Since 1884: Times Around the Globe
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![Breitling Replica: Times around the globe][1]
1884 is not just Breitling Replica’s founding date: it is also the year that representatives from 25 countries, gathered in Washington for the International Meridian Conference, decided to divide the world into 24 timezones each covering a 15-degree longitude (corresponding to one hour) and to adopt the Greenwich meridian near London as the reference, or 0° longitude.
At this stage in history there were countless local times in use, more or less loosely based on longitude, including more than 70 in North America and around 30 in Europe. However, the boom in travel and particularly the birth of railways made unifying the time system a vital necessity. To ensure travelers’ comfort as well as to avoid accidents, England decided to create a legal time for all destinations covered by a single railway line.
In 1847, the British Railway Clearing House recommended that all companies adopt the mean time of the Greenwich observatory, which already served as a reference for sailors. The use of legal or standard times gradually established itself wherever railways developed. The United States, which could not have just one single time, divided its territory into several timezones.
Prior to 1884, travelers constantly had to adjust their timepiece according to the location they had just reached. Adopting a unified worldwide system led to the emergence of a new type of instruments representing a field in which Breitling Replica would shine: travel watches simultaneously displaying several timezones.
What is GMT?
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Greenwich Mean Time corresponds to the mean solar time on the meridian passing through Greenwich Observatory (0 longitude), located east of London. It served as the worldwide time reference from 1884 to 1972, when it was replaced by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). In watchmaking language, the GMT abbreviation refers to watches displaying a second timezone.
![Breitling Replica: What is GMT][3]
Breitling Replica in the Age of Travel
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While the chronograph established itself from 1884 as Breitling’s domain of excellence, travel watches also played an important role in the history of the brand with the winged B. By sharing all the finest hours in the conquest of the air, the firm simultaneously accompanied the boom in air transport and long-distance travel.
![Breitling Replica: Breitling Replica in the age of travel][4]
In the 1950s and 1960s, the “official supplier to worldwide aviation” distinguished itself with the launch of a sophisticated model named Unitime, a selfwinding worldtime model serving to read off the time simultaneously in all 24 timezones – and which has since become a much sought-after collector’s item.
Today, Breitling Replica once again asserts itself as the benchmark for pilots and travelers by offering two exclusive movements developed on the basis of its Manufacture Breitling Replica Caliber 01: the Caliber B04 with dual timezone display and the worldtime Caliber B05. Both of these mechanisms featuring original structures were entirely developed and crafted in the Breitling Replica Chronométrie workshops.
