Countries have deleted whole days. Nepal is 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead. France passed a law defining its time as Paris time minus nine minutes and twenty-one seconds, just to avoid saying “Greenwich”. Here is the documented history of how humanity broke the clock.
Live · right now
Kiritimati, Kiribati
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First to see tomorrow
Chatham Islands, NZ
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A 45-minute offset
Eucla, Australia
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Unofficial, used anyway
Lord Howe Island
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30-minute daylight saving
Kathmandu, Nepal
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Plus 5 hours 45
Kabul, Afghanistan
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3.5 hrs behind its neighbour
Kashgar, China
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On Beijing time, 3,400 km away
Baker Island
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Last to see today
Chapter 1 · 8 stories
The International Date Line is not a law of physics. It is a suggestion, and countries ignore it whenever it gets in the way of trade.
No. 01 · 2011
#linkSamoa
At midnight on Thursday, December 29, 2011, Samoa jumped straight to Saturday, December 31. Friday the 30th never happened. The country moved to the west side of the date line so its working week would line up with Australia and New Zealand, its biggest trading partners. Neighbouring Tokelau did the same.
Anyone with a birthday on December 30 simply did not have one that year.
No. 02 · 1892
#linkSamoa
Samoa had originally been on the Asian side of the line. In 1892, persuaded by American traders, it switched to the American side by living through Monday, July 4 twice. It took 119 years to change its mind back.
Two Fourths of July, in a country that is not the United States.
No. 03 · 1844
#linkPhilippines
For nearly three centuries the Spanish Philippines kept Mexico's calendar, because its galleons sailed via Acapulco. In 1844 the governor-general moved the colony to the Asian side of the line: Monday, December 30, 1844 was followed by Wednesday, January 1, 1845.
December 31, 1844 does not exist in Manila. Nobody partied.
No. 04 · 1867
#linkAlaska
When the United States bought Alaska from Russia, the territory switched from the Russian Julian calendar to the Gregorian one and from the Asian side of the date line to the American side. Friday, October 6 was followed by Friday, October 18.
A week with two Fridays in it. Nobody has ever complained about that one.
No. 05 · 1995
#linkKiribati
Kiribati's islands straddle the 180° meridian, so for years the country was split across two different days. With a weekend on each side, government offices on opposite ends of the country only shared four working days a week. On January 1, 1995, Kiribati bent the date line around its eastern islands, creating the world's earliest time zone, UTC+14.
Kiritimati now has the same clock time as Honolulu, just one full day later. Same sunset, different date.
No. 06 · 1999
#linkKiribati
That new UTC+14 zone made Kiribati's uninhabited Caroline Island one of the first places on Earth to see January 1, 2000. Kiribati renamed it Millennium Island and marketed it as such.
A tourism campaign built on a line drawn on a map four years earlier.
No. 07 · 1522
#linkCape Verde
The survivors of the first circumnavigation kept a careful daily log. When they reached the Cape Verde islands in July 1522, their logs said Wednesday. The locals said Thursday. Sailing west around the globe had quietly cost them a day. Chronicler Antonio Pigafetta was baffled: he swore he had written down every single day without missing one.
The first people to sail around the world were also the first to get jet lag without the jet.
No. 08 · 1872
#linkLondon
Phileas Fogg believes he has lost his bet by arriving in London a day late. He hasn't. By travelling east all the way around the world, he gained a full day without noticing, and arrives just in time. Jules Verne's whole ending hinges on the same effect that confused Magellan's crew.
Possibly the only blockbuster climax powered by longitude.
Chapter 2 · 11 stories
Most of the world sits a whole number of hours from UTC. Some places looked at that rule and said no.
No. 09 · 1986
#linkNepal
Nepal runs on UTC+5:45, based on the meridian of Mount Gaurishankar, about 100 km east of Kathmandu. From 1920 it simply used India's UTC+5:30, then in 1986 moved its clocks forward exactly 15 minutes.
Scheduling a meeting with Kathmandu is a test of character.
No. 10 · Today
#linkChatham Islands, NZ
About 600 people live on the Chatham Islands, which keep UTC+12:45, and UTC+13:45 during daylight saving time. It is one of the very few places on Earth with a 45-minute offset.
A whole time zone for a population smaller than a large high school.
No. 11 · Today
#linkEucla, Australia
Along a lonely stretch of the Eyre Highway near the WA–SA border, a handful of roadhouses and settlements keep UTC+8:45, splitting the difference between Western Australia and South Australia. The time is not legally recognised. Locals use it anyway.
A time zone with roughly as many residents as a dinner party.
No. 12 · Today
#linkLord Howe Island, Australia
Lord Howe Island sits at UTC+10:30 and, in summer, moves to UTC+11. That half-hour shift makes it the only place in the world that springs forward by 30 minutes instead of an hour.
Daylight saving, but make it a free trial.
No. 13 · Today
#linkTroll Station, Antarctica
Norway's Troll research station uses UTC+0 during the Antarctic summer and switches to UTC+2, matching Norway's summer time, from March to October. That two-hour "daylight saving" shift runs straight through the Antarctic winter, when the sun doesn't rise for about ten weeks.
Saving daylight. During polar night.
No. 14 · 1909–1940
#linkNetherlands
Amsterdam Time was legally GMT+0:19:32.13, based on the meridian of the Westerkerk tower. In 1937 it was rounded to a tidy +0:20. In 1940 the occupying German forces replaced it with Central European Time.
Hundredths of a second. In law.
No. 15 · 1916
#linkIreland
Dublin Mean Time sat at GMT−0:25:21 until October 1916, when Ireland was put on Greenwich time. For 36 years, Dublin's clocks officially ran behind London's by that oddly specific amount.
Twenty-five minutes, twenty-one seconds. Not twenty-five. Twenty-one.
No. 16 · 1911
#linkFrance
France had refused to back Greenwich as the prime meridian in 1884. When it finally aligned its clocks with GMT in 1911, the law defined legal time as "Paris mean time, retarded by nine minutes and twenty-one seconds."
The most passive-aggressive sentence ever written into statute.
No. 17 · 1972
#linkLiberia
Monrovia Mean Time was UTC−0:44:30 for decades. Liberia only moved to plain UTC in 1972, making it one of the last countries to drop a historical local-mean-time offset.
Half a minute of precision, held onto for most of the 20th century.
No. 18 · 2015
#linkNorth Korea
On August 15, 2015, North Korea moved its clocks back 30 minutes to create "Pyongyang Time" (UTC+8:30), describing it as a break from Japanese colonial time. At the April 27, 2018 inter-Korean summit, Kim Jong Un called it "a painful wrench" to see two clocks on the wall showing Pyongyang and Seoul times. On May 5, 2018, the North moved its clocks forward to match Seoul.
A diplomatic breakthrough measured in exactly 30 minutes.
No. 19 · 2007
#linkVenezuela
In December 2007, Hugo Chávez moved Venezuela to UTC−4:30, saying children should wake up in daylight. In May 2016, Nicolás Maduro moved it back to UTC−4 to save electricity during an energy crisis.
Two presidents, two half-hours, one very confused set of airline schedules.
Chapter 3 · 9 stories
Clocks are supposed to follow the sun. In practice they follow whoever is in charge.
No. 20 · 1940
#linkSpain
Most of Spain lies west of Greenwich, level with Britain and Portugal. In 1940, Franco moved Spain's clocks forward an hour to Central European Time, in line with Germany, and it never moved back. Spain's late sunsets, and its famously late dinners, are often linked to that decision.
Dinner at 10 p.m. is arguably a World War II leftover.
No. 21 · 1949
#linkChina
Since 1949 the whole of China officially keeps Beijing Time, UTC+8. In the far west, around Kashgar, that puts winter sunrise well after 9:30 a.m. Many people in Xinjiang informally use a local "Xinjiang Time" two hours behind, so a meeting time can need clarifying.
"Let's meet at 10." "Beijing ten, or Xinjiang ten?"
No. 22 · Today
#linkAfghanistan–China border
Afghanistan keeps UTC+4:30. China keeps UTC+8. They share a short border high in the Wakhan Corridor, so stepping across it moves your watch three and a half hours.
The world's most efficient jet lag. No jet required.
No. 23 · 2011–2014
#linkRussia
In 2010, Russia cut its time zones from 11 to 9. In 2011, Dmitry Medvedev abolished clock changes and kept the country on permanent summer time. Winter mornings stayed dark until late, so in 2014 Russia switched to permanent winter time instead and went back to 11 zones.
Russia has more time zones than most countries have opinions about time zones.
No. 24 · 2024
#linkKazakhstan
On March 1, 2024, Kazakhstan moved its eastern half, including Almaty, back one hour so that the whole country kept a single time, UTC+5. Plenty of residents objected to the darker evenings.
Unity achieved, one lost hour at a time.
No. 25 · 1996
#linkSri Lanka
During a 1996 power crisis, Sri Lanka jumped from UTC+5:30 to UTC+6:30, then settled at UTC+6. In 2006 it went back to UTC+5:30 to match India. During the civil war, areas held by the LTTE did not follow the 1996 change, so parts of the island were on different times.
One island, two clocks, and the clocks were the least of the disagreements.
No. 26 · 2023
#linkGreenland
In March 2023, Greenland's capital Nuuk moved from UTC−3 to UTC−2, partly to shrink the time gap with Copenhagen for business and government.
The world's largest island, nudging itself an hour east.
No. 27 · Today
#linkFrance
Thanks to overseas territories scattered from the Pacific to the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, France spans 12 time zones, 13 if you count its Antarctic claim. Russia and the United States each have 11.
The sun never sets on the République either.
No. 28 · Today
#linkSouth Pole
At the pole every line of longitude meets, so any time zone is technically correct. The US Amundsen–Scott station uses New Zealand time because its supply flights come from Christchurch.
When every time zone is valid, you pick the one with the flight schedule.
Chapter 4 · 20 stories
Daylight saving time was invented by bug collectors and golfers, and it has not calmed down since.
No. 29 · 1784
#linkParis
He gets the credit anyway. In a satirical 1784 letter to the Journal de Paris, Franklin "discovered" that the sun rises early and suggested taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and ringing church bells and firing cannons at dawn to get Parisians out of bed. He never proposed changing the clocks.
A joke about lazy Parisians, credited for 240 years as a policy proposal.
No. 30 · 1895
#linkNew Zealand
George Vernon Hudson, an entomologist in Wellington, proposed a two-hour seasonal clock shift in 1895. His motive was more after-work daylight to collect insects.
Billions of people change their clocks partly because of beetles.
No. 31 · 1907
#linkLondon
Builder William Willett published "The Waste of Daylight" in 1907, reportedly after noticing shuttered windows on an early-morning ride and finding his evening golf cut short by dusk. He proposed moving the clocks 80 minutes in four 20-minute steps. He died in 1915, a year before Britain adopted it. Coldplay's Chris Martin is his great-great-grandson.
Four separate 20-minute clock changes. Imagine the group chat.
No. 32 · 1916
#linkGermany
Germany and Austria-Hungary introduced daylight saving time on April 30, 1916, to save fuel in World War I. Britain and much of Europe followed within weeks. The US followed in 1918, then repealed it nationally the next year.
A war-era emergency hack we are still running a century later.
No. 33 · 1941–1971
#linkUnited Kingdom
During World War II, Britain used "British Double Summer Time", two hours ahead of GMT in summer. From 1968 to 1971 it tried staying on GMT+1 all year as an experiment. Dark winter mornings, especially in Scotland, ended it.
Britain has tried most settings on the dial. It went back to the default.
No. 34 · 1974
#linkUnited States
During the oil crisis, Richard Nixon signed year-round daylight saving time into law in January 1974. Kids went to school in pitch darkness. Public approval reportedly collapsed from 79% to 42%, and by October Congress had reversed it.
It's the plan everyone proposes today. It has already been tried, once.
No. 35 · 2022
#linkUnited States
On March 15, 2022, the Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent, meaning no recorded vote. Several senators later said they hadn't realised it was coming up. It then died in the House. In July 2026 the House finally passed its own version, 308–117, and sent it to the Senate.
Each chamber has now passed it once. Never at the same time.
No. 36 · 1960s
#linkOhio & West Virginia
Before the 1966 Uniform Time Act, US towns started and stopped DST whenever they liked. The best-known example: passengers on a 35-mile bus route from Steubenville, Ohio, to Moundsville, West Virginia, passed through seven clock changes along the way.
Roughly one time zone every five miles. By bus.
No. 37 · 1965
#linkMinnesota
In 1965, St. Paul started daylight saving time early while Minneapolis waited for the state's official date. For a couple of weeks, the Twin Cities, which sit right next to each other, were an hour apart.
Twin Cities. Not twin clocks.
No. 38 · 2006
#linkIndiana
For decades, most of Indiana did not observe DST, while some counties did, and the state was split between Eastern and Central time. Indiana adopted daylight saving statewide only in 2006. It's still split across two time zones.
"What time is it in Indiana?" was a genuine research question.
No. 39 · Today
#linkArizona
Arizona doesn't observe DST. The Navajo Nation, which covers much of northeastern Arizona, does. The Hopi Reservation, which is surrounded by the Navajo Nation, doesn't. And there's a piece of Navajo land inside the Hopi Reservation that does. In summer, a straight drive across can mean changing your watch several times.
A time zone inside a time zone inside a time zone inside a state.
No. 40 · 2016
#linkEgypt
In July 2016, Egypt's cabinet cancelled daylight saving time just days before clocks were due to change. Airlines, phone networks, and software vendors scrambled to undo planned updates.
Every operating system on Earth got a surprise homework assignment.
No. 41 · 2018
#linkMorocco
On October 26, 2018, Morocco announced it would stay on summer time permanently. Clocks were due to fall back on October 28. Phones and computers that hadn't been updated in time fell back anyway.
Forty-eight hours' notice for a whole country's clock.
No. 42 · 2023
#linkLebanon
In March 2023, Lebanon's caretaker government postponed daylight saving time until after Ramadan. The Maronite Church, schools, TV stations, and businesses refused and changed their clocks anyway. For several days, the country ran on two times, depending on who you asked, until the government reversed course.
"What time is it?" became a question about your politics.
No. 43 · 2015
#linkTurkey
In 2015, Turkey pushed the end of daylight saving time back by two weeks so it wouldn't fall right before a national election. Many smartphones and computers changed automatically on the original date anyway, leaving people unsure which of their clocks to trust.
Your phone was confident. It was also wrong.
No. 44 · 2018
#linkEuropean Union
A 2018 EU public consultation drew about 4.6 million responses, 84% of them in favour of ending seasonal clock changes. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to scrap them. Member states never agreed on whether to keep summer or winter time, and the plan stalled.
Everyone agreed to stop. Nobody agreed on what to stop on.
No. 45 · 2019–2022
#linkBrazil, Mexico, Iran
Brazil abolished daylight saving time in 2019. Mexico ended it in 2022 for most of the country, except some border areas that keep in step with the US. Iran's parliament voted to drop it in 2022 too. Bangladesh, meanwhile, tried DST in 2009 and quit within months.
Daylight saving: easy to join, hard to leave, and rarely missed.
No. 46 · 2016
#linkMassachusetts
On the night clocks fell back in November 2016, twins were born on Cape Cod about half an hour apart. The first arrived at 1:39 a.m. Then the clocks went back, and his brother arrived at 1:10 a.m. On paper, the second-born twin is the older one.
A sibling argument that is now permanently unwinnable.
No. 47 · Every November
#linkUnited States
When clocks fall back at 2 a.m., overnight Amtrak trains that would otherwise arrive an hour "early" pull into a station and wait for an hour so they get back on schedule. In spring, they simply run an hour late.
The only train that's punctual by doing nothing for 60 minutes.
No. 48 · Every March
#linkEverywhere with DST
A 2014 study of Michigan hospitals found about 24% more heart attacks on the Monday after the spring clock change. A 2020 study of US data estimated a roughly 6% rise in fatal car crashes in the week after.
One lost hour of sleep. Several lost points of public health.
Chapter 5 · 7 stories
Until the railways, every town set its clocks by its own noon. It went about as well as you'd expect.
No. 49 · 1883
#linkNorth America
Before 1883, US and Canadian railroads juggled more than 50 different railroad times, on top of hundreds of local sun times. On November 18, 1883, they switched to standard zones: four in the US, plus one more in eastern Canada. In many cities clocks were reset at noon, so noon happened twice. The US government didn't make time zones law until 1918.
Time zones were a railroad scheduling feature for 35 years before they were the law.
No. 50 · Today
#linkOxford, England
Oxford's local mean time is about five minutes behind Greenwich. Christ Church still honours it: Great Tom, the bell in Tom Tower, rings 101 times at 9:05 p.m. each night, and cathedral services traditionally start five minutes after the hour.
Fashionably late, as an institutional policy, since the 1800s.
No. 51 · 1852
#linkBristol, England
When railways brought London time to Bristol, about ten minutes ahead of local time, the city's Corn Exchange clock got a second minute hand. One shows Bristol time, one shows London time. It's still there.
A clock that solved a dispute by agreeing with both sides.
No. 52 · 1884
#linkWashington, D.C.
At the 1884 International Meridian Conference, 22 countries voted for Greenwich as the prime meridian. San Domingo voted against. France and Brazil abstained. France kept using the Paris meridian for its own purposes for decades.
See also: "Paris mean time, retarded by nine minutes and twenty-one seconds."
No. 53 · 1793
#linkFrance
The French Revolution introduced decimal time in 1793: 10 hours a day, 100 minutes an hour, 100 seconds a minute. Clocks were built with 10-hour dials. It only became compulsory in September 1794, and was suspended in April 1795, after about six months.
They decimalised the metre and the litre. The day fought back.
No. 54 · Today
#linkEthiopia
Ethiopia commonly uses a 12-hour clock that starts counting at dawn, so what most of the world calls 7 a.m. is 1 o'clock in the morning. It also uses its own calendar, which runs about seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one.
Book a 2 o'clock meeting in Addis Ababa and specify which 2 o'clock.
No. 55 · 1800s–today
#linkAssam, India
India officially has one time zone, UTC+5:30. But in Assam, in the far east of the country, the sun rises very early, and tea estates have kept "Chai Bagan" (tea garden) time, an hour ahead of IST, since the British era.
A time zone maintained, essentially, by tea.
Chapter 6 · 9 stories
Every programmer eventually learns that time is the hardest problem in software. Usually at 2 a.m., in March.
No. 56 · 2011
#linkInternet
Almost every computer and phone gets its time zone rules from the tz database, maintained for years by volunteers. In 2011 an astrology software company, Astrolabe, sued its maintainers over historical data it said came from its atlas. The database briefly went offline, the EFF stepped in, IANA took over hosting, and Astrolabe dropped the case in 2012.
For a moment, the world's clocks were at the mercy of a horoscope company.
No. 57 · 2012
#linkInternet
A leap second added at the end of June 30, 2012 triggered a Linux bug that sent servers into overdrive. Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, Yelp, and Gawker had problems, and an outage at the Amadeus booking system snarled check-in for Qantas.
The internet survived Y2K and then tripped on 23:59:60.
No. 58 · 2017
#linkInternet
The leap second at the end of 2016 caused a bug in Cloudflare's DNS software, where a time calculation went negative. Some customers had DNS failures in the first hours of 2017. In 2022, the world's timekeeping authorities voted to stop adding leap seconds by 2035.
Time went backwards. The code, reasonably, did not expect that.
No. 59 · 2010
#linkEurope, Australia & NZ
In late 2010, after daylight saving changes in Europe and Australia, some iPhone recurring alarms went off an hour wrong. Then on January 1 and 2, 2011, one-time alarms didn't go off at all. Apple said they'd start working again on January 3.
Luckily the bug only took New Year's weekend off. Monday, sadly, went ahead as planned.
No. 60 · 1998
#linkBiel, Switzerland
In 1998 Swatch launched Internet Time: the day divided into 1,000 ".beats", with no time zones, based on "Biel Mean Time" at Swatch's Swiss headquarters. Midnight Biel Mean Time (UTC+1, no daylight saving) was @000 everywhere. Swatch made watches for it. The world did not switch.
Global time unification, brought to you by a watch brand.
No. 61 · Every day
#linkPlanet Earth
The earliest time zone is UTC+14 (Kiribati's Line Islands) and the latest is UTC−12. They're 26 hours apart. So between 10:00 and 11:59 UTC each day, three calendar dates are in use somewhere on Earth.
"What's today's date?" has no single correct answer for two hours a day.
No. 62 · Today
#linkBering Strait
Big Diomede (Russia) and Little Diomede (USA) are about 2.4 miles (3.8 km) apart in the Bering Strait, with the date line running between them. Big Diomede is roughly a day ahead, which is why they're nicknamed Tomorrow Island and Yesterday Island.
You can see tomorrow from yesterday, on a clear day.
No. 63 · 2024
#linkThe Moon
In April 2024, the White House directed NASA to develop Coordinated Lunar Time. Because of weaker gravity, clocks on the Moon tick slightly faster than on Earth, gaining about 58.7 microseconds a day.
We still can't agree on Earth's clocks, so naturally we're doing the Moon's.
No. 64 · 2004
#linkPasadena (on Mars time)
A Martian day, or sol, is about 24 hours 39 minutes. When the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed in 2004, JPL teams worked on Mars time, so their shifts drifted about 40 minutes later every day. Some wore custom watches built to run on Martian time.
Jet lag, but the jet is a planet.
Send them this. Every link above jumps to a single story, so you can share just the Samoa one if that’s all they can handle.
Psst, business owners
Even the 45-minute ones. RingOwl is a 24/7 AI answering service that picks up every call, books appointments, and emails you a summary, whatever the clock says.