Eli5: Historically, time during the night was measured by ‘watches’; eg. First watch, Second watch, etc. How did people determine when one watch ended and the next began?

Question

It can’t be influenced by the moon or stars in the sky, because how would they measure the time during a moonless cloudy night?

Edit: How would, say, 3 common travellers camping on the road measure time at night?

In: 38

Answer 1

AFAIK “watches” are a nautical thing. They’re 4-hour blocks of on-duty time (except for two 2-hour blocks from 4-6 and 4-8 pm known as “dog watches”— those exist to break up the 24 hours into an odd number…otherwise the groups of sailors would fall into a pattern and have the same watch assigned to them forever— with dog watches they will alternate).