This happened a few days ago (depending on how you count) but is too fascinating for me to let go by. So, apparently, in the 1800's, the some US traders convinced the Samoans that it would be really helpful if the Samoans were in the same timezone as American Samoa so the Samoans switched their timezone. But, of course, times change, and nowadays Samoa trades with New Zealand and Australia as much as American territories, plus, one imagines in this increasingly global world, we are a little more accustomed to accounting for such things, and it was kind of weird for Samoa to basically be operating in the incorrect timezone (I mean, yes, the timezones are essentially false constructs anyway, but you know what I mean) so, they decided in 2012 to embrace the local timezone.
However, the "local" timezone was on the other side of the dateline, so basically, Samoans this year went from Thursday the 29th straight into Saturday the 31st and rang in 2012 with their newly aligned timezone. Hopefully this will have a positive impact, because everyone who lost a workday is getting paid for it. (Also, that seems like that takes the sting out of losing a Friday.)
The ALOTT5MA comments have some interesting links about what this means for those who lost a sabbath, or will see it shift as a result.
h/t to ALOTT5MA for the link.
Rants About New (and old) Things
