re: #193 HappyWarrior

This is social media used for good. Interesting thing I tbh never thought about but it makes since given before time zones, the times were broken down to the minute. I forgot if that was a direct byproduct of railroads or something that came about with railroads.

IIRC, various proposals for standardized time zones had been kicking around since the mid-19th Century, but didn’t get enacted (at least in the US) til 1883. And yes, the railroads were big boosters of the plan: prior to that, I think, every town and city in the country had its own Local Time: more-or-less set to keep 12:00 noon at when the sun was highest in the local sky.
And despite its drawbacks (as that graph shows), it was a lot easier keeping times consistent when all you really needed was one very-accurate clock to keep time for the whole country. Like we do today, only with gears and springs, rather than Cesium atoms and electronics….