An interesting piece of trivia/history popped up in the news today. The borders of South Australia (and hence the boundaries of some Australian time zones) look like straight lines on most maps, but have some kinks in them. Most notably for this mailing list, part of the eastern border is misaligned due to an incorrect timekeeping reference from GMT. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-01/why-south-australias-borders-are-anyth... <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-01/why-south-australias-borders-are-anyth...>
It was meant to run along the 141st meridian line of longitude. But longitude is measured with time references to Greenwich Mean Time — and watches were not that great in the 1800s. The result was a 3.6-kilometre gap where the borders were meant to have met.
"Fundamentally the difference came down to a discrepancy that the nation had at the time," Mr Burdett said. "The longitude that had been determined for Fort Macquarie [Australia's reference point] was out by two minutes. "Hence ours was out by two minutes and the discrepancy ended up in that border."
Cheers, Gil