On November 18, 1883, North America experienced "The Day of Two Noons."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Sun Nov 19, 2023, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Hat tip, Fox News

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

On this day in history, November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address

Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in US history on Nov. 19, 1863

By Erica Lamberg Fox News
Published November 19, 2023 12:02am EST

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, NOVEMBER 18, 1883, NORTH AMERICAN RAILROADS CREATE TIME ZONES, RESHAPE GLOBAL LIFE

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LIFESTYLE
On this day in history, November 18, 1883, North American railroads create time zones, reshape global life

Brazen effort to bring sanity to cross-continental rail travel governs many aspects of life today

By Kerry J. Byrne Fox News
Published November 18, 2023 12:02am EST

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Time zone

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History

The apparent position of the Sun in the sky, and thus solar time, varies by location due to the spherical shape of the Earth. This variation corresponds to four minutes of time for every degree of longitude, so for example when it is solar noon in London, it is about 10 minutes before solar noon in Bristol, which is about 2.5 degrees to the west.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded in 1675, established Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the mean solar time at that location, as an aid to mariners to determine longitude at sea, providing a standard reference time while each location in England kept a different time.

Railway time

Main article: Railway time

Timekeeping on North American railroads in the 19th century was complex. Each railroad used its own standard time, usually based on the local time of its headquarters or most important terminus, and the railroad's train schedules were published using its own time. Some junctions served by several railroads had a clock for each railroad, each showing a different time.



1913 time zone map of the United States, showing boundaries very different from today

Charles F. Dowd proposed a system of hourly standard time zones for North American railroads around 1863, although he published nothing on the matter at that time and did not consult railroad officials until 1869. In 1870 he proposed four ideal time zones having north–south borders, the first centered on Washington, D.C., but by 1872 the first was centered on meridian 75° west of Greenwich, with natural borders such as sections of the Appalachian Mountains. Dowd's system was never accepted by North American railroads. Instead, U.S. and Canadian railroads implemented a version proposed by William F. Allen, the editor of the Traveler's Official Railway Guide. The borders of its time zones ran through railroad stations, often in major cities. For example, the border between its Eastern and Central time zones ran through Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Charleston. It was inaugurated on Sunday, November 18, 1883, also called "The Day of Two Noons", when each railroad station clock was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone.

The North American zones were named Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Within a year 85% of all cities with populations over 10,000 (about 200 cities) were using standard time. A notable exception was Detroit (located about halfway between the meridians of Eastern and Central time), which kept local time until 1900, then tried Central Standard Time, local mean time, and Eastern Standard Time (EST) before a May 1915 ordinance settled on EST and was ratified by popular vote in August 1916. The confusion of times came to an end when standard time zones were formally adopted by the U.S. Congress in the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918.

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[Chainfire]

1. I live very near a timezone border. It makes for interesting scheduling with people on the other side of the river.

It is dealt with by the locals by talking about "fast time" or "slow time" instead of referring to Eastern or Central.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

2. Also, Sanford Fleming

Sir Sandford Fleming FRSC KCMG (January 7, 1827 – July 22, 1915) was a Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor.

Inventor of worldwide standard time

Fleming is credited with "the initial effort that led to the adoption of the present time meridians".[12] After missing a train while travelling in Ireland in 1876 because a printed schedule listed p.m. instead of a.m., he proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire world, conceptually located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian. He later called this time "Cosmopolitan time" and later still "Cosmic Time".[13] In 1876 he wrote a memoir "Terrestrial Time" where he proposed 24 time zones, each an hour wide or 15 degrees of longitude. The zones were labelled A-Y, excluding J, and arbitrarily linked to the Greenwich meridian, which was designated G. All clocks within each zone would be set to the same time as the others, and between zones the alphabetic labels could be used as common notation. So for example cosmopolitan time G:45 would map to local time 14:45 in one zone and 15:45 in the next.[14][15]

In two papers "Time reckoning" and "Longitude and Time Reckoning" presented at a meeting of the Canadian Institute in Toronto on February 8, 1879, Fleming revised his system to link with the anti-meridian of Greenwich (the 180th meridian). He suggested that a prime meridian be chosen and analyzed shipping numbers to suggest Greenwich as the meridian.[16][17] Fleming's two papers were considered so important that in June 1879 the British Government forwarded copies to eighteen foreign countries and to various scientific bodies in England.[18]

Fleming went on to advocate his system at several major international conferences including the Geographical Congress at Venice in 1881, a meeting of the Geodetic Association at Rome in 1883, and the International Meridian Conference of 1884.[19] The International Meridian Conference accepted the Greenwich Meridian and a universal day of 24 hours beginning at Greenwich midnight. However, the conference's resolution specified that the universal day "shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable". The conference also refused to accept his zones, stating that they were a local issue outside its purview.[20]

Fleming authored the pamphlet "Time-Reckoning for the 20th Century",[21] published by the Smithsonian Institution in its annual report for 1886.[22]

By 1929, all major countries in the world had accepted time zones. In the present day, UTC offsets divide the world into zones, and military time zones assign letters to the 24 hourly zones, similarly to Fleming's system.[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandford_Fleming

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Great stuff. Thanks. NT