Journal
Welcome to the timedate.now journal — long-form, evergreen articles about time zones, holidays, weather, and countries. Every article ends with a quick three-question quiz so you can check what you picked up.
Latest article
CountriesISO Country Codes: Two-Letter, Three-Letter, and Numeric
Every country has three ISO 3166-1 codes — alpha-2, alpha-3, and numeric. You'll see them everywhere from URLs and currencies to IBAN accounts and Olympic uniforms.
April 26, 2026More recent posts
All articles →Temperature, humidity, and dew point each tell you something different about how the air will feel — together they predict comfort better than any one value alone.
Countries World Capitals and the Time Zones They Sit InCapitals anchor their country's time zone, yet a capital's offset is rarely typical of the country itself. A short tour of political vs temporal geography.
Holidays Public Holidays, Bank Holidays, and Observances: What's the Difference?A holiday's name tells you almost nothing about whether you get the day off. The legal categories — public, bank, observance, optional — vary by country and explain why.
Weather What Air Quality Index Numbers MeanAQI scales compress pollutant readings into one number from 0 to 500. The number alone is meaningless without the scale, dominant pollutant, and local breakpoints.
Time Zones Why Time Zones Exist and How the 15° Rule WorksEarth rotates 15° per hour, which is why the world is split into 24 time zones. But the actual map is much messier than the rule predicts.
Countries Why the Week Has Seven DaysThe seven-day week has no astronomical basis. It came from Babylonian astrology, spread through Judaism and Christianity, and has survived every attempt to replace it.