On Thu 07 Dec 2023 at 22:07:44 (-0500), Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Fri, Dec 08, 2023 at 09:38:43AM +0700, Max Nikulin wrote: > > - IANA TZ DB does not support timezones disappeared before 1970. > > <https://data.iana.org/time-zones/theory.html#accuracy> > > Ohhh, *this* is the kind of reference I've been looking for. > > So, we simply acknowledge that historical clock information prior to 1970 > is just not feasibly discoverable. All of the time zone choices are > going to be flawed, for almost all of the people in the world. We just > pick from the ones that are known to be good enough.
Where it's felt important enough, or is accessible enough, people are prepared, it seems, to do the necessary work. Britain appears to lead the world in that respect. It probably helps to be a small, civilized country. :) https://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/ On the subject of leap seconds, I think there's a point that's missed on this Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Time_Signal where it says: "Until 1972, the pips were of equal length and confusion arose as to which was the final pip, hence the last pip is now of extended length." My recollection is of listening to the first "leap pip" on Radio4, which was the first time the final pip had been made longer. (There had been discussions about leap seconds on Radio4 in the lead up to the event.) Cheers, David.
