Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. As part of New Spain, the Philippines had its most important communication with Acapulco in Mexico, so it was on the eastern side of the IDL despite being on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. As a result, the Philippines was one day behind its Asian neighbours from Saturday, 16 March 1521 to Monday, 30 December 1844. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Philippine trade interests turned to Imperial China, the Dutch East Indies and adjacent areas, so the Philippines decided to join its Asian neighbours on the west side of the IDL. To advance the calendar by one day on order of the then governor-general Narciso Claveria, Tuesday, was removed from the calendar. Monday, was followed immediately by Wednesday, . The change also applied to the other remaining Spanish colonies in the Pacific: the Mariana Islands, Guam and Caroline Islands. Western publications were generally unaware of this change until the early 1890s, so they erroneously gave the International Date Line a large western bulge for the next half century. Tahiti & French Polynesia (early 1797 and late 1846) On 5 March 1797, missionaries of the London Missionary Society arrived on Tahiti from England. They had first tried to pass Cape Horn, but failing that, went along Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean instead. As such, they introduced the date of the eastern hemisphere on the island. It was not until the ending of the Franco-Tahitian War and the restoration of the French Protectorate over the Tahitian Kingdom (which Tahitian nationalists had tried to fight off for two years of intense war with more than 1000 deaths) that the French commissioner Armand Joseph Bruat and the regent of the Tahitian Kingdom Paraita ordered that Tahiti had to follow the western hemisphere on 29 December 1846. Alaska (1867) Alaska was on the western side of the International Date Line, since Russian settlers reached Alaska from Siberia. In addition, the Russian Empire was still using the Julian calendar, which had fallen 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar. In 1867, the United States purchased Russian America and moved the territory to the east side of the International Date Line. The transfer ceremony took place at 3:30p.m. local mean time (00:31 GMT) in the capital of New Archangel (Sitka), on Saturday, (Julian), which was Saturday, (Gregorian) in Europe. Since Alaska moved to