STORY:
USNO Erects Millennium Time Ball

Historic tradition last done in 1936 revived at US Naval Observatory

Residents of the Glover Park neighborhood of northwest Washington, DC maybe noticing a subtle change in their skyline. The U.S. Naval Observatory has hoisted a time ball into place on the roof of its main building. This time ball will be the official marker of the beginning of the year 2000 and the beginning of the Third Millennium in 2001 according to a USNO press release.

By order of then-Secretary of the Navy John Y. Mason, the Naval Observatory dropped the first time ball in the United States in 1845. This was the primary means for disseminating time to the city of Washington and for ships on the Potomac to set their chronometers for navigation. The ball was dropped every day at noon from the Observatory's Foggy Bottom site until 1885, when it was moved to the State, War and Navy Building (now the old Executive Office Building) next to the White House. It was last dropped there in 1936.

The dropping of the time ball to usher in the year 2000, by order of the current Secretary of the Navy the Honorable Richard Danzig, will therefore commemorate an old tradition for Washington and the U.S. Navy. It will, however, be dropped at midnight EST on New Year's Eve rather than noon. The USNO maintains the Master Atomic Clock for the United States and recently predicted the first light of 2000 will take place in Antartica.

The event will be the local culmination of a "round-the-world time ball drop", in which time balls will mark the beginning of the New Year as it sweeps westward from the International Date Line across New Zealand, Australia, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In addition, USNO is coordinating the local observance of the New Year with U.S. Navy installations and ships around the globe. The Observatory is also a partner in the White House Millennium Program.

Time balls were used in many cities around the country and around the world during the 19th century. Those in the U.S. were sometimes dropped by a signal from Washington. Beginning in September, 1877 a time ball atop the Western Union Building in New York City was dropped by telegraphic signal from the Naval Observatory. In the era before time zones, the signal for New York was issued 12 minutes before that for Washington to take into account the longitude difference.

At the turn of the 20th century dozens of time balls were being dropped around the world. A few are still ceremonially dropped, ranging from New Zealand to the Old Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Source: US Naval Observatory press release

DATE: 9/20/99

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