Standard time
In 1870 Charles F. Dowd proposed four time zones based on the meridian through Washington, DC for North American railroads. In 1872 he revised his proposal to base it on the Greenwich meridian. Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born engineer operating in Canada, proposed worldwide Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879. Cleveland Abbe advocated standard time to better coordinate international weather observations and resultant weather forecasts, which had been coordinated using local solar time. In 1879 he recommended four time zones across the contiguous United States, based upon Greenwich Mean Time. The General Time Convention (renamed the American Railway Association in 1891), an organization of US railroads charged with coordinating schedules and operating standards, became increasingly concerned that if the US government adopted a standard time scheme it would be disadvantageous to its member railroads. William F. Allen, the Convention secretary, argued that North American railroads should adopt a five-zone standard, similar to the one in use today, to avoid government action. On October 11, 1883, the heads of the major railroads met in Chicago at the Grand Pacific Hotel and agreed to adopt Allen's proposed system.
NickMom
The block launched with heavy controversy. As Nick Jr. operated on only one feed that broadcast on a default Eastern Time Zone schedule without a secondary feed for the Pacific Time Zone, NickMom programming started at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, and in time zones further west outside the continental United States, 6 p.m. in the Alaska Time Zone, and 5 p.m. in the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone (4 p.m. from mid-March to early November, as Hawaii does not observe DST). Many parents found the scheduling inappropriate, given the supposed sexual, coarse, and child-bashing humor, and uncensored light profanity of the network's launch schedule of programming. Parents also felt that the purpose and lure of the network with full-time preschool programming was nullified in the pursuit of increasing ratings with content not meant for children. The inappropriate scheduling due to one feed was rectified in mid-February 2013, when VMN launched a second Pacific Time Zone-based feed for Nick Jr. which also applied to NickMom.