When Did Time Zones Become a Thing_ (Short Animated Documentary)

As you'll know, Earth is divided into time zones. But when did the idea of a time zone come about and when was the current de-formalised system of time zones created? So, first of all, people have known for a very long time that the world is round, and thus that it was daytime on different parts of Earth at different times. The thing is, for the overwhelming majority of human history, it was completely irrelevant. Because when you were travelling, by foot, by ship or by horse, you would move too slowly to notice a difference. So when did time zones become a broader concept that mattered to the average person? Well, it happened around the mid-19th century and was down to two major technological advancements. The first being the railways, because it was considered somewhat important not to have two trains on the same track at the same time. And the second was the telegraph. So, the first country to introduce a time zone was the United Kingdom. This happened in 1847 when railway operators switched from the numerous local times, which were often several minutes off of each other, to Greenwich Mean Time. This was regulated by the Greenwich Observatory, who had a permanent telegraph link to the railway stations across the country and would update them with accurate times to set their clocks to. Now, just because the railways adopted these measures didn't mean the rest of the country did, and the process of creating a unified time for the nation took many decades. And in fact, the primary pusher for this wasn't business, but workers, unions and their parliamentary representatives. There was a fairly common practice of factory owners buying clocks that intentionally ran slow during the day, so that their workers would work ten and a half hours whilst only believing they worked ten. And another reason was the desire to control when alcohol could be sold. In order to legislate for both of these, time had to be standardised. A process completed with the 1880 Definition of Time Act, which split the United Kingdom into two time zones. Greenwich Mean Time and Dublin Mean Time, which was 25 minutes behind. The same process happened shortly afterwards in the United States, which itself adopted what's called Standard Time in 1883. This was the result of discussions between American and Canadian railroad tycoons who had collectively decided to split continental North America into five time zones, later reduced to four. These time zones were wildly different to the ones used today, and also the American government and public weren't consulted. In the end, there wasn't much the US government could do about it, and so in 1918 it made it official and passed it into law. So what about globally? Well, after the US adopted Standard Time in 1883, President Chester A. Arthur called for a convention to standardise time across international borders. This saw delegations from the world's great powers, and also Liberia, who discussed which country would be home to the Universal Time. And the country selected was the United Kingdom, much to the annoyance of the French delegation who refused to accept this change and continued to use their own parish time until 1911 when they reluctantly signed up to the international standard. And thus, the international system of standardised time zones was created, and over the next century, the world's nations signed up to it. The last one being Liberia, despite having agreed to it nearly a century prior. I hope you enjoyed this episode and a special thanks to all my Patreon supporters. 90 years, Liberia. Get it together.