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North Korea Is Switching To a New Time Zone
jones_supa writes: North Korea has announced that it is winding its clocks back by half a hour to create a new "Pyongyang Time" — breaking from a time standard imposed by what it called "wicked Japanese imperialists" more than a century ago. The change will put the standard time in North Korea at UTC +8:30. North Korea said that the time change, approved on Wednesday by its rubber-stamp parliament and officially announced on Friday, would come into effect from August 15, which this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.
The Unified Korea actually set a Timezone of +8:30 GMT back in 1910. In 1912 when Japan took over, it was reset to Japanese +8:00 GMT. After liberation, South Korea briefly for a year or two went back to +8:30 for a few years in the 50's I believe, but reverted to Japanese +8:00 for economic reasons.
That's where it geographically should be (Greenwich meridian) and it isn't for political reasons. It's not just what you said, but also reasons such as differentiating from the UK.France's time was GMT+0 and it was changed by occupying Nazis. When the war ended, there was a decision to change it back but it was canceled.
Spain is in the "wrong" time-zone as well due to Franco's decision during WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
> Base 12 is arbitrary
Not really.
It is chosen because it is divisible by 1,2,3 and 4.
You want also divisible by 5. 60. There are reasons why 12 and 60 have been common for time and measurements. So you can describe fractions of something without fractions (or decimal).
10, on the other hand, is less interesting, except that you can count to ten easily on your fingers. (The reason why it was chosen).
In Napolions times, Germany was divided into half a hundred principals, Dukedoms, and small Kingdoms. Everyone having its own time zone. As the principal of the realm liked it to have his personal 'noon' at 12:00 when the sun was at the highest point above his palace.
And even after Germany was united into an empire, most regions kept their 'private' time. Often just 10 or 11:30 minutes of from the neighbour.
The unified german time was forced upon the regions by railway companies. It simply makes no sense that a train starts 12:00 local time and arrives at 11:55 local time.
So yes, the reason why Europe basically only has three time zones is to make trade and travel more easy
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.