Before the dawn of recorded history, humans recognized that the position of the sun in the sky is an indication of the progress of the day.

As one's knowledge of the earth and its relation to the sun increased, so did the sophistication of the devices used in timekeeping. Alfred the Great used "good tall candles," divided into equal segments. As they burned, they showed the time of day or night. The first clock in the modern sense was constructed by Huyghens, who used Galileo's discovery of the pendulum for it, For centuries the position of the real sun in the sky was used to tell time.

This is called apparent solar time. "High noon" or 12 o'clock is the highest altitude the sun will achieve on that particular day, Watches and clocks are really reading the kind of time that the sun would keep if its motion were uniform; that is, mean solar time. For many decades mean solar time was used successfully, but with the advent of more rapid transportation, difficulties increased.

When transportation was by horse or by sailboat, it was not necessary- in fact very difficult- to predict the arrival time on a long journey within a few minutes. Once the "Iron Horse" began making transcontinental journeys with many stops along the way, timetables expressed in local solar time became a gigantic headache and a nightmare of confusion.

This is what led to the idea of Standard Time, Sir Sanford Fleming, a Canadian railway engineer, was largely responsible for this idea that was adopted worldwide in 1884. It was agreed to establish 24 international time zones at 15 degree intervals around the world starting at Greenwich, England. The 20th century improvement on Standard Time has been the introduction of Daylight Time, "Spring ahead and Fall back"

It is most interesting to note that Fleming really wanted "universal time" implemented.

The Year and the Calendar

Two principal calendars have been used for many centuries. One is based on the sun's annual path; the other, on the moon's monthly path- in particular, its phases.
Our present calendar is based on the numerical value of the tropical year, 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. It was introduced by Julius Caesar with the help of the astronomer Sosigenes.

They developed the idea of Leap Years to adjust the calendar to coincide with the seasons. Calendars were altered in 1582 and 1752 to adjust for some extra days that had accumulated.

For many years, further calendar reformers have suggested a 13 month year containing 28 days each.
Another reform suggests 4 equal quarters in a year with a first month of 31 days. The second and third months would have 30 days and the fourth ends on a Saturday, Both systems require extra leap days. With our present system of timekeeping it is actually possible to have 10 Sundays in February.