Prior to that, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by a well-known clock on a church steeple, for example, or in a jeweler's window.
The new standard time system was not immediately embraced by all, however. The train at right is a Union locomotive used during the American Civil War, photo ca. The first man in the United States to sense the growing need for time standardization was an amateur astronomer, William Lambert, who as early as presented to Congress a recommendation for the establishment of time meridians.
Dowd revised his proposal in , and it was adopted virtually unchanged by U. Detroit kept local time until , when the City Council decreed that clocks should be put back 28 minutes to Central Standard Time. Half the city obeyed, while half refused. After considerable debate, the decision was rescinded and the city reverted to sun time.
A derisive offer to erect a sundial in front of the city hall was referred to the Committee on Sewers. Then, in , Central Standard Time was adopted by city vote. Before , the Chinese had five time zones, but after the Communist Party came to power in the government required the entire country to operate on Beijing Standard Time for the sake of national unity.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. Even so, the French defined their civil time as Paris Mean Time minus 9 minutes and 21 seconds. In other words, this was the same time as GMT.
Standard time , in terms of time zones, was not established in United States law until the Act of March 19, The act also established daylight saving time in the nation. Daylight saving time was repealed in , but standard time in time zones remained in law, with the Interstate Commerce Commission ICC having the authority over time zone boundaries. Many countries started using hourly time zones by the late s. Many nations today use standard time zones, but some places use 30 or 45 minute deviations from standard time.
Some countries such as China use a single time zone even though their territory extends beyond the 15 degrees of longitude.
Topics: Time Zone , History , Timekeeping. A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 21, , described an incident where a debtor had been ordered to report to a Boston courtroom at on the previous morning.
The newspaper story concluded:. Incidents like that demonstrated the need for everyone to adopt the new standard time. However, in some places, there was lingering resistance. An item in the New York Times the following summer, on June 28, , detailed how the city of Louisville, Kentucky, had given up on standard time.
Louisville set all its clocks ahead 18 minutes to return to solar time. The problem in Louisville was that while the banks adapted to the time standard of the railroad, other businesses did not. So there was persistent confusion about when business hours actually ended each day. Of course, throughout the s most businesses saw the value of moving permanently to standard time. By the s standard time and time zones were accepted as ordinary.
Britain and France had each adopted national time standards decades earlier, but as they were smaller countries, there was no need for more than one-time zone. The successful adoption of standard time in the United States in set an example of how time zones could spread across the globe. The following year a time convention in Paris began the work of designated time zones worldwide.
Eventually, the time zones around the globe we know today came into use. Today, most people simply take time zones for granted and have no idea that time zones were actually a solution devised by the railroads. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
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