Some little errors

[Paul Eggert]

> From: "Ciro Discepolo" <discepol at tin.it>
> Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:35:44 +0100

> From a lot of specialist books  (for example Le Corre's book or
> Gabriel's book) I receive the information that in France, in the year
> 1943, and precisely from October 4, there was  a double daylight saving
> time.

Can you please give more precise references?  I'm not familiar with
those books.

The discrepancy may be due to which part of France you're talking
about.  Our current database (taken from Shanks; see below) has Vichy
France using double daylight saving time (DDST) from 03-29 02:00 to
10-04 03:00 that year, so we agree about the DDST there.

According to Shanks, Occupied France used German time, which meant the
same wall-clock time but with different underlying rules.  German time
was an hour ahead of UTC, with single DST during summer.  Vichy France
time was at UTC, with single DST in winter and double DST in summer.

(It is a bit odd that we have better data for France in 1944 than we
do for Palestine in 2000; but that's how the cookie is crumbling.)

> In Italy, in 1944, there was a double situation: in the northern cities
> of the Gothic line (around Bologna) daylight saving time was excluded on
> October 2. Instead, in the southern cities of Gothic line, this daylight
> saving time, was excluded on September 17.

Yes, that's quite plausible.  Northern Italy was still running on
German time.  However, we don't need a separate entry for Bologna
since it is in the same country as Rome and has used the same time
rules since 1970, our cutoff date.

Did San Marino use the same rules as Rome back then?  Currently our
database says that it does.  That might need correcting.

> In Italy, after 1866, the whole nation was divided in three parts: the
> continental part, the Sicily part and the Sardinia part, with three
> different time zones. You can read about it in the Regio Decreto (king
> decree) number 3224 in the year 1866.

I think I'll add a comment like this to the file, to help make things
clearer:

# From Paul Eggert (2000-12-19):
# Sicily and Sardinia each had their own time zones from 1866 to 1893.
# During World War II, German-controlled Italy used German time.
# But these events all occurred before our 1970 cutoff,
# so we need to record only the time in Rome.

> But, if you have forgotten these items, it is even possible that there
> are many others items left out?

Many items are left out.  Please see the "Theory" file and look for
the string "1970".

> Please, I have another little query for you: do you know a software or a
> DLL (library) that includes all the correct world time-zones?

Sorry, there is no such thing.  But you might look for "Shanks" in the
tz-link.htm file; he has perhaps the best historical database right
now.


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Can you please fix your copy of Outlook Express so that you send text
mail as plain text, and not as MIME multipart?  That makes it easier
for others to read.  I get lots of email, and html is harder to
process than plain text.  Thanks.