![]() ![]() Think of the seminal opening line from 1984, by George Orwell: "It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen." That's 1:00 p.m, so 2:00 p.m. hour and use the resulting number for your military time conversion. Starting at a base line of 12, you'll have to add the p.m. Noon is where some on-the-fly math comes into play. When it gets to double-digits, things are even easier: You don't even have to do anything for the second step. Then, treat the hour as a unit of ten instead of a unit of one (that means placing a zero in front of single-digit numerals). The core concept of converting to military time is far from complex in fact, it boils down to only two simple steps. However, it wasn't until the midst of World War II, that the United States Armed Forces-whose generals had to coordinate fronts in multiple theaters around the globe, and needed specificity to do so effectively-formally adopted the practice, on July 1, 1942, seven months after entering the fight. Soon after, the rest of the allied forces followed suit and, in the final months of the war, the British Army formally, permanently switched over. The 12 sundial hours plus the 12 decan hours meant each day consisted of 24 hours.īut if the 24-hour clock wasn't invented by the military, how did it earn the "military time" moniker?įast forward 3,900 years, give or take, to the early stages of World War I: In the interest of maintaining strategic consistency and eliminating any mission-thwarting discrepancies-not to mention helping submarine-stationed soldiers tell time-the British Royal Navy adopted the 24-hour clock. These devices broke down the day into 10-the fundamental numeral of human existence-units, with an extra unit for dawn and an extra unit for dusk. These 12 became the de facto measurement for nighttime hours.įor daytime hours, Egyptians measured time with a device you may recognize: A sundial. (If you're wondering, yes, this system is the foundation of the modern year.) During any given twilight (either dusk or dawn) 18 decans would be visible-but three would overlap with both the previous and forthcoming 10-day cycle, meaning only 12 decans were unique to each cycle. ![]() Over time, Egyptian astronomers realized that each newly visible decan marked the start of a 10-solar-lunar cycle, or 10-day, period, leading to a repeating 360-day chart. Egyptians astronomers pinpointed 36, charted their ever-changing positions in the night sky, and drafted tables to keep track of them. Units of constellational measurement, a decan refers to one of the various star patterns that would pop up in the night sky on a recurring basis. Neugebauer, the famed 20th-century mathematician, notes, in his landmark collection of essays, Astronomy and History, ancient Egyptians coined a system of "decans" to measure time. In fact, the practice dates back long before any modern military existed-roughly four millennia, to the Tenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.Īs Otto E. To fully understand the 24-hour clock, it helps to bone up on some origins despite its namesake, the military didn't actually invent military time. In other words, yes, you should know how to read it.
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