A History of Time Zones
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 дек 2024
- Today we use time zones to standardize the clock from place to place, but for most of history that difference was merely relative, and never exact. It wasn’t until relatively recently that anyone made an effort to standardize time with a set of rules. The History Guy recalls the forgotten story of how the world developed a system of uniform standard time.
This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
You can purchase the bow tie worn in this episode at The Tie Bar:
www.thetiebar....
All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.
Find The History Guy at:
Facebook: / thehistoryguyyt
Patreon: / thehistoryguy
Join the History Guy for history trivia at www.quizando.c...
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.
Subscribe for more forgotten history: / @thehistoryguychannel .
Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
teespring.com/...
Script by JCG
#time #thehistoryguy #history
2:34 - A useful marine chronometer is not just a basic clock, it needs to be incredibly precise, robust and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard. The story of its invention by John Harrison is certainly history that deserves to be remembered.
The book, 'Longitude' by Dava Sobel does just that ..... elegantly and succinctly.
When I was in the merchant marine, even the best ship's chronometer needed checking every day before the noon sunsight (Yes, no GPS back then!). The radio officer was responsible for tuning in to a trusted time signal, often from a shore station many thousand of miles away. The correction was usually just a second or two depending on where you were in the world and how hot and humid it was. However if it was solid cloud cover, it was back to the skill of the navigating officer's dead-reckoning.
Yes and no. When I did my Celestial Navigation training (RAN) we were told that any analog watch to be used had to be a "3 diamond movement" (or something like that...high quality) but that ANY digital watch was sufficient. As already mentioned...you check the time anyway by time signal...just as you check your Gyrocompass with the rising sun every morning....
100%! IMHO the Chronometer (Harrison's H4, and the K1 copy by Larcum Kendall used by Capt. James Cook) was the first invention that brought on the industrial revolution.
The National Geographic channel did a doco on Harrison in the 1990s, I've kept a copy of it.
As for accuracy, I have a digital clock that loses one second per week which is pretty good. Unfortunately the display doesn't really work anymore. I got it as a gift in 1987.
It's Daylight SAVING Time. It's not plural.
You're not alone in saying it wrong. Many people do. Doesn't change the fact this video is a good lesson for those who never heard the story. Thanks.
Thank you! My mother was a telephone operator in Alaska 1967. She remarked how frustrating it was at the time because Alaska still observed several different time zones.
Fasinating subject. Im 60 now, but I remember in 5th grade when they would pass out globes and look at the time zones. It was one subject i really remember my ears would perk up. Thanks history guy for making me feel like that again!
Do you remember the old days of calling a phone number to find out the time?
You still can
I remember " tell me ".
@@DenisCheong I've gone back in time visiting that page!
We are old
In France we call it litterally the talking clock (l'horloge parlante) www.horlogeparlante.com/
What would seem to be such a simple topic turns out to be delightfully convoluted! I live at the "cusp" of two time zones... between Eastern and Central time, and although I don't cross the actual demarcation that separates the two zones, a six mile trip to the nearest city puts me an hour ahead of my home time. This area in eastern Alabama has some interesting history... I live within the city limits of Valley, Alabama, and Valley used to be home to part of the West Point Pepperell Corporation. Their local mill was the largest employer in the area, and the mill on the Chattahoochee River was run on Eastern time along with their various Georgia installations. So it only made sense to run the city on Eastern time to accommodate all of the workers who lived there. And although the mill was closed years ago, and is being demolished brick by brick, the city remains on Eastern time... and a trip to the local post office must be accomplished an hour earlier than we feel it should be... or it will surely be closed when we get there!
The History Guy could make knitting sound interesting!!!
Keep the history lessons coming please!
What. No pirates? 😄
Knitting! Now, there's a history that deserves to be remembered!
@@hobbesfan4196 Yes, real time pirates! Before the U.S. government standardized daylights savings time, neighboring towns could be an hour off from one another. I grew up on a farm that the area was on regular time. But the ag-equipment dealer we could depend on was in a neighboring town on daylight time. If we were doing a time sensitive operation such as baling hay or combining oats, and a piece broke on the baler or combine after 3:30 in the afternoon, we were in a pickle because that dealer would be closed before we could get there for the part. That left a good many harvesting time lost. When helping an older neighbor with harvesting and we broken down just before four in the afternoon, he became upset that this would stop us with a lot of day left. He let lose and said something about time pirates or bandits stealing his time just so they could go out each evening to play pasture pool (golf). The good news was that some ag-related businesses started running non golfers on a later work schedule so parts could be picked up and service scheduled. But summers involved always stopping, when planning and putting a get together, to figure out the "time" for everyone for every affair. I had forgotten all about that until seeing THG's video. Was history that was fun to remember!
"What is our knowledge of the origin of knitting? Where does the evidence show it started? What was the first known item knitted? What was the most historical item knitted, by whom and for whom? This is history that deserves to be remembered." There we have the basis for the video! Amend it as needed.
Knitting is important. .
Oh hey, it's always cool to see a bit of history from my hometown referenced; at 2:56, the red & white clock with two minute hands is in Bristol in the UK, on the old Corn Exchange building in the centre. The clock's minute hands display GMT, and the second minute hand is 11 minutes behind it, representing the old Bristol time standard (as Bristol is around 100 miles west of London, where GMT is defined).
As a weird little piece of local (and possibly apocryphal) trivia, people often used to do business outside the corn exchange on small iron tables/pedestals which still exist today known as the "Nails" (see the google maps street view link below, where you can see both the clock with its two minute hands, and the nails on the street below), and it's claimed that the idiom "Paying/Cash on the nail", meaning to have struck a bargain/trade on the spot, comes from merchants placing their money on the nails to signify that they were happy with the trade being offered, and that a deal had been struck!
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4546562,-2.593666,3a,90y,172.99h,103.95t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scHwKkHuiihg5m4jT2NP1zA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
I was in Teheran, Iran a number of years ago. The time zone line ran right down through the middle of the city and they could not resolve which zone it should be put in. They finally drew a circle around the city and slipped it by half an hour in the circle. When it was 10:00 AM in the next time zone to the west, it was 9:30 AM in Teheran. I encountered the same situation when I visited Newfoundland, Canada in 1982.
Having worked in a company across multiple zones (Hawaii to Eastern) it still gobstops me that despite the US zones in existence over 150 years people still don't know how it works. Utterly astonishing. Thank you for the great video.
Gobstops you, huh? That's what it does? It gobstops you? Pfft. You sound like a fool.
People drive cars every day and never learn to change their own oil. I'm not very shocked, but I am equally disappointed.
Another awesome story is the clock in Grand Central. It was wired directly to the US NAval observatory and was the master clock (by direct wire) for all railroads east of the Mississippi and roughly north of the Mason Dixon line
About time you covered this topic!
I'm behind a few hours so this video isn't out yet for me
Hahahaha!!🖒
👍😅😂🤣
Couldn't have come at a better time!
A timely subject, indeed.
Another episode of History Guy that I'm glad I took "time" to watch.
huh?
My suggestions to attack during the time change, glad they ignored me. Even if...I was correct.
Captain Cook was entrusted with the third Chronometer ever made on his first voyage of discovery. Explains the accuracy of his mapping.
When he returned to England wasn’t his watch only about 8 minutes out
And it's on display say Greenwich. Along with the larger earlier wonderful clocks by Harrison - restored and still working!
@@jackvella6392 "Watch!" Good one.
Cook did not have a chronometer on board the first voyage. He found the longitude by the method of lunar distances. He used Larcum Kendall's K1 copy of John Harrison's H4 marine chronometer in voyage 2.
@@rogerpattube thank God for GPS.
I've retired, and the only times I care about are breakfast time, lunch time, dinner time, snack time, and bedtime.
I loved the emphasis THG put on his ending statement. His enthusiasm really sells history well!
Daylight saving time reminds me of the story of the old man whose feet were cold at night, so he cut a foot off the top of his blanket and sewed it onto the bottom.
On the surface yes, but in actuality no. The responsibilities of our lives (work, school etc...) have been tied to fixed times and the purpose of doing this is to give people more light in the evening when they can use it. What it actually suggests is that when we "fixed" noon at noon, we fixed it an hour too early. I would suggest we move the clocks to "daylight savings" and simply leave them there.
DST makes sense, even if some people don't like it. We are starting our work day as close to sunrise as is practical. So we start an hour earlier in the summer and an hour later in the winter. Otherwise, it would get light at 4 am in the summer. And if you stayed on DST all year around, the sun wouldn't rise until almost 9 am in the winter. I like switching and it's staying.
The time where I live (Wellington in New Zealand) is about 21 minutes ahead of local time. During Daylight Savings midday (when the Sun is overhead) is at 1.21 pm.@@56squadron
We’re no longer dependent on the sun for “getting our day started”
For the love of all that is 21st century, get rid of DST!🤯
It has occured to me, with the variety of topics that THG covers, he would make one hell of a contestant on JEOPARDY.
What a idea. I would be glued to the TV. Think how many new subscribers that he could get.
Contestant! I say he would be perfect host if mr Alex ever decided to retire.
You're seeing the results of his efforts to put together a historically accurate video on little known bits of history that tie in with major events. You're then thinking he can recall everything whenever needed. Maybe 85% of it, but asking for 100% is too much!
@@tenhirankei None of the champions on Jeopardy have got 100% scores. It's all about getting the buzzer-timing right.
@@tenhirankei Don't cut the man's legs off before his time! He doesn't have to be 100% he just has to be better than everybody else. You're fun at parties aren't you?
"and to record our history that deserves to be remembered."
The delivery of that line was perfect. Reminds me of Paul Harvey's "Now you know the rest of the story"
Excellent as Usual! I knew about much of this from being a Railroad buff and avid student of History, as was my Late Father who instilled in me a Great desire to learn as much as possible. When we both worked Second shift in the ‘70s, we would usually discuss Civil War battles, strategy and what if’s while eating left over dinner saved for us, along with some cold ones. I treasure those memories with all of my heart and would give anything to have just a few more hours long discussions with him! You fill a void left by his untimely passing 14 years ago, and for that I Thank You most Sincerely! Best Regards as always to the History Family, from the Logan Family!
Daylight Saving Time and Personal Income Tax, two TEMPORARY measures introduced during WW1 over 100 years ago, and still with us today.
We also have a worldwide pandemic and race riots just like 100 years ago. Sad days
@@DolanOk except the races rioting have flipped.
@@righteousviking Flipped, indeed.
The Income Tax was really introduced as an alternative tax to taxing alcohol. There is a casual relationship between the Temperance Movement and the introduction of the income tax.
IIRC the income tax was enacted before WW1. Yes, 'twas in 1913.
One thing I loved while living in Hawai'i was that it does not have Daylight Savings Time. Arizona is the only other US state that does not observe it.
Ships underway in the US navy will often shift from local time to Zulu time, which is the same as Greenwich Mean Time.
As an aviator, Zulu time is necessary reference.
Someone asked for the history of the bowtie; I second that request!
I'm trying to remember which publication it was in, but about 20 years ago there was a Zulu time joke in one of the aviation magazines:
Approach, we'd like to modify our flight plan to put arrival at 1530 local.
NXXXXX, can you give that time in Zulu, please?
Approach, we'd like to modify our fligh plan to put arrival at Oona wana tambo bebe.
I vaguely remembered learning that time zones started because of railroads. I wouldn’t have guessed that the idea started before then and that getting to the current system took so long. Interesting stuff. Thanks. For a sequel you could talk about how we got our calendar.
Reformers have wanted to change the Gregorian calendar to lengthen February. Logically, for a 365-day year, you would want seven 30-day months and five 31-day months. But the Romans considered February unlucky for some reason, so they shortened it to 28 days.
I favour the Egyptian calendar which has twelve months of 30 days each and then a catch-up week of five days (six days in a leap year). But the system you outlined would be my second preference.@@stevenlitvintchouk3131
I still remember the shortwave time stations: "At the tone"...
WWV and WWVH are still active. I don't know about CHU, etc.
@@johnopalko5223 I thought about them and wondered if they still existed. But I do not have a short wave radio anymore. Mine finally wore out and they are harder to find. Thank you for your post.
@@ronfullerton3162 Do you have a telephone? 1-303-499-7111
I regularly tune my ham radio to WWV on 5 or 10 MHz frequently to set my analog watch. As an amateur radio operator, we regularly use Zulu time. I have also crossed the Atlantic under sail have have used a sextant to shoot a meridian transit to check our latitude as well as get a rough longitude. It's all interesting stuff. Thanks, History Guy.
I'm not sure if they're shortwave or not, but my husband is an amateur radio operator and I'm pretty sure I've heard that coming from his radio room. Also creepy numbers stations.
Great lesson, thanks. I'm amazed by how many individuals and companies here in the US have no idea when to use EST, CST, PST VS EDT, CDT or PDT. I also think we should just end Daylight Saving Time. Don't know what it's saving at this point.
Sir Sandford Fleming is the subject of a Heritage Minutes that is shown on TV here in Canada.
I was just thinking that.
@@IntrepidMilo Me too.
And Canadians have been continually deceived into thinking that Fleming invented time zones.
I'm more interested in any possible link between him and a writer of a series of fictional thriller stories that gained worldwide fame.
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography Or that Americans can't conceive of someone outside their borders having control inside them...
ALL air travel around the world is based on Zero Meridian Time, also called Greenwich Mean Time. Airlines (internally) ignore all time zones because it would be too confusing to change time zones all the time. Also, they ignore daylight time. Externally (to the public), they use local standard or daylight time as appropriate.
David: This is exactly the reason that the railroads adopted standard time. Relative local time was, and is, irrelevant to long distance travel.
The history of this is actually super interesting and something I hadn't ever thought about before. Neat! Thanks for the vid.
I like that the rail road companies adopted the standard before the government. I read great article about this in a book called I Must Speak Out, by Carl Watner.
Once again the History Guy does a fantastic job of explaining a complicated issue in a straightforward and clear manner. One small nit. UTC is not a compromise, or concession. Universal Time, UT, comes in different flavors, with different subscripts depending on the flavor. Available flavors are UT0, UT1, UT2, and UTC, where the third character was originally a subscript. UT is *not* determined by the passage of the sun at Greenwich, but rather by the orientation of the earth's surface with respect to the "fixed stars". What is directly measured is local, or station, sidereal time. There is a conventional relationship between local sidereal time and UT. The conventional relationship is designed to keep noon UT close to long term average transit times of the sun at Greenwich. Today, a network of radio telescopes times and records the transit (meridian passage) of distant astronomical radio sources in UTC. These transits define local, or station, time. The difference between the computed and measured time of transit is "delta t", the difference between UT and UTC.
.
UT0: Uncorrected station time, particular to a local observatory, uncorrected for polar and tectonic drift.
UT1: Time determined by the orientation of the surface of the earth in celestial coordinates, determined by observations at many stations, corrected for polar and tectonic drift
UT2: An obsolete time scale more uniform than UT1 that accounts for predictable seasonal variations in earth's rotation rate, mostly due to snow pack in the northern hemisphere.
UTC: A timescale whose seconds are all exactly one second of atomic time (TAI), but occasionally adds an extra "leap" second at the end of June or December, to keep within 0.9 seconds of UT1
.
Other timescales of interest:
.
TAI: International Atomic Time, a timescale whose seconds are exactly one second of atomic time, and which progresses uniformly without regard to the earth's orientation. TAI is determined by satellite comparison of atomic clocks from national standards laboratories around the world. There is no real time realization or distribution of TAI, it is a "paper clock", implemented as published corrections to standards laboratories' implementations.
.
GPS time: A timescale that is steered to remain as close as is practical to be 19 seconds behind TAI. 19 seconds because that was the number of seconds offset between TAI and UTC on January 6, 1980, which is the GPS epoch (time zero). GPS is a practical realization of an atomic timescale, that is widely and freely distributed. While the timescale does not observe leap seconds, the GPS navigational message does contain the number of leap seconds offset between UTC and GPS, and warnings about pending leap seconds.
.
Unix Time: A count of seconds since January 1, 1970 "GMT". Unix time is generally implemented in two registers. One is a 32 bit count of seconds since "epoch" (1/1/1970 00:00 GMT) and the other a 32 bit or 64 bit count of fractional seconds, either representing microseconds (32 bit) or nanoseconds (64 bit). This time scale will overflow on 07-Feb-2106 06:28:16.999999 with uint32 representation and on 19-Jan-2038 03:14:08.999999 with int32 representation. Get ready for a Y2k+38 crisis. Unix time ignores leap seconds, so it more or less approximates UT.
A bouncer at a bar tried to tell me it was time to leave late one night. I said it was too early to close. We compared watches and I told him that his watch was off by a half hour and I wasn't leaving. Result: I got my clock cleaned!
Does it keep better time now?
@@tenhirankei It's right twice a day.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@tenhirankei
He means that the barman knocked the sh!t out of him, or his watch.
@@anonUK I thought his question was a joke, but you're making me wonder now :>)
Very good. I wish you would do more railroad topics. If you got time look at the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific's railroad "Pacific Extension" It was the last transcontinental railroad to be built 50 years after the first one in 1869. Even with modern technology and construction techniques it was the first and only one to be abandoned in 1980. And to me it is "history that deserves to be remembered"
When I was a child, digital watches came into fashion, and a Berlin newspaper published an April Fool's article, that from the next year to come, time would be metric, a day having 100 Einstein instead of 24 hours, one Einstein then having 100 minutes. Owners of those in these days rather expensive digital watches would not need to worry, one could switch to the new scheme by simply pressing a specific sequence of buttons, anybody else would need to see their clockmaker to adjust the mechanics.
Lassmiranda Dennsiewillja this could also be true: Decimal Time also in Swiss watches en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
I didn't read all that. Too long. Is it a story about your mother making egg salad sandwiches for your sister's birthday party? I have no idea but I bet it's more fun that whatever you wrote.
@@User0000000000000004 What he wrote was actually humourous. What you wrote was an attempt. Anyone reading both would say that he succeeded, while you... not so much.
I used to run auto rallies here in the Us, everything was measured in "Decimal minutes". Much easier to do calculation with them and competition watches and timers came with decimal minutes on the face.
Hello! FAscinating. I have a watch with Railway Approved printed on the face. The jeweller where I bought the watch was telling me a story about a Mr. Ball....Winston, Winchester ? I forget the first name. The story had to do with a train crash in the US back in the 1800’s were two trains collided because of the watches the conductors used. One had managed to change the time on his watch by accident. Mr Ball was called upon to rectify the situation, and came up with a design for a conductor’s watch that required the crystal to be opened AND a pin pushed down to move the hands. Clocks were apparently put in every train station as the ultimate in consistency having a certain number of jewels (is this where the 17 jewels promotion of one watch company came from?), and a consistent time. The expression “Being on the Ball,” as a description of a person of precision supposedly came from this work. I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but every time I look at my watch, I am reminded of a train wreck, a solution to a problem, and the importance of being on time. Thank you!
Trish: There's more to the story, but the basics are correct. It was not a conductor's watch that was off.. it was an engineer's watch.
After I am done watching RUclips garbage everyday, I am sure to get some of "The History Guy" channel. Makes me feel WAY better.
Just a suggestion...you don't have to watch the garbage.
A policeman was walking his beat when Myrtle leaned out of her second story window asked him, "Have you the time?"
The policeman answered, "No, Myrtle. Nor the inclination!"
If someone asks me, "What time is it?"
I always reply, "Time for you to buy a watch!"
OK. I'm done.
I recommend reading "Longitude" by Dava Sobel
The 3.5 hour show is here ruclips.net/video/LHvt48S9l4w/видео.html I saw the show when it first ran on PBS many years ago.
There was an interesting "made for TV" movie based on that book. I remember seeing it about a decade ago.
Excellent show. I also read the book.
@Sherylin Thanks!
@Sherylin and jomackey1950 Thanks for links. I didn't know it'd been dramatized for TV.
I enjoyed this. I am 65 and by time I was 15 years old I had been around the world 2 times. I lived in Peru, Indonesia, Iceland, Germany, S Korea, and Hong Kong. I knew the basics on how time zones and Date Lines worked. But I never knew the History of it. Thanks for doing this video!
"Time guards" sounds like something from a science fiction movie about time travel.
Exactly!! Instead, it's the common ancestor between a traffic cop and meter maid...
Bravo, an excellent explanation . Walking past the Bristol Corn Exchange clock on my way home from work I used to smile to myself at the prospect that I had an extra 10mins of daylight compared to my colleagues in London... conveniently ignoring the impact in the morning...
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
A clock museum in my area has an area devoted to trains and timepieces related to it. It's true that the trains are really what caused a need for modern "time zones." They have a reproduction of time charts for cities that make you dizzy just looking at them. Times certainly _weren't_ simpler back then (no pun intended)!
It's about time you covered this subject. You must have been in the zone when you took the time to put it together.
Thank you for posting a video, it's a good distraction from my country burning. Love you history guy, be safe
As a Canadian I will always remember tv stations announcing "x:00 Eastern time, y:00 Pacific time, z:30 in Newfoundland"
Doesn't CBC still give all program times in NT?
CBC Radio still does, I know. This leads to the uniquely Canadian Joke: "This is a special CBC News Bulletin. The world will end at exactly 8PM tonight. Half hour later in Newfoundland."
Fun fact: If you have a shortwave radio, station WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado can be heard (depending on conditions) on 2.5, 5.0, 10, 15 and 20 Megahertz. It broadcasts the standard time signal maintained by the National Institution of Standards and Technology (NIST). The frequency or frequencies you can hear it on indicate propagation conditions relative to your and WWV's location. It's also possible to pick up WWVH in Hawaii which broadcasts on 5, 10 and 15 MHz. Sometimes you hear both. WWV uses a male voice, WWVH a female voice. At the approach of the top of each minute, the beat and tones stop and the voice will say something like, "At the tone, the time will be... 12 hours, 17 minutes... Coordinated Universal Time." Then the beat and tones resume. WWVH always announces ahead of WWV, but the time mark is identical. Example: ruclips.net/video/7ooMAwt_FPM/видео.html
An upload from the history guy is always a good day :-)
It's a great distraction from the stupidity currently happening in our fair country.
Your mom is a good day
Thank you you do so much more than you may realize. The short snippets of history join us in a very disjointed time. Thank you so much, and peace to you and to whom all you love
I love your videos. One issue with this one:
DST is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time.
Yes, he says it incorrectly. So many people do and don't even know it's wrong.
I grew up saying it that way. Didn’t realize it until I was an adult!
Yes, you are Saving Daylight - it's not a Savings Bank!
@@DerekMacEwen1 Even if it were, it would be called a Daylight Saving Bank. What are "savings" anyway?
I call it "semi-annual stupidity."
In the UK we still have daylight saving, clocks go forward one hour in March and back in October. The winter time is still GMT and in the summer we have British Summer Time. In th 1960s the then Government tried to abolish BST but there were too many traffic accidents and general confusion that it was scrapped.
and we still have it today.
Offigially the clocks change at 02:00 on the last Sunday of the months that I have mentioned, so most people change their clocks the in the night before going to bed so that they are not confused when they wake up but sometimes people do arrive at work at the wrong time. As you said that is becoming a thing of the past in the digital, all bells and whistles time we live in.
the universal time constant: ATTACK at dawn.
The best time to attack is when your enemy least expects you to. From the Art of War.
war begins at midnight
While the attack on Pearl Harbor is listed as 7:48 AM, that was when Hawaii was in the GMT-10.5 time zone, not the GMT-10 time zone it is in how. As such, in terms of sunlight, the current memorials are a half hour late - well after dawn. Time zone - the power to change history.
@@russellhltn1396 that would mean they moved it earlier and are holding it a half hour early.
Steve K yes. It didn’t happen at first light.
In 1962 the final installment of the Bell Science series hosted by the genial Dr. Frank C. Baxter was "About Time" where the king of the fictitious Planet Q got a clock and wanted to know what time to set it. It explored the history of time on earth. Thanks, THG, for sparking a memory of one of my favorite shows when I was a kid.
*The History Guy*
The History Professor we all wished we had in Grade School. I'd be a *History Professor* now if History had been this *interesting* in school. 💜
Looking at the various time zones for an upcoming trip, I pondered why and how they existed. A quick search on RUclips pulled up my favorite channel, The History Guy. I should have known. Thank you Sir!
Glad I ",took the time" to watch this. Keep up the good work.
I remember working in northern Alaska a couple years ago and the supervisor told me that Alaska covers five time zones, but all of Alaska observes just one. Pretty wild!
Can I just say how much I love this channel?
I think this is one of the best snippets of history which I have ever watched, because I have always felt that the greatest discovery of man was the discovery of the passage of time and how to quantify the passage of time. Thank you, because you have just added to a scientific/engineering paper which I am writing on the subject of the discovery of time by man and how it was quantified to measure its passage. You have given me the basis for starting each of my chapters before I submit the paper.
It's always a good time to watch The History Guy!
🕛⏰⏱️⌛
30 Helens agree.
This is such a great channel. Informative and professional. Great work History Guy and Gal.
Error at 5:14 in the video: four US times zones, each 15 degrees in LONGITUDE, not latitude.
My friend's Dad was watchmaker for the UK's Great Western Railway prior to and just after WWII. GWR took timekeeping seriously and the job was recognised as one of significant importance. By the late 50's however it was less critical as watches improved and my friend instead worked on Compass and instrument repair for a forerunner of British Airways. A useful tip from a BA Cabin Attendant on a trip to India in 1991 was to set my watch to GMT and wear it upside down on my wrist, when it indicates the correct time in India as they have 5 1/2 hrs difference to GMT. On Chronometers, you must study the efforts of John Harrison, a carpenter, who despite many setbacks won the British Admiralty prize for making the first truly accurate ship's Chronometer.
An interesting fact is that until clocks were developed that could stay accurate in the rolling ocean, accurate navigation was not possible.
About time this video should be released.
I surprised you didn’t talk more about the international dateline where the time zones eventually meet on the other side of the earth and one can move back or forward in time, by a day, with one step.
Guam
Great exposition of an interesting topic! Thank you.
“Time, time, time. Time enough at last.”
-Burgess Meredith.
Good episode; shame he broke his glasses.
That's the way it would be for me.
Twilight Zone mentioned on Time Zones.
Cute.
The character was Henry Bemis, Meredith just spoke the line.
Is it weird that I knew exactly the source of that quote?
"Wah!"
-Burgess Meredith, foretelling the coming of Waluigi
I love to spend time watching your wonderfully presented videos! Thank you.
GMT was prominent because the british produced the best maps - so all sailors wanted to use them.
Interesting
...and because they invented a clock capable of keeping accurate time for a long period, even while at sea in rough conditions.
It didn't hurt that they also ruled the largest empire at the time.
We needed them! The navy drove a lot of innovation and industry! Chrono watches etc
@Greg Moonen who needs GPS right? 😂
As a young man of 13 in 1925 my late father purchased a Waltham Railroad movement and Ball gold case, with the proceeds from his farm pay of 1 bail of cotton. I inherited the gold timepiece when he passed. At age 95 it still keeps railroad accuracy. Thank you. Narragansett Bay.
Ah the minute details of the hour, a second opinion so to say
sundhaug92 you ought to watch yourself; someone may want to clock you on the head for that.
A Timely comment!
I'll second that
@@GrangerGangster Especially if they are ticked off.
Thank you. I wish this generation understood the impact of history. I will be gone, but my grandchildren will pay a dear price for ignorance of history. Thanks for your efforts. Forever grateful.
Time never stands still. Up here in New England, there is a move to switch time zones to Atlantic time to compensate for our dark winters. Just another effort to try and control the clock.
There's a smilar move to move british time away from GMT - alegedly to give more light in the evenings and save power, I'm yet to understand why not just change the time things open/go to work....
@@tomriley5790 People are creatures of habit. They know what time work starts. Change the time work starts, and they'll complain, "I just can't get going that early." Change the time, and they'll only notice it the first day. We deal with time changes twice a year in the U.S. Spring DST starts, and we "lose" an hour...we have a 23 hour day. Then in the fall, DST ends, and we "gain" an hour, having one 25 hour day. The change happens at 2am, so the majority don't notice it so much. People working night shifts depend on their employers for fair treatment. When I worked in a hospital years ago, the spring change resulted in an 8 hour night shift (11pm-7am) being only 7 hours that one day. The hospital management opted to pay 8 hours anyway for that day. In the fall, the 8 hour shift became 9 hours, and the hospital paid 9 hours. So night shift workers got paid one hour per year more than day shift.
Sir Sanford is a show on his own ! Go for it.
I say we get rid of Daylight saving time and shift the time by 1/2 to make the difference between Standard and Saving time
I think that some far eastern provinces of Canada actually did that. The have standard time 1/2 hour earlier than Eastern Time.
Brilliant
I've been saying that for years. I have a small clock collection that I keep going and it is a pain to reset them twice a year. Setting them forward isn't to bad but I set them back by stopping them for an hour and hope I don't forget to start the again. As for the digital clocks I always forget how to set them.
@@stewcarew4943 Just move to AZ, they dont change their clocks. They are on PDT half the year and MST the other half.
@@glennso47 , No we didn't. Newfoundland has a 1/2 hour difference from Atlantic time.
Great episode, thank you! I was waiting keenly for a mention of Sir Sanford :)
Great presentation as always! Oh, BTW it's Daylight Saving Time. ;-)
I've even seen "savings" on calendars. I marked my "s" out because it mattered that much.
@@swampk9 and it does. Words matter. THEY MATTER!
@@User0000000000000004 Tell that to the Millennial generation. They can't spell, have no clue about proper grammar, and don't know the difference between then and than.
Neighboring Indiana, I've always been perplexed by their non-adherence to a standardized measurement of time throughout the state. Whether or not Daylight Saving Time is beneficial, their previous refusal to adopt the standard also left me scratching my head. Great topic, Lance. I appreciate these videos.
My father told me the politicians agreed to DST so they could play golf longer
Was he a farmer? That was the reason all the old farmers had for daylight time was for the banker's and store owners to go play "pasture pool".
My grandfather used to say the same thing. Yes he was a farmer. He also said he didn't know a cow that cared about a clock. When it was time to get up and work, you got up and worked.
Working for a global firm, global time zones are just part of my daily life. I leave in the eastern US, and I have had managers in California, New Zealand, and India. How we reference when we will meet is always fun!
This reminds me of an incident several years ago when my employer called one of his suppliers in the USA (he had this particular mans cell phone number). He always knew to call before 9 am New Zealand time so that it was before 5 pm US time (probably California). However, on this one time it was Monday morning in NZ so he called this man on a Sunday afternoon in the US without realising it.😄😂
Arrrrghhhh: Daylight Saving Time!
I hate Daylight Saving Time - have to remember how to change the pool pump timer twice a year.
I hate DST! When the sun is highest it's noon, not 1PM! The sun comes up at 6AM and sets at 6PM on the equinoxes!
I love time😁. I'm obsessed by time. I set my watches (I switch them every 2-3 weeks) to the second by the US Atomic Clock. My clocks are to the second, too. If one is a minute off I get anxiety. Right now I have 5 Clocks in front of me, plus my Rolex Submariner Automatic wristwatch I'm wearing today.
fun fact- when you take the ferry from nova scotia [atlantic time] to newfoundland [NF time] you lose 30 minutes. if you then catch the ferry from newfoundland to st pierre which is west of St Johns, NF you lose another hour as St pierre is in its own time zone at GMT-2
yes, we had a fun trip there
Thank you. I knew that somewhere in far eastern Canada had their own standard time.
St.Pierre is a French colony, so the one hour jump isn't a Canadian peculiarity.
@@glennso47 Newfoundland has it's own time zone (NST) that is a half hour later than Atlantic time.
@@rexmundi3108 I seem to recall those two islands were an extra hour ahead /behind the time in Nova Scotia Canada
Love to hear more about the exploration of the West--Lewis and Clark expedition, Daniel Boone, Astor fur trade, Jim Bridger, John Colter, Hugh Glass, Walker, Jedidiah Smith, Carson and Fremont. The heyday of the Green River Rendezvous. Deserves to be remembered.
Indiana did not observe daylight savings time for most of my life but succumbed in 2006.
I believe Arizona still does not.
I recall reading that the Imperial Japanese Navy ran on Tokyo time. The farther away the fleet sailed away from Tokyo, the more interesting things could get, especially during the Pearl Harbor attack and the much later Battle of Midway.
I wish we would just stay on what we know as Daylight Saving Time and never fall back. Can’t stand coming home from work in the dark. No need for the sun to set at 5:30 pm.
Our problem in the Midwest was children walking to school or getting on buses in the dark to go to school. It was a child safety concern.
No need to go to work and school in the dark. Better to return to standard time and never spring forward.
I have to say that I love your videos! It's like a mini modern marvel episode. You do such a great job of writing and narrating the videos. Keep up the great work!
"Daylight Saving Time", not "Daylight Savings Time". ..."Savings" is in a bank!
Another excellent essay. I have a friend who operates on Central Standard Time year-round. I have another puzzler for you: the International Date Line, which varies from map to map, and is not (exactly) established by treaty. And is different on land than at sea.
this thing meant to keep trains from crashing into each other sure took off...
Daylight savings time can go. Doesn't so anything for us
Exactly. Daylight saving is a conspiracy by elite international socialists that they are trying to impose on ordinary people. Besides, the extra hour of sunlight fades your curtains!
Before the wide spread of electricity Daylight Savings was very important for farming and industry. It was only after WW II that electricity outside of large population centers greatly increased. As modern as we think we are we have only recently (150 years or so) moved away from life as it was lived for a 1000 years.
I would prefer more light in the evening as well. Best argument I've heard for DST is that of safety for schoolchildren...DST makes it so they are not trying to get to school in the dark with all the so-and-so's speeding on the road.
I agree with Patrick, changing the clock doesn't change the amount of daylight we have.
@@raypelling6440 Although if you look at it...we're spending about 3/4 of the year on DST now. About 10 years ago they moved the end back a week and the start up three weeks.. (I was working support for a rather nifty system that put email, calendar, and web-based app functionality out to a range of smartphones, securely. One of the bad bits was the section that dealt with time zones was a mess, and was scheduled to be rewritten...when the entire product was canned when the company decided to not be in the enterprise space any more. 2010 had me with a case on my list for a week because the time zones went stupid because of the crap code for handling it, which was particularly bad in Europe. Of course, the problem went away when the code was no longer doing strange things because DST was now over and the code was no longer surprised that it wasn't yet.)
My career has been on the railroad. As briefly mentioned, the main point of standard time wasn’t for the convenience of customers being able to know when to catch their train, but this was really a product of a bigger issue. Before radios on locomotives, there were employee timetables. They specified the schedule of trains. Especially on single tracked lines, rules dictated where trains would meet. The rules specified that, for example eastbound trains were superior to westbound, and first class was superior to second class. The meeting points were fixed by the times which the trains were scheduled to arrive at various stations. These times were important so the westbound train would know that it must be in a siding by a certain time so the superior eastbound train could go by. If the westbound had not taken the siding by the specified time, one can see that a wreck would be inevitable. As you can see, passengers knowing when to catch a train was really a byproduct of a bigger safety issue.
All railroaders had to have watches of a certain accuracy. They had to keep a card listing the prescribed dates on which the watch was inspected to be sure it was keeping proper time.
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Time to go to bed. The history guy kept me up.
Does anybody care?
No need to bother : its always changing ...
"We've all got time enough to cry/die." -- Chicago
Excellent video. Thanks. This is certainly one of my favorite channels.
"Time is still one of those few constants, or certainties, in our lives." ...um, Albert Einstein would like to have a word with you... 😊
OK, how about "Time and tide wait for no man." Or maybe nowadays that would be "...wait for no one."
I wondered how much time it would take to make this time video. Close to 12 minutes, time was about perfect! After all The History Guy is the best 12 minutes to learn something worth learning.
New Foundland has a half hour Daylight Savings Time ! Unlike others world wide including US at an hour! Just incase you didn't know!🌈🌈🌟
No offense to New foundland but, that sounds even dumber than normal daylight savings.
There are other places that use fractional hours, too.
...and are all the convenience stores called 7:30-11:30's?
(thanks, I'll show myself out now)
@@frankpinmtl Ask them in Dildo.
@@frankpinmtl That was a good one! Thanks for the laugh!
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way....
Reminds me of Chicago's Does anybody really know what time it is, does anybody really care? :-)