Ghost on the phone

Swimming with sharks Chapter 6

Kiribati, formally the Gilbert Islands, straddles the Equator and the International Dateline, the only nation to do so. 

The Gilberts had no invitation to the 1884 Washington conference ‘for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day.’  No invitation went to New Zealand or Australia but Hawaii got one.

The only real issue was whether the prime meridian went through London or Paris. 

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey led Greenwich’s case saying wherever the prime meridian was, there would have to be a line on another side of the world where the day started. It would create a break of 24 hours. ‘It is much more convenient that this break should take place in the uninhabited part of the Earth than in the very centre of civilization,’ his winning argument concluded.

Chaps who met in Washington to draw lines on maps.

It was irritating for Kiribati.