Number of countries agreeing to World Standard Time, 1884: 25
Number of countries operating on World Standard Time, 2022: All
10 … 9 … 8 …
Ten days from now, the residents of the atolls, fishing towns, tourist resorts, and farm communities of the island countries just west of the International Date Line’s odd east-lobe will be the first happy few to cross into 2023: Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga, and Samoa. Precisely an hour after the fireworks in Samoan capital Apia come larger events in Auckland and Wellington, which lie one meridian to the west of the Date Line. Then as meridian lines flash by, Sydney and Tokyo turn up after another hour; then Bangkok and Ulan Baatar, Muscat and Tehran; Ankara, Jerusalem, and Nairobi; Geneva, Paris, and Lagos; and London on the Prime Meridian exactly twelve hours off the Date Line. Canada’s Maritime Provinces follow five hours later, then come Washington, Mexico City, Callao and Los Angeles, etc. The very last New Year’s event, on the east edge of the Data Line, turns out to be in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, which forty miles southeast of the first midnight in Apia. So an enterprising American Samoa resident can charter a plane to test out 2023, see what’s like, and return for nearly a day to 2022.
More on the odd Samoan anomaly in a bit. But how is it that everyone, everywhere in the world, knows exactly when when the clocks hit midnight and their New Year begins?
The global system of time zones and meridian lines is a legacy of 19th century “globalization” in the era of steamships, Suez Canal-digging, the first undersea telegraph cables, and the questions they posed. Though clocks date back to classical times, and watches to the 15th century,* no standardized times existed at all until the early 19th century, and even by the 1870s different governments, towns, and private companies kept their own individual times. A survey in the U.S. found at least 144 different city, town, railway, and bank times; nor did national times, to the extent they existed, in Europe, match well. High noon in Victorian London, for example, was 12:09.21 in Paris. This brought risk as 19th century “globalization” accelerated, as different times in different towns meant confusion, missed railway connections, and accidents as trains or boats using different ‘times’ arrived simultaneously in ports and terminals.
The inspiration of President Chester A. Arthur** was to call an international conference in Washington to settle on a common time, drawing on earlier international-standardization agreements, such as those on international patent and copyright conventions, and especially the 1875 Paris Conference which decided how long a “meter” would be, the volume of water in a liter, and how much a “gram” would weigh. Mr. Arthur convened a 26-nation International Meridian Conference on October 13, 1884, in the old State Department building, now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on 17th Street, involving ten Latin countries, ten Europeans (with the UK delegation also representing Canada and India), the U.S., Japan, Liberia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Hawaii. It closed on the 22nd with the basics of the modern global time system in place: 24 world time zones (originally a Canadian concept), each an hour apart, with the international standard “noon,” or Prime Meridian, set for 12:00 p.m. at the Greenwich Naval Observatory near London.***
Fourteen decades later the Conference standards are still used almost everywhere.**** and its outcome remains the foundation of 21st century air traffic control, just-in-time production networks, and Canal transits, as well as synchronized New Year’s Eve events. The role of the two Samoas as the dividing line between years turns out to be a very recent innovation: The Republic decided to jump across the Date Line ten years ago to synchronize its work week with Australia and New Zealand, and will therefore live for a day in 2023 before its American sister arrives.
… 4 … 3 … 2 … 1
The official U.S. clock, based at the U.S. Naval Observatory, is said to be accurate to within one second every 1.4 million years. Watch this one if you *really* want to be precise this New Year’s Eve.
The Greenwich Observatory recounts the history of the International Meridian Conference. The official record of the proceedings (sample: “Mr. Lefaivre, Delegate from France, stated that on behalf of his colleague he would suggest that all motions and addresses made in English should be translated into French”): is here.
From Wikipedia, a country-by-country table of New Year’s entry into force.
And how the Republic of Samoa jumped the Date Line.
Best alternative ever:
Intense, rapidly modernizing Meiji-era Japan attended the Conference on Meridian represented by physicist and university president Kikuchi Dairoku, watched and said little, and faithfully adopted its recommendations. Sad to say, this entailed abandoning a genuinely brilliant and humane local system — “seasonal time,” in which summer hours were longer than winter hours. To mesh this excellent idea with office hours and business schedules, Edo-era artisans had designed specialized clocks known as “wadokei” whose hours ran slow in summer and fast in winter. The Japan Clock and Watch Association explains, with some remarkable pictures.
Sic transit:
The White House’s “warts-and-all” biography of President Chester Alan Arthur, including Arthur’s not-very-admirable career as a federal trade policy appointee(“[As] Collector of the Port of New York, Arthur effectively marshaled the thousand Customs House employees under his supervision on behalf of Roscoe Conkling’s Stalwart Republican machine”), and more, but Meridian Conference entirely.
SPECIAL NOTE: PPI will close for the holidays this Friday, and the Trade Fact service will take next week off. We wish friends and readers a happy holiday season, and will see you in the New Year, precisely at 2:00 p.m. EST, six hours after the Prime Meridian’s 2:00, on Jan. 3.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
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