Home > International date line

The first phenomenon to occur in association with the date-line problem was part of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. The crew returned to a Spanish stopover sure of the day of the week, as attested by various carefully maintained sailing logs. Nevertheless, those on land insisted the day was different. Although readily understandable, this phenomenon caused great excitement at the time, to the extent that a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain this oddity to him.

For the most part, the International Date Line follows the longitude line of 180 degrees. The two largest deviations from this meridian both occur to keep nations from crossing the date line internally. In the North Pacific, the date line swings to the East through the Bering Strait and then West past the Aleutian Islands in order to keep both Alaska (part of the United States) and Russia both completely on opposite sides of the line. In the central Pacific, the date line was moved in 1995 to extend around, rather than through, the territory of Kiribati. Prior to this time zone change, Kiribati straddled the date line; as a consequence, government offices on opposite sides of the line could only communicate on the four days of the week when both sides experienced weekdays simultaneously. A secondary consequence of this time zone revision was the new status of Caroline Atoll as the Easternmost inhabited land to enter the year 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri, a feature which the Kiribati government capitalized upon as a tourist draw.

The effect of ignoring the date line is also seen in Jules VerneJules Verne ( February 8, 1828 March 24, 1905) was a French writer and a pioneer of the science fiction ( scientific romance) genre. Early years Verne was born in Nantes to attorney Pierre Verne and his wife Sophie. The oldest of the family's five childre's work of fiction Around the World in Eighty DaysAround the World in Eighty Days Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours is a classic adventure novel by Jules Verne, first published in 1872. In the story, English adventurer Phileas Fogg, and his newly employed butler, Passepartout, attempt to circumnavig, in which the travellers return to London after a trip around the world, thinking that they have lost the bet that is the central premise of the story. Having circumnavigated in the direction opposite Magellan's, they believe the date there to be one day later than what it truly is.

Anyone travelling WestWest is most commonly a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. West is the direction towards which the sun sets at the equinox. It is one of the four cardinal points of the compass, upon which it is considered the opposite of East, and passing the line must add a day to what they would otherwise expect the date and time to be. Correspondingly, those going EastEast is most commonly a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. East is the direction in which the Earth rotates about its axis. Therefore it is the direction from which the sun rises at the equinox. Another consequence is that it is must subtract a day. Magellan's crew and Verne's travellers neglected those adjustments, respectively.