The
Surprising Origins of Standard Time Have you ever thought about why we use time zones? Do you know how we arrived at the standard times we use today? It's a bit of a strange story with some surprising twists and turns. Before the mid-19th century, most towns and cities in the United States and around the world kept their own local times, which were based on the position of the sun in the sky. This meant that noon in one town could be very different from noon in another town just a few miles away. At the time, this wasn't such a big issue, because most people didn't travel very far from their hometowns. But with the advent of railroads and later, telegraphs, it became increasingly important to have a standard time that everyone could agree on. And so, in 1883, the major railroads in America agreed to divide the country into four time zones, each one an hour apart. This was great for the railroads, because it ensured that they could stick to a tight schedule, but it made life more difficult for everyone else. Not every town adopted the new standard time, and even those that did had to tweak their schedules to accommodate it. For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, it wasn't until 1949 that the city adopted daylight saving time, and for years it was an hour behind the rest of the state in the summer. But the story of standard time goes back much further than just the 19th century. In fact, some of the earliest experiments with a fixed world time occurred in ancient Rome. The Romans divided the day into 12 hours of daylight, and 12 hours of darkness, regardless of the actual length of the day or night. This system worked reasonably well, but it depended on the position of the sun, which moved at different speeds depending on the season. In the summer, the daylight hours were longer, and in the winter, they were shorter. This made it difficult to keep track of time accurately. It wasn't until the development of the pendulum clock in the 17th century that it became possible to measure time accurately enough for a fixed world time to be feasible. And even then, it wasn't until the advent of railroads that the need for a standard time became obvious. So the next time you marvel at the fact that you can pick up the phone and call someone halfway around the world and know exactly what time it is, remember that it's all thanks to the humble pendulum clock and the early railroads. It just goes to show that some of the most important inventions in history can come from unexpected sources.