World Events Shelf

Quotes Tagged “World Events”

“ For us on the East Coast of the United States the systematic change in the calendar begins on December 31, 2017. It starts in the South Pacific nation of Samoa, which is always the first country to welcome in the New Year. Just 101 miles to the east is American Samoa, which will have to wait for an entire day to pass, before they can celebrate the New Year in…. Around the globe there are 39 different local time zones, which cause this phenomenon to take place over a period of 26 hours, before e For us on the East Coast of the United States the systematic change in the calendar begins on December 31, 2017. It starts in the South Pacific nation of Samoa, which is always the first country to welcome in the New Year. Just 101 miles to the east is American Samoa, which will have to wait for an entire day to pass, before they can celebrate the New Year in…. Around the globe there are 39 different local time zones, which cause this phenomenon to take place over a period of 26 hours, before everyone on Earth enters the New Year. The year of 2018 is first celebrated at 5 a.m. on December 31, 2017, in Samoa and on Christmas Island in Kiribati. I have actually been on that small island, located in the figurative center of the largest ocean in the world. Only fifteen minutes later, the New Year arrives on Chatham Island in New Zealand. It isn’t until 8 a.m. that larger land masses are affected and then by 9 a.m., much of Australia and parts of Russia can ring in the New Year. In rapid succession North & South Korea, China and the Philippines fall to the moving clock. By noon Indonesia, Thailand and 10 more countries enter into the New Year. Having been in Malaysia and Thailand, I personally know what it’s like, hanging from your heels, on the opposite side of the Earth from where we are now. The ever moving midnight hour visits our troops in Afghanistan, at 2:30 p.m. and washes over Europe, starting at 4 p.m. It continues to flow over the continent until leaving the United Kingdom three hours later. Entering the Atlantic Ocean it does not reappear in America, until it reaches parts of Brazil at 9 p.m. Midnight finally comes to us on the east coast of North America where we celebrate the New Year with more gusto than anywhere else on Earth. In the United States and Canada we celebrate for three hours, before handing the baton over to Alaska, Hawaii and the United States owned Pacific Islands. By 7 a.m. the last of the American Islands in the Pacific Ocean can finally herald in 1918. I have heard it said that if you had the resources and time, you could fly from Sydney to Honolulu and celebrate the New Year twice. I can imagine that this little bit of fun could be quite expensive! ...more ”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."

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“ The Oreo cookie invented, the Titanic sinks, Spanish flu, Prohibition, women granted the right to vote, Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic, penicillin invented, stock market crashes, the Depression, Amelia Earhart, the atom is split, Prohibition ends, Golden Gate Bridge is built, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the Korean War, Disneyland, Rosa Parks, Laika the dog is shot into space, hula hoops, birth control pill invented, Bay of Pigs, Marilyn Monroe dies, JFK killed, MLK has a dream, Vietnam War, S ...more ”
― Melanie Gideon, Valley of the Moon

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