Everything in life is dictated by time, and relying on the place you live, your time is different than somebody someplace else. This hasn’t always been the case. How then was it determined how our time was divided up?
The origins of time zones could be traced to at least one particular change in transportation–the rise of the railroads. Within the late 1800s, when trains became the favorred means of journey across the US, a problem surfaced. Passengers wanted to catch their train at a particular time in their a part of the country, and trains wanted a set time in order that they wouldn’t crash into every other.
Towns usually set their local time by the sun’s movement, so when trains began to chop the journey time between these towns, the time between these areas was vastly different. The railroads had to have different arrival and departure instances for different trains depending on the local time the place the train was coming or going. It became a scheduling mess, and a greater way was needed.
The railroads had been the primary to develop a time zone system in 1883 instead of counting on the federal government. They established four zones throughout the country; the Japanese, Central, Western, and Pacific. These zones are carefully aligned with the zones we now have today. It wasn’t till 1918 that these time zones became official under the Standard Time Act. This was also when daylight saving time was established.
A 12 months after the railroads set their time zones, delegates from 25 international locations met in Washington DC to establish time zones worldwide and across completely different countries. They set the usual starting point (the Prime Meridian) on the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. With each 15 degrees longitude change, the time changed by one hour. Going east an hour was gained, and by touring west an hour was decreased. The outcome was 24 time zones that covered the complete world.
The choice of Greenwich because the Prime Meridian was because of its commonity, though other international locations were using other longitude reference points. The observatory had a file of accurate and reliable navigation data used within the shipping trade, and Britain had more ships and shipping site visitors than the remainder of the world combined at that time. It wasn’t wholly adopted by each country proper away, however. The French used Paris as their Prime Meridian until 1911.
So who finally decides what the time zones are? It’s really determined by particular person countries. While many international locations adopted the hourly time zones, there were still many variations as totally different nations decided on half or quarter-hour deviations from these zones.
Many international locations have modified their time zones to fit their needs. In 1949, China’s communist government moved the country’s 5 time zones into one. The time for the whole country was based on the time in Beijing, and the reason was to determine national unity. There are other oddities with time zones around the world. In the summer, Australia has not only vertical time zones like we are acquainted with however horizontal ones as well, and Russia really covers twelve time zones but only acknowledges 9 of them.
The present time zones are removed from uniform, and many other strange time zones crop up because of daylight saving time. This would require a wholly separate discussion.