Universal Time

about 7 p.m. in Los Angeles, 6.40 in New York, and in London, it rises almost exactly at sunset, at about a quarter to five.

Last quarter is on the 1st of November, Universal Time.

And a clock reminder for the North.

The U.K. went back to standard time on Sunday the 25th.

The big show is before dawn, and this week it favors the North.

Jupiter at magnitude minus 1.8 in Leo, and Mars, a fainter orange point at about plus 0.9 in Cancer, are closing on each other.

They're about 7.5 degrees apart this week, under 6 by the 1st of November, about 3 by the 8th, and they reach their closest, just over 1 degree apart, on the 16th of November, Universal Time.

And the hemisphere gap is big.

Eventually, in 1883, the US and Canada agreed to establish standardized time zones for the North American railways, and once other countries saw how much it improved railway operations, they jumped on board as well.

The very next year, at a conference in Washington, DC, Sandford convinced 25 different countries to adopt standardized time zones, and this led to the creation of Universal Time, the system that we still use all over the globe today.

One missed train led to a fundamental change in the way humanity measured time.

I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.