Howland and Baker Islands - at The Corner of The World

At The Corner of The World

Based on nautical time, the Howland and Baker islands are the last part of the U.S. to bring in the New Year, being the only territory of the U.S. in UTC-12. They are 24 hours behind the Wake Island Time Zone.

The area is also in the equatorial band above which satellites can remain in geosynchronous earth orbit, and NSS-9 is above. In 1964, Syncom 3 was positioned on the International Date Line at the equator, a point 210 nautical miles (240 mi; 390 km) from Howland, and 22,236 miles (35,785 km) into space. Syncom 3 was the first geostationary satellite, and was used to convey live TV coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

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