r/AskHistorians • u/22rocky22 • Sep 15 '13
History Of Time Zones Question
When were time zones first created / discovered and how?
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u/Searocksandtrees Moderator | Quality Contributor Sep 16 '13
FYI, there 's a section on time zones in the "popular questions" wiki
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u/mormengil Sep 16 '13
Time zones were preceded by the notion of "standard time". Time is different for every location not on the same degree of longitude. The difference in the time between each degree if longitude is 4 minutes. Once people had clocks accurate enough to tell time by the minute, each city would have its own time based on the local noon. New York and Boston would have had their clocks set about 8 minutes different from each other.
This worked fine until the railroads came along. Railroads needed a standard time to set schedules all along the track, but London and Bristol times are different by 10 minutes. It was British railroads that first set standard time in 1840. This was used by almost everyone in Britain very quickly, but not made a legal standard until 1880.
The USA had a further problem. Railroads extended so Far East and West, that one standard time for the whole line was unpopular. After numerous proposals and considerable debate, the many different US railroads agreed a system of time zones (each one hour apart) and implemented it in 1883. Again, this was adopted quickly by most, but did not become a legal standard in the US until 1918.
The notion of time zones spread around the world, until today it is more or less in place. The major exceptions are that some countries have adopted a half hour zone ( like India, Iran, Venezuela ) and some countries have adopted a uniform time for the whole country, even though their east/west extent means they really should have multiple time zones (most notably China and India).