There are 24 time zones on Earth (each 15 degrees wide X 24 zones = 360 degrees - a full circle) because Earth's rotation requires a 24-hour period. Every minute the Sun is rising somewhere and setting somewhere else; every minute it is precisely noon somewhere at the same time it is precisely midnight somewhere else; every hour it is 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 AM somewhere and at the same time 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 PM elsewhere on the globe -- and so on.
Every place EAST of your present location is from 1 millisecond to 12 hours AHEAD (later) by "Sun-Time"; every place WEST of your present location is from 1 millisecond to 12 hours BEHIND (earlier) by "Sun-Time."
Great Britain became the first country to set standard time throughout a region when it established the Greenwich Mean Time standard in the 1840s.
Great Britain, the major world power at that time, placed the center of the first time zone at England's Royal Greenwich Observatory, which was located on the 0-degree longitude meridian. (That line was determined by the Royal Astronomer using a transit telescope.) The international date line was set at the 180-degree longitude meridian in the Pacific Ocean.
As clocks became more accurate and communication became global, there needed to be a starting point from which all other world times were based. Since Great Britain was the world's foremost maritime power when the concept of latitude and longitude came to be, that point for designating longitude was the "prime meridian" which is zero degrees and runs through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, in Greenwich, England, just outside London. Thus, when the concept of time zones was introduced, the "starting" point for calculating all different time zones was/is the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Prior to, and not that many years ago, (In the US, March 19, 1918 when the national Standard Time Act was passed), most locations observed "Sun-Time" meaning that "official" times varied -- minute-by-minute -- one hour from the eastern to western side of each 15-degree-wide time zone-- making train schelules all but impossible to figure out for long-distance travelers. Jewelers and others set timepieces using the time indicated by a sundial.
[Accuracy of all clocks below is based on the accuracy of your computer's clock]
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