The Creation of Time Zones

In 1876 Sandford Fleming, a Canadian engineer, made a public appeal that was to end the chaos of the many local and regional times. He divided the Earth into 24 time zones, with each differing by one hour with respect to its neighbouring time zone.

The International Meridian Conference in Washington, D. C., paved the way for Fleming’s idea in 1884. A grid systemwas adopted with the zero meridian at the Observatory of Greenwich. The individual time zones were determined starting from this meridian.

In the years that followed, many countries established time zones; Germany did so on 1 April 1893. However, to this day national sensitivities impede the full implementation of Fleming’s idea.