On this day – July 4th

July 4th occurs twice in Samoa

The Samoan Islands, now divided into Samoa and American Samoa, were on the west side of the International Date Line until 1892. In that year, King Malietoa Laupepa was persuaded by American traders to adopt the American date (three hours behind California) to replace the former Asian date (four hours ahead of Japan). The change was made by repeating Monday, 4 July 1892, American Independence Day.

In 2011, Samoa shifted back to the west side of the IDL by removing Friday, 30 December 2011 from its calendar. This changed the timezone from UTCâˆ'11:00 to UTC+13:00. Samoa made the change because Australia and New Zealand have become its biggest trading partners, and also have large communities of expatriates. Being 21 hours behind made business difficult because having weekends on backward days meant only four days of the week were shared workdays.

The IDL now passes between Samoa and American Samoa, which remains on the east (American) side of the line.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.