The introduction of railroads changed a lot, including time; with every town having its own time, marked at the sun's zenith, scheduling was a mess. //

Charles F. Dowd tamed time.

The career educator conceived a plan so audacious it’s hard to believe there was an era when his vision for the world didn’t exist.

Dowd created time zones. He put the rotation of the Earth, the rise of the sun, the movement of the heavens and the genesis of eternity itself on an artificial schedule for the benefit of mankind.

"To regulate the time of this Empire Republic of the World is an undertaking of magnificent proportions," the Indianapolis Sentinel wrote on Nov. 21, 1883, three days after railroads instituted time zones across North America. //

We recalcitrant Americans came late to the party, not legally adopting the time zone system until 1918, during the Great War, but the railroads bought into the new system in 1883, as it made schedule-keeping a lot easier. //

In one of history's little ironies, Charles Dowd was killed in 1904 when he stepped in front of a train; history has not recorded whether or not that train was running on time.