Bulova
From Free net encyclopedia
Bulova is a New York based corporation making watches and clocks. It was founded in 1875 by Joseph Bulova and is now part of the Loews Corporation.
It is famous for a number of horological innovations, perhaps most notably the Accutron watch which used resonating tuning forks as a means of regulating the time keeping function.
The word is possibly related to Bulawa, a Polish word for a type of mace.
In July 1941 they paid $9 for the first television commercial on WNBT during a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.
They also made one of the first two-time movements ever to travel into space, a subject open to competing claims from the two companies involved - Omega and Bulova. The Omega Speedmaster chronograph wristwatch was designated by NASA for use by the astronauts in all manned space missions. This particular watch is still being made and is informally known as the "Moon Watch". So Omega can legitimately claim to be the first wristwatch in space.
However all the instrument panel clocks and time-keeping mechanisms in the spacecraft on those space missions were Bulova Accutrons with tuning fork movements.