February 8: Standard Time proposed (1879)

Fleming memorial plaque:
Inventor of Standard Time

Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born Canadian engineer, first proposed adoption of worldwide standard time zones, which he called Cosmic Time, at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879. Sir Fleming also designed the first Canadian stamp and was a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada. Sir Fleming promoted the idea of standard time zones and the International Meridian Conference of 1884 selected a different version of Universal Time. By 1929, a majority of the countries in the world accepted the time zones.