Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) Scottish Invented Standard Time in 1878

[Anais_nin]

Sir Sandford Fleming - Father of Standard Time

Sir Sandford Fleming advocated the adoption of a standard time or mean time, as well as hourly variations from that according to established time zones. Fleming's system, still in use today, established Greenwich, England (at 0 degrees longitude) as the standard time, and divides the world into 24 time zones, each a fixed time from the mean time. Fleming was inspired to create the standard time system after he missed the train in Ireland due to confusion over the time of departure.

 

Fleming first recommended the standard to the Royal Canadian Institute in 1879, and he was instrumental in convening the 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, at which the system of international standard time — still in use today — was adopted. Fleming was behind the adoption of the present time meridians in both Canada and the U.S.

 

Before Fleming's time revolution, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by some well-known clock (for example, on a church steeple or in a jeweler's window).

 

Standard time in time zones was not established in U.S. law until the Act of March 19, 1918, sometimes called the Standard Time Act.

[Anta Assamey]

[Anais_nin]

Can't imagine the world without universal time.

local solar times were used ofcourse but they were not accurate

[cartmanez]

[Anais_nin]

''the ultimate expression of human control over the apparently random forces of nature.''