Anniversary of "Standard Time"

CBC Archives has an "On This Day" article and video clip entitled: "Sir Sanford Fleming delivers 'the world on time' " marking the anniversary (1879 July 3) of the Canadian 'invention' of 'Standard Time':

When Sir Sanford Fleming immigrated to Canada from Scotland, the boat trip took four weeks, and time change wasn't much of an issue. But when Fleming linked Canada by train as chief engineer of three different railroads, time became a serious problem. North America was a jumble of dozens of time zones, with different ones even for neighbouring cities. Having helped create the problem, Fleming came up with a solution.

Fleming's cure for time zone insanity was Standard Time, a neat division of the world into 24 fixed time zones. In this clip, author Allan Gould says Sir Sanford Fleming was a visionary who "looked at the globe, and saw it shrinking." He discusses Fleming's proposal for Standard Time (first proposed on this day in 1879), along with a legacy that ranges from creating the Yellowhead Pass in the Rockies to building Halifax's Memorial Tower and designing Canada's first stamp.