This chart lists all 24 hours of the day. The left column shows standard 12-hour time, the middle shows the military 24-hour equivalent, and the right shows how each is spoken aloud. Midnight is 0000 (the start of the day) and the final minute of the day is 2359.
From 1:00 AM through 12:59 PM, the hour number is the same in both formats. Drop the AM or PM and write the time as four digits, adding a leading zero when the hour is a single digit. The one exception is the midnight hour, because 12:00 AM through 12:59 AM starts with 00 in military time.
From 1:00 PM onward, add 12 to the hour number to get the military equivalent. The minutes stay the same.
Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard use 24-hour notation for every order and operation.
Charts, medication times, and shift logs use the 24-hour clock to eliminate AM/PM dosing errors.
Flight plans and air-traffic communications run on Zulu time so every controller is on the same clock.
Dispatch logs, incident reports, and shift rotations rely on military time for clarity in court records.
Train and bus schedules across most of the world use 24-hour notation to avoid timetable confusion.
Sky observations, satellite tracking, and research logs use 24-hour time for global coordination.
Forecasts, radar data, and storm reports use Zulu (UTC) time so models stay in sync worldwide.
System logs, databases, and timestamps default to 24-hour formats—usually in UTC.
The 24-hour day is far older than any modern military. During Egypt's New Kingdom, which began around 1550 BCE, astronomers tracked a set of stars across the night sky to mark 12 hours of darkness. Paired with 12 hours of daylight, that system produced the 24-hour day.
Counting the hours from 0 to 24 on a single clock came much later, when growing railway networks and global telegraph traffic exposed the cost of AM/PM confusion. The Canadian Pacific Railway adopted 24-hour time in 1886. Italy adopted it nationally in 1893, and France followed in 1912.
Militaries adopted it in the same era. The British Royal Navy switched to the 24-hour clock in 1915, during World War I. The U.S. Navy adopted it in 1920, and the U.S. Army followed at 0400 on July 1, 1942, during World War II.
Today, military time is the standard for every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, NATO allies, and international aviation. It is also widely used in hospitals and public safety, and the 24-hour clock is the everyday format across most of the world outside North America.
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