Big Ben
When you visit London, one of the first things you see is Big Ben, the famous clock which is more than a hundred years old. Big Ben takes its name from sir Benjamin Hall who was responsible for making the of clock. Sir Benjamin was very tall man and since no one think of a name for the very high tower, for fun, it got the name of Big Ben.
The minute hands on the four faces of the clock are about four meters long.
They jump forward seventeen centimeters every half minute. However Big Ben is not only of immense size, but is extremely accurate as well. The clock is checked twice every day by Greenwich Observatory.
One can hear the sound of Big Ben all over the world on the radio. The first broadcast of this sound was on 21st December 1923. Once so many birds were sitting on one of the minute hands that it could not move. That day Big Ben was so slow that people did not hear it on the radio.
Big Ben is hardly ever wrong. Most people in Britain put their watches right at 10 o'clock ...