Wake up early

Did you know that the first alarm clock of the United States could only ring at 4 AM? It was created by Levi Hutchins in 1787 in order to wake him for his job. The French inventor Antoine Redier patented the first adjustable alarm clock, more than half a century later, in 1847. The alarm clock was invented in the Ottoman Empire almost 300 years earlier, in 1559, by Taqi al-Din. He described it in his book The Brightest Stars for the Construction of Mechanical Clocks.

The production of the alarm clocks in the US ceased during the World War 2 as the factories were converted over to war work, but they were one of the first items to resume manufacture for civilian use after 2 years in November 1944. By that time, a severe shortage of alarm clocks had developed which caused serious problems in critical jobs due to late arrivals.