He finished the survey job by 1876, and the railway was finished in 1885. Fleming was
on hand when they drove the last spike to join the rail lines - and Canada - together.
You might think that institutes, railways, postage stamps, and submarine telegraph cables
(he proposed the idea to connect the British Empire through communications) would be
enough for one mind. But Sandford Fleming had yet another world-changing idea.
After missing a train in Ireland, Fleming became fed up with the way people kept time.
At that time, time was strictly a local affair; every town had its own clock. Twelve noon
in one place might be 12:15 in another just up the road. Fleming came up with the idea of
creating standard time zones - twenty-four of them around the world. In each zone, the
time would be exactly the same. It seems like common sense today, but Fleming had to
fight for years to get this idea accepted, and the twenty-four time-zone idea wasn’t agreed
upon until years after his death.
But Fleming’s many achievements were recognized while he was still alive; he was
knighted by Queen Victoria. Today, Sir Stanford Fleming is recognized as the father of
standard time and of our national railway - a man who changed our nation and the world.
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