The chronograph is a watch complication that serves the purpose of measuring the elapsed time between two different moments 

It was first created by Louis Moinet in 1816. Moinet was the watchmaker for Napoleon Bonaparte as French Emperor and he developed a chronograph table clock that served as an add-on for astronomical equipment 


The concept, wouldn't return until King Louis XVIII of France had a pocket watch chronograph developed by Nicholas Rieussec to time out horse races which was in 1821


Louis Moinet is also the creator of the first high frequency movement. Later on, Zenith would join both his inventions in a watch called Zenith El Primeiro - a high frequency chronograph 

The first ever chronograph wristwatch is an achievement that belongs to the brand in photo 1 - Longines. Longines created in 1913 the caliber 13.33Z which was effectively the first ever watch movement destinated to putting a chronograph into a wristwatch. This was however a Collumn wheel monopusher design. Intensely fragile yet beautiful 

To deal with the fragility, Gaston Breitling had the Breitling brand developing the world's first 3 pusher chronograph, and to this day, Breitling is synonym with chronographs 

The 3 pusher design was adopted by the entire watch industry greatly contributing to Breitling's prestige but it was still far from reliable 

It wouldn't be until 1933, that we have the first mass adopted reliable caliber - the Venus 103. Which was very popular precisely with Breitling but also Heuer 

Around the same time, competition rose from a guy called Charles Hahn who founded a watch Ebauchés supplier called Landeron (photo 14). This movement would be produced up until 1975 and although the Venus calibers were favored by luxury brands, specially the Venus 188, the Landeron could be found both in affordable watches and luxury watches. In fact, there are still unused units of this movement left due to how long it was made for. 

By 1929, brothers John and Auguste Reymonde renamed their factory to Valjoux S.A. and the most interesting of all mass adopted caliber families started to appear - the Valjoux family. These movements are very crude looking compared to both the Landeron family and the Venus family, yet somewhat more reliable with the increment in reliability compared to the Landeron being negligible but with it being giant when compared to most Venus calibers.

This is because most Venus calibers either used a Collumn wheel setup, or a unusual hammer design being inclusively somewhat reminiscent with a few exceptions, of that one early Longines monopusher chronograph caliber 

On the in-house side which this post doesn't focus on, we had the Lemania calibers which were used in the most extremely luxurious calibers. These calibers can be considered the peak of chronograph calibers and inclusively one of them, still made it into the modern era - the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Is based on a Lemania caliber, that's why it's hand wound. 

Heuer made their own calibers as well, most of which were Lemania or Venus based and would only appear again in upmarket models with entry level chronographs using the Landeron or the Valjoux 

Minerva also made a lot of respectable in-house movements which the brand will still service. These movements were very simple and fuss free compared to any of the other designs thus approached however less professionals feel comfortable with it

Finally we also had in the in-house segment the El Primero caliber which was beautiful to look at and allowed for a higher frequency than any other in a chronograph 

With some nuances it's fair to say the dominance of the market in terms of hand wound movements was the following:

1- Venus: 1920s until the early 1940s 

2- Landeron: 1945 until 1975

3- Valjoux 7733/34: 1975 until 1990


In the 90s,  Signs of the time came around and the preferred technology was now the self rechargin6 automatic chronograph. These movements are thicker than the hand wound variants because on top of the complication, they add a rotor plate else they're not truly automatic 

The 7733 by Valjoux was the main caliber adopted by the industry for this and by the modifications needed to make it automatic, it became the Valjoux 7750.

This movement was so successful that if attracted the attention of ETA who bought Valjoux to be able to supply movements for chronographs. Swatch group in turn purchased ETA. The 775X, was the last time something even resembling of a chronograph movement was made. It's still around but it probably will not have a true successor.

[Article post] Brief history of the Chronograph watch - Simplified. This post has 13 images just a warning