By the time you read this, you've probably already moved your clock forward one hour to begin this year's observance of Daylight Saving Time. (If you haven't, better go and do it now!) For those who wonder how and when we started our annual practice of fiddling with our clocks twice a year, we thought we'd put together a brief history of daylight time.

Daylight Saving Time (the second word is properly singular) begins on the first Sunday in April. On that day, clocks are moved forward one hour in each time zone at 2:00 AM local time. The purpose of the shift is to transfer, in effect, an hour's worth of daylight from the early morning hours of the day, when only milkmen and roosters are awake to appreciate it, and use it to push back sunset until one hour later in the day. This arrangement cuts electricity usage in the evening and helps reduce traffic accidents.

The concept behind Daylight Saving Time was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in a 1784 essay entitled "An Economical Project." After several European countries put daylight time into practice during World War I, the United States formally adopted it in 1918, but it proved unpopular and was discontinued in 1919. (The U.S. still had a large agrarian sector back then, and far fewer businesses stayed open into the later evening hours, so most people tended to rise and retire earlier than they do today, negating the practicality of shifting an hour's worth of daylight away from early morning.)

Although some cities and states opted to continue daylight time after 1919, it did not return on a national level until World War II, when it was referred to as "War Time" and observed year-round between 1942 and 1945. From 1945 through 1966 there was no federal law in effect to establish guidelines for daylight time, leaving states and municipalities to observe it how and when they chose, if at all.

By 1966 the different daylight time practices throughout the country were a source of difficulty for businesses that had to follow strict time schedules (such as television networks and airlines), so that year Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which specified that Daylight Saving Time begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October. (States were still free to pass laws exempting themselves from the daylight time scheme.) After the "energy crisis" of 1973 (precipitated by an Arab oil embargo against the U.S.), President Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Conservation Act, which put the United States on Daylight Saving Time for the fifteen-month period between January 1974 and April 1975.

In 1986 federal law was amended to start Daylight Saving Time earlier in the year, the change now occurring at 2:00 AM on the first Sunday in April and ending at 2:00 AM on the last Sunday in October.

Erm, I fiddled my clock last weekend.

Taureau said:

Oooh baby, your intelligence is so hawt.


Personally, I would rather just spend that extra hour fawning over you!

Number23 said:

Ah yes that'll be the problem. I always wondered why folks would stare and laugh whenever they'd ask me for the time.

Taureau said:

I changed my clock last week too

lollyp0p said:

AAaaaah HAAAAAaaaa!

It seems Mach's brain has finally buckled under the pressure from alien signals, and short-circuited at last.

Taureau said:

i changed my clock last night

Last week

TheDuck said:

Are you from a temporally retarded country?

AndGodCreatedMe said:

maybe the americans are just a week behind up euro folks

TaoOfGimp said:

lollyp0p said:

They are backwards all the time





I think they're wakening up now

TaoOfGimp said:

Define temporarily.

analbolique said:

You define temporally first

TaoOfGimp said:

analbolique said:

you're right though. 'temporarily' wouldn't really fit now would it

i don't have to change my clocks




i guess that makes us hopelessly agrarian

emm said:

No it means you come from a temporally apathetic country, which surprises me. Nigeria or Jamaica, sure, but Canada?

emm said:

we don't change either... i luv it... i hate changing time

Taureau said:

oh not all of canada... just this little agrarian corner of the world


i like that word "agrarian"

and temporal... that's a cool one too!

purplekisses said:

i think not changing works for us... the only thing i don't like is the inevitable discussion twice a year on should we or shouldn't we... stop discussing it already!

I just finished an essay on Ben Franklin. Do you know he invented bi-focals and the odometer? The guy was a stone genius.