Time zones can be confusing. You can thank our ancestors and poor policy for most of the headaches we have when it comes to time zones. The below aims to clear up some confusion about time zones and aid in the understanding of how time zones affect dates and times.
A time zone really refers to a place. When you are talking about when something occurred, it is also important to talk about where it occurred. An event happens in time and in space. Time zones are divisions of the Earth's surface into distinct regions, each of which observes a standardized time offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The primary purpose of time zones is to account for the Earth's rotation, which causes different parts of the world to experience daylight and nighttime at different times. Time zones are used for coordination, international communication, track