At 2:00 a.m. on November 3 this year, most people throughout the United States set their clocks back one hour. But why?
TimeAndDate reports that the change in standard time allows for a better use of the daylight. It has only been in effect for about 100 years, but the concept of changing the time so the sunrise could occur one hour later in the morning and the sunset one hour later in the evening was was thought up many years before that. For example, ancient civilizations would adjust their daily schedules around the rising and setting of the sun.
Benjamin Franklin first thought of daylight savings time in 1784. He published an essay, “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” to convince people that it was important to adjust their schedules to save candles.
Another theory is that George Vernon Hudson was the inventor of the idea of daylight savings time in 1895. He presented his idea to the Wellington Philosophical society, where he thought there should be a two-hour time shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. His idea was received well, but never implemented.
William Willett came up with a similar daylight savings plan in 1905, which Robert Pearce introduced in a bill to the House of Commons in February 1908, but the bill was opposed and adapted several times by Parliament. Daylight savings time was finally adopted it in order to replace artificial lighting and save fuel for the war effort in Germany during World War I.
Because of the integration of railroads, the Department of Transportation decided to create official time zones, which Congress signed into law in 1918. "In the early 19th century … localities set their own time," public affairs officer Bill Mosley said. "It was kind of a crazy quilt of time, time zones, and time usage. When the railroads came in, that necessitated more standardization of time so that railroad schedules could be published."
According to National Geographic, there is no federal rule that forces states or territories to participate in daylight savings time in the United States. Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are among the places that do not observe daylight savings time in the U.S. Over 70 countries around the globe participate in daylight savings time, although the beginning and end dates vary across countries.
The daylight savings time schedule has been changed several times throughout the years. The schedule we follow now started in 2007 – daylight savings time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
