Time change.

Learn Our History Today: On November 18, 1883, railroads in the United States and Canada began using four continental time zones, ending the massive confusion that resulted from the use of thousands of varied local times. Up until 1883, all towns and cities in the United States kept their own time using the movement of the sun, with the expression “high noon” coming from this method, as the sun’s highest point in the sky was always at 12:00.

With the coming of the railroads, the various local times began to cause great problems, making any scheduling at all a sheer nightmare. The problem got so bad that, in major cities, railroad timetables would sometimes list more than a dozen different arrival times, each based on a separate local time. To improve efficiency and simplicity, the railroads needed a new, more uniform way of keeping time, and they got it in the form of the four time zones.

These time zones divided the continent into four different parts, with a one-hour difference between each, and a uniform time throughout each zone. As massive amounts of people throughout the United States used the railroads or needed railroads as their lifeline, the new time keeping method caught on quickly. Eventually, enough people embraced the new time zones that Congress made them the official United States time zones in 1918.

Also, on November 18, 1978, at a place known as Jonestown in Guyana, an American cult led by Jim Jones called the “Peoples Temple” undertook a massive murder-suicide that resulted in the deaths of over 900 people. Jim Jones was a Marxist preacher who diverted drastically from mainstream Christianity, and in the 1950s he created the cult that would become known as the Peoples Temple. The cult grew in numbers over the years in the U.S., but fearing a possible crackdown on their views, Jim Jones decided to relocate the cult to Guyana. Following the relocation, the activities of the cultists began to grow more and more controversial, with there being allegations that many cultists were actually being kept against their will. U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan was sent to investigate the Guyana settlement, known as Jonestown, and on November 18, this visit would unintentionally produce a terrible outcome. Ryan was killed by the cultists as he attempted to fly out with several defectors. Jones then claimed that “all was lost” and he led his followers in what he termed “revolutionary suicide.” Many committed suicide willingly, while others were forced. This loss of over 900 lives represented the greatest deliberate loss of American civilian life until the 9/11 terror attacks.

Also, on this day in U.S. history:

1820: Antarctica was sighted by US Navy Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer.
1872: Susan B. Anthony is arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshall and charged with voting illegally.
1902: Morris Michton, a Brooklyn toy-maker, names the teddy bear after President Teddy Roosevelt.


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