 DATE: When the Captain in charge of the typing pool brings the three  Ryan telegrams to his Colonel, the map behind the Colonel is a  Mercator Projection of the world, split at the International Date  Line. Mercator Projections in 1944 would have placed North America  in the center and divided the Eurasian continent equally on both  sides. The decision to split the map at the International Date line  wasnt officially made until the National Geographic Society decreed  it in 1988.