As noted by Military Alphabet, the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy is the first known armed services branch to measure time based on what hour it was in a 24 hour period. They eventually combined the two “clocks” so that the day and night were measured and tracked over 12 hours each (for a total of 24 hours).īut it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the 24-hour clock got correlated with the military. During the day, they went by the sun to tell the time, and at night, they used the light from the moon and stars. These hours were defined by the various levels of light intensity from the sky at given points during the day and night. The carvings were unique so that each was easily identifiable and subdivided into a 24-hour format, which at that time were called temporal hours. Decans are astrological symbols used for measurement or tracking. Archaeologists say that in order to track what time it was when the sun was out and when it set, the Egyptian people would make inscriptions on coffin lids called decans. But before diving into the X’s and O’s of the 24-hour clock, it may be helpful to discover the history of military time, when it came to be and why the military continues to use it to this day.Īccording to multiple sources, what much of the world identifies as military time dates back thousands of years, well before there ever was a military, to approximately 2100 B.C.E. It’s actually easier to explain than you think. Looking back, learning how to read military time may seem relatively simple, but teaching how to read military time can be tricky, especially if your “ student” is just learning how to tell time via the traditional 12-hour clock. But now that you’ve been in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines or Air Force for a while now, identifying the time by the 24-hour clock - as opposed to the 12-hour clock - is probably second nature.īut what about your school-aged children or adolescents? Do they know how to read military time? Or do they stare at you in confusion when you say that dinner is at 1800 hours (stated as “eighteen hundred”) or they need to be out of bed at 0700 (zero seven hundred)? For instance, if you want to convert 2:30 pm to military time, you should add 12 to the hour portion, resulting in 14:30 hours.Prior to joining the armed forces, it’s possible that you didn’t have the time of day for understanding military time or why it even exists, never mind adopting its use. If the time is in the PM, instead of subtracting 12 hours from the hour portion of the time, you should add 12 to the hour portion of the time. Again, the exception is 12:00 AM, which is displayed as 00:00 in military time. If the time is in the AM, you should remove the “AM” portion and add a leading zero to any single-digit hours (e.g., 08:00 for 8:00 AM). The exception is 12:00 AM, which is displayed as 00:00 in the 24-hour time format How To Manually Convert a 12-Hour Format to Military TimeĬonverting regular time to military time is also a simple process. For example, 8:30 hours (military time) is equal to 8:30 AM in regular time. In most cases, if the military time is less than or equal to 12:00 PM, then you can simply add "AM" to the end of the time. So, 16:30 hours becomes 4:30 PM in regular time. Since 16 is greater than 12, you need to subtract 12 from 16, which gives you 4. To convert military time to regular time, you just need to subtract 12 from any time that's greater than 12:00 PM.įor example, let's say you want to convert 16:30 hours (military time) to regular time. How To Manually Convert Military Time (24-Hour) to 12-Hour Standard TimeĬonverting military time to regular time can seem complicated, but it's actually quite simple.
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