Dividing the day in 2*12 hours was universal, not specifically invented. The
Latin qualifiers were sometimes used in old 17th and 18 century Dutch
'Resolutions of the Estates General', that is before AM/PM became strictly
Anglo-Saxon usage. On the other hand, I have seen year-month-day notations
in very old documents as well. In the world of archives, this notation has
been standard for decades, even before it was called ISO 8601.
I have a Fujitsu digital camera that allows me to choose year-month-day, but
forces AM/PM time on me for the  timing of photos.
Although my computer was set on the configuration screen to ISO 8601 by
hand, Outlook Express attached the US notation in the headers of my emails.
So I went back to Date and Time, selected the US and then changed all
relevant settings - decimal sign, system of units, date and time- there
manually. Now my email headers are ISO 8601 as well. That is what one calls
fighting fire with fire.

Han

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Ossipov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, 2004-01-02 1:30
Subject: [USMA:28081] Calendar, date and time


 Does someone if who introduced 12 h plague notation first?

 If the British Empire did, I don't wonder that such crap can be *only*
British.

 bye


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