist Idea

Excerpt taken From Alberto Santos-Dumont’s Bio:

On October 19, 1901, Santos-Dumont won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs for flying his dirigible number six from the Park Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back under thirty minutes. His victory was celebrated at Maxim’s that evening, and at some point Santos-Dumont complained to his friend Louis Cartier about the difficulty of checking his pocket watch to time his performance. He wanted his friend to come up with an alternative that would permit him to keep both hands on the controls. Cartier went to work on the idea and the result was a watch with a leather band and a small buckle, to be worn on the wrist. Cartier invented the wristwatch for his friend in March of 1904. Santos-Dumont never took off again without his personal Cartier wristwatch and he used it to check his world record for a 220-metre flight, achieved in just twenty-one seconds, on November 12, 1907.