Q 01/05

Which imaginary line is the zero point for the world's time zones?

A) The International Date Line

B) The prime meridian

C) The equator

D) The Tropic of Cancer

Answer · why

B) The prime meridian

The prime meridian. Delegates meeting in Washington in 1884 fixed it at Greenwich, partly because the United States had already built its railway time...

Q 02/05

Before standard time, clocks in which English city ran about ten minutes behind London's?

A) Norwich

B) Bristol

C) Canterbury

D) Cambridge

Answer · why

B) Bristol

Bristol. It lies about 2.5 degrees west of London, and the Sun takes four minutes to cross each degree; the clock on the city's Exchange still carries...

Q 03/05

Which British rail company began using Greenwich Mean Time in November 1840?

A) London and North Western

B) Midland Railway

C) Great Western Railway

D) Great Northern Railway

Answer · why

C) Great Western Railway

Portable chronometers carried the time; other companies followed and it became known as "railway time".

Q 04/05

From 1852, which technology carried Greenwich time across Britain?

A) Semaphore towers

B) The telegraph

C) Pneumatic tubes

D) Radio signals

Answer · why

B) The telegraph

The telegraph. A master clock at Greenwich sent signals down the wires, and by the mid-1850s almost every public clock in Britain showed London time; ...

Q 05/05

Which colony adopted a nationwide standard time in 1868, 11½ hours ahead of GMT?

A) New South Wales

B) Cape Colony

C) New Zealand

D) Ceylon

Answer · why

C) New Zealand

New Zealand. Its clocks kept that odd half hour until a wartime emergency put them forward all year round, a change made permanent in 1946 that left t...