True or false
Did the 1884 conference draw the whole line?
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The conference chose Greenwich as the prime meridian. It did not approve a complete worldwide date-line route.
Final act · resolutions I–VII →Explore a question
Five questions
about changing dates.
Choose an answer and find out what happened. Then open the source to read more.
Guess what happened
It was Thursday 29 in Samoa. Which date came next?
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293031
In December 2011, Thursday 29 was followed by Saturday 31. Friday 30 did not occur in Samoa’s civil calendar.
Open Samoa’s story →Did you know?
Did changing the date make every clock show the same time?
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Tarawa 10:00Kanton 11:00Kiritimati 12:00
Kiribati kept three time zones. In the story’s example, after the change it is 10 in Tarawa, 11 in Kanton and 12 in Kiritimati, all on Friday.
Compare the three clocks →Read the document
Were wages due for the hours in the missing Friday?
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International Date Line Act 2011
8 · Payment of wages
Section 8 of Samoa’s law protects wages for hours that would normally have been worked during the omitted day. That condition matters: it is not a universal extra payment.
Samoa’s law · section 8 →Look at this map
Did all these lines exist at the same time?
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The plate brings together routes from different periods. Dates printed near Alaska and the Philippines help distinguish them. A reproduction published in 1930 can show much earlier changes.
Notes on the History of the Date or Calendar Line · 1930 →