By the mid-20th century, most of the world had adopted a system of international time zones, in which the planet is divided into 24 zones spaced at intervals of approximately 15 degrees of longitude. The railroad industry’s plan was adopted by much of the country, although the time-zone system didn’t become official across the United States until the passage of the 1918 Standard Time Act, which also established daylight saving time. Within each zone, all clocks were synchronized. On November 18, 1883, America’s railroads began using a standard time system involving four time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. Although it was now possible to travel significant distances faster than ever before, a multitude of local times, particularly in large countries such as the United States, made things confusing when it came to train schedules. That changed with the rise of railroads in the 1800s. Before the days of long-distance travel, differences in local times weren’t a big deal. Every community set its clocks to noon based on when the sun reached its highest position in the sky as a result, when it was noon in Washington, D.C., the local time in New York City was already minutes ahead. For ages, people used the sun to determine what time it was where they were.
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