Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!usc!ucla-cs!wales
From: wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: International time zones
Message-ID: <26808@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 31 Aug 89 01:19:41 GMT
References: <1389@inria.inria.fr>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales)
Organization: UCLA CS Department, Los Angeles
Lines: 33

In article <1389@inria.inria.fr> mark@bdblues.altair.fr writes:

	The Kingdom of Tonga covers three island chains that sprawl on
	either side of the 180th meridian . . . .  [T]he Date Line was
	bent to the east so that Tonga would have the same day as its
	chief trading partners in the then mainly British South Pacific.
	Tonga is officially Methodist, because the king is, but there is
	a sizeable Mormon minority.  Now Mormons celebrate their Sabbath
	on Saturday . . .

There is indeed a sizable Mormon minority in Tonga.  However, Mormons
do not observe the Sabbath on Saturday; our day of rest and worship is
Sunday.  (Being a Mormon myself, I know. :-})

	. . . so the Mormon church in Tonga simply declared the bend in
	the Date Line null and void, so that their Saturday corresponded
	with everyone else's Sunday.

Are you, perhaps, thinking of the Seventh-Day Adventists?  SDA's do, of
course, observe the Sabbath on Saturday (actually, Friday sundown to
Saturday sundown, if I'm not mistaken) -- and I understand they consider
the question of exactly *which* day to worship on to be important enough
that I could easily believe that Adventists in Tonga might reject the
way the International Date Line was drawn.

Perhaps some SDA on the net could clarify this point.  If this was in
fact an issue for them in Tonga, I assume most Adventists would be aware
of it and could confirm it.

-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
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