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It's an interesting question. Clearly the British didn't "invent time", but when the railways became widespread in the UK they needed to have "Railway Time"[0]
by ColinWright 5y ago
It's an interesting question. Clearly the British didn't "invent time", but when the railways became widespread in the UK they needed to have "Railway Time"[0]. Before that each village had their own local time, and it was a mess when trains would arrive or depart minutes earlier or later than expected.
So "Railway Time" was invented in 1840 ... unified across the country, and it created a Time Zone.
Was Britain the first place this happened? I suspect it was.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
- dcminter 5y agoIn the context of GMT the importance of time to establishing longitude and the Longitude act[0] seem much more relevant to me. I still think it's a bit of a stretch from that to "created time" though! Whoever came up with the sundial first would have the claim to having invented time - and the sun's not out often enough in Blighty for them to be a contender :P [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act