This year, Revolution turns 20. Two decades of chronicling watches, people and ideas have given us a front-row seat to a remarkable story: how an age-old craft has both preserved its soul and reinvented itself for the 21st century. To celebrate, we’ve chosen over 100 names and milestones that, for us, define the era so far. From leaders to watches, you can see the whole list here.

Who says a watch dial has to follow the rules? In 2003, master watchmaker Franck Muller was on vacation, and increasingly irritated by the rules and regulations of the resort, was inspired to invent a wristwatch that defied standard timekeeping, just because it could.

“All the information shown on traditional complications can be read off your computer,” says Muller, who had already created over 30 patents and world premieres in the years leading up to the Crazy Hours. Acknowledging that most complications today serve “has no real pragmatic function,” he wanted to create “a type of watch that offered an experience you could not have with an electronic device.”

Crazy Hours turned timekeeping on its head — scattering the numbers on the dial in seeming chaos, it looks like the results of watchmaker’s chemically fueled bender at first glance. But there’s brilliant method to this madness. Thanks to a clever jumping hour mechanism, the hour hand obediently jumps to the correct out-of-sequence numeral each time the minute hand completes its cycle. Because the 12 is not in its usual position, this effect is less obvious to spot, but each subsequent “disordered” numeral is actually in an equidistant position for the hourly jump. The result is that the time is perfectly accurate — it just doesn’t go in the expected order. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets haute horlogerie meets your most bonkers ADHD friend.

The 12 is not in its usual position, this effect is less obvious to spot, but each subsequent “disordered” numeral is actually in an equidistant position for the hourly jump

This whimsical complication was more than a novelty; it was a horological statement. Breaking the rules is a privilege that can be afforded to those who have mastered them, and the “Master of Complications” had certainly earned his right to mess with the rulebook. Crazy Hours also injected a much-needed sense of playfulness and irreverence into watchmaking. Watches are fun, and they should feel fun. Crazy Hours did just that — proving that out-of-the-box ideas have their place in the world of watches — and doing so with something that had been overlooked for centuries, namely the standard 12-hour layout and order of numerals on a dial.

Franck Muller Crazy Hours

Tech Specs: Franck Muller Crazy Hours

Movement: Self-winding Caliber FM 2001; 42-hour power reserve
Functions: Jumping hours (hour hand jumps to next hour numeral in a non-sequential order); central minutes and seconds
Case: 39.6mm × 55.4mm × 11.8mm; stainless steel; water resistant to 30m
Dial: Sunray guilloché with oversized hand-painted Arabic numerals in non-sequential order
Strap: Leather