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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Thanks to an obscure conference 114 years ago, every time travellers cross the Pacific, they lose or gain a day depending on the direction they are going.
It perplexes the people who do it all the time -- Samoans, Niueans and Cook Islanders who cross the International Dateline to see friends and family in New Zealand. Stories of two Christmas Days, a missed birthday or a wrecked watch in the rewinding are commonplace. Going east across the dateline a traveller goes back a day, while going west across the line leads to skipping a day.
The International Meridian Conference on October 13, 1884, was called by President Chester Arthur for the Diplomatic Hall of the State Department, Washington. Among 25 nations were Austria-Hungary, which no longer exists as such; Hawaii, which was an independent Polynesian kingdom until the US invaded; and San Domingo, which is now the Dominican Republic.
Principles were established by the conference, including the creation of a single world meridian to replace several thatexisted then. That meridian passed through Greenwich, near London, with all longitudes calculated both east and west from Greenwich up to 180 degrees.
Establishing the prime meridian at Greenwich passed 22-1, with a delegate from San Domingo, for reasons now lost in time, against and France and Brazil abstaining. France wanted the prime meridian in Paris, not London.
Agreeing to go 180 degrees in each direction from Greenwich passed but with Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain against while France, still in a huff, abstained in the company of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Brazil, San Domingo and Turkey.
The prime meridian led to the 180 degree longitude becoming the International Dateline. The conference set an interesting precedent for Kiribati by agreeing to various kinks: around Siberia, avoiding Fiji and between Samoa and Tonga and keeping New Zealand in one day.
Kiribati and its predecessor, the Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony, did not exist at that time but its 80,000 Micronesianswere left affected by it as the Christian state found itself with two Sundays every week.
In 1995, the government in Tarawa (west of the dateline) declared everybody was in the same day and consequently, Kiritimiti (Christmas) and Caroline islands found themselves 14 hours ahead of Greenwich.
Uninhabited Caroline then became the first place to see each new day and has been renamed Millennium Island.
With imperial haughtiness which startled Tarawa, the Greenwich Observatory blasted the Micronesians for hijacking the dateline.
A sensitive people, the I-Kiribati (as they are known) were undeterred and noted a decision made in Washington a century ago which said the line could be moved to accommodate local difficulties.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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