When was the International dateline first used?
*****No “official” International dateline has ever been established, however, time zones have been accepted and are in use. “The IDL drawn on the map on this page and all other maps is now and always has been an artificial construct of cartographers—it is de facto. No international organization nor any treaty between nations has fixed the ‘straight line’ segments and their junctions. All nations unilaterally determine their standard time zones, which are applicable only on land and adjacent territorial waters. These national zones do not extend into international waters. Indeed, the 1884 International Meridian Conference explicitly refused to propose or agree to any time zones, despite ‘common knowledge’ that they did, stating that they were outside its purview. The conference resolved that the Universal Day (midnight-to-midnight Greenwich Mean Time), which it did agree to, “shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable.
