The following is
reprinted from Rogers Cadenhead's Trivia Column appearing in the Forth Worth
Star-Telegram. Why do some
cities have time that varies by a half-hour from time zones, such as Rangoon, Kabul and
Tehran?
Half- and quarter-hour differences area
usually because of local authorities that didn't fully support the change to Greenwich
Mean Time (GMT) in the 1880's.
India, which lies between two time lines,
adopted the 30-minute mark to keep sunrise and sunset from occurring too early or too late
on the edges of the country, according to "The Straight Dope" by Cecil Adams.
The time in Greenwich, England, was used
beginning in the 15th century to aid ocean navigation. The International Meridian
Conference in 1884 extend this, creating an International Date Line and 24 time zones for
each hour.
Before this, cities kept their own clocks
-- the United States had more than 300 different local times before GMT took effect on
November 18, 1883. Telegraph lines were used to synchronize the country. |
