00:00So get this, Taylor Swift takes a flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo that leaves at 10 a.m.
00:06on February 20th.
00:07She's on the plane for 12 hours, but she lands only at 2 p.m. the next day in Tokyo.
00:13That's a 28-hour difference!
00:16So how did this time warp happen?
00:18Well, it's all because of this wonky line.
00:21This is the International Date Line.
00:24You know, that imaginary line that slices the globe in half and decides who gets to
00:28celebrate the New Year first?
00:30It's the Line Islands, by the way.
00:33But crossing this line doesn't just make you feel like you've stepped into a transporter.
00:38It actually changes your date.
00:40Cross from east to west and boom, it's 24 hours later.
00:44If you travel in the opposite direction, crossing the line from the western side to the eastern
00:49side, you go back an entire calendar day.
00:52Now you'd think that the International Date Line would be a nice, neat, straight line
00:57in the ocean where the time zones switch.
01:00But in reality, it's as if someone took a ruler and said, let's make this complicated.
01:05The line zigzags all over the place, wrapping around islands and causing all sorts of head-scratching
01:11confusion.
01:12For instance, Big Diomede Island and Little Diomede Island are only 2.5 miles apart but
01:19have a 21-hour time difference.
01:22Things can get a little more complicated depending on which time zone a country follows.
01:27For example, if you travel 659 miles across the date line from Baker Island to Tokelau,
01:33you must add 25 hours.
01:35In other words, that's one day and one hour.
01:38And if that doesn't sound weird enough for you, wait, it gets crazier.
01:43When it's 6 o'clock in the morning on Thursday in New York, it's still Wednesday night in
01:47American Samoa.
01:49Meanwhile, over in Kiribati, it's already Friday.
01:52Yep, we're talking about three different calendar days happening at the same time because
01:57of this one imaginary crazy line.
01:59This phenomenon occurs every day, between 10 o'clock and 10.59 in the morning.
02:05So why does the international date line look so ridiculous in the first place?
02:10Well, great question.
02:12Although these zigzags may seem completely arbitrary, they actually have a logical basis.
02:18It's pretty much a made-up concept based on the Earth's rotation.
02:22The Earth is always spinning, thank goodness, and it takes about 24 hours, or a day, to
02:27complete one full rotation.
02:28To keep things in sync, people took the Earth and divided it into 24 time zones, each 15
02:35degrees apart.
02:36But what is the starting point for a day on Earth?
02:39Basically, people needed to figure out which of these 24 zones, or lines, would be the
02:44starting line, or the chronocenter.
02:47They needed a reference point, a line where they could begin adding or subtracting time
02:51as you move east or west.
02:54That line is what we now call the prime meridian.
02:57But here's the catch.
02:59Deciding where to put this starting line, the prime meridian, is totally arbitrary.
03:04The idea of establishing a line where days begin and end goes all the way back to at
03:08least the 1300s.
03:10Back then, mapmakers were doing their own thing, picking their own east-west dividing
03:15lines called meridians, which, by the way, is just a fancy Latin word for midday.
03:21Without a universal standard for when a day officially started or ended, sailors on long
03:26voyages just had to wing it, figuring out how to handle the time they were gaining or
03:31losing along the way.
03:33So in 1884, people decided to organize this whole mess.
03:3825 nations gathered at the prestigious International Meridian Conference in the United States with
03:43one big goal.
03:45To decide on a line that would serve as the official prime meridian.
03:49Finally.
03:50Like it or not, they were determined to create the International Date Line that the whole
03:54world would accept and would follow from that point forward.
03:58The prime meridian was established in Greenwich, England, and the International Date Line was
04:03placed on the opposite side, running through the 180th meridian.
04:07Well, sounds simple, right?
04:10But that's when the nightmare really began.
04:12The chosen International Date Line didn't just wander through uninhabited areas, oh
04:17no!
04:18It split some countries in half and created all sorts of chaos.
04:22I mean, if you divide the world with a completely straight vertical line, you end up with situations
04:27where half of a country is one day ahead and the other half is one day behind.
04:32Take Kiribati, for example.
04:34The country is primarily centered in the Gilbert Islands, which sits just west of the International
04:39Date Line.
04:40However, in 1979, their territory got a little bigger with the Phoenix and Line Islands,
04:46which are way east of the date line.
04:48Suddenly, Kiribati was straddling the International Date Line.
04:52This created a bit of a headache for businesses.
04:55Folks on either side could only communicate by radio or phone for four weekdays a week.
05:00To fix this quirky situation, Kiribati decided to skip Saturday, December 31, 1994, right
05:07off the calendar.
05:08So Friday, December 30, turned into Sunday, January 1, 1995.
05:14And just like that, New Year's Day came a day early!
05:18After that, the date line moved eastward to go around the entire country.
05:23So the same thing that happened to Kiribati happened to other countries as well.
05:27For example, when they got to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, yep, the line made another
05:32detour to include them.
05:33And when they got south of the equator, guess what?
05:37They made another eastward bend to cover even more islands.
05:39And that's pretty much why the straight line started to get a bit ziggy-zaggy.
05:44This wonky line is designed to avoid land as much as possible, so there's less hassle
05:48when it comes to changing days.
05:51So no, you can't stand between the International Date Line, like having one foot in one day
05:56and the other in the next.
05:58But you can cross it by boat.
06:00In fact, some fancy trans-Pacific cruises even offer a time travel package for adventurous
06:06travelers who want to cross the line and jump into the future.
06:11In the end, the International Date Line looks this ridiculous because it was constructed
06:15based on a series of arbitrary decisions, historical quirks, and a whole lot of confusion.
06:21But it's not just because people organized it in the 19th century that there is no confusion
06:26regarding time zones today.
06:29Another thing that the Prime Meridian establishes is Coordinated Universal Time, the famous
06:34UTC.
06:35Now, UTC never changes for Daylight Savings Time or anything else.
06:40However, in 1908, Canada decided to spice things up by creating Daylight Saving Time,
06:46or DST.
06:48Their idea was to set the clocks one hour ahead of standard time to make better use
06:52of sunlight in the spring and summer and fall evenings.
06:56The idea was so brilliant that most countries jumped on board, but not everyone.
07:01Just look at Nepal – they have never ever used the Daylight Savings Time, which means
07:06their clocks do not change throughout the entire year.
07:09As you probably know, countries with large territories often have more than one time
07:14zone.
07:15Just like the United States, which has 11 time zones.
07:18Australia has 9, while India… well, India is a special case.
07:22Look, India is a big country with an area that stretches around 1,800 miles from west
07:28to east.
07:29So it should have 3 time zones in total.
07:32But they only have one.
07:33This means that the sun rises almost 90 minutes earlier in Dong, in the Far East, than in
07:39Guharmati, in the West.
07:42And why do they have only one time zone?
07:44Well, basically, because they can.
07:47Just remember that the international dateline and time zones are invisible, artificial,
07:52and now you know, totally arbitrary.
07:55So if a country wants to stick with just one time zone to simplify processes and business
07:59operations within its border, then, hey, why not?
08:04That's it for today!
08:06So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:10friends!
08:11Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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