What the conference did not do was recommend a global system of time zones. The American journal Science commented ‘It seems unfortunate that Mr. Allen’s resolution for local times, differing by whole hours from the universal time, was not recommended; for this would seem by all odds the simplest way of connecting local and universal times. It is already in almost universal use in this country’. Our global system of time zones emerged largely by default as one by one different countries chose to adopt a standard time based not on their capital city or national observatory, but one that was generally a whole number of hours ahead or behind Universal Time