Hey Freddy Beach, don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend. Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 2:00 A.M.. On Saturday night, set your clocks forward one hour to spring ahead. Whether you love or hate the time change, the time change does herald the coming of spring.

The History of Daylight Saving Time

Why Did Daylight Saving Time Start?

Blame Ben? Benjamin Franklin’s “An Economical Project,” written in 1784, is the earliest known proposal to “save” daylight. It was whimsical in tone, advocating laws to compel citizens to rise at the crack of dawn to save the expense of candlelight:

“Every morning, as soon as the Sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing: and if that is not sufficient, let cannon be fired in every street to wake the sluggards effectually… . Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is probable that he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening.”

DST’s True Founder?

The first true proponent of Daylight Saving Time was an Englishman named William Willet. A London builder, he conceived the idea while riding his horse early one morning in 1907. He noticed that the shutters of houses were tightly closed even though the Sun had risen. In “The Waste of Daylight,” the manifesto of his personal light-saving campaign, Willet wrote, “Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as the days grow shorter; and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the nearly clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used… . That so many as 210 hours of daylight are, to all intents and purposes, wasted every year is a defect in our civilization. Let England recognize and remedy it.”

Willet spent a small fortune lobbying businessmen, members of Parliament, and the U.S. Congress to put clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and reverse the process on consecutive Sundays in September. But his proposal was met mostly with ridicule. One community opposed it on moral grounds, calling the practice the sin of “lying” about true time.

World War I Led to Adoption of DST

Attitudes changed after World War I broke out. The government and citizenry recognized the need to conserve coal used for heating homes. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915, as a fuel-saving measure during World War I. This led to the introduction in 1916 of British Summer Time: From May 21 to October 1, clocks in Britain were put an hour ahead.

The United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established the time zones. However, this was amidst great public opposition. A U.S. government Congressional Committee was formed to investigate the benefits of Daylight Saving Time. Many Americans viewed the practice as an absurd attempt to make late sleepers get up early. Others thought that it was unnatural to follow “clock time” instead of “Sun time.” A columnist in the Saturday Evening Post offered this alternative: “Why not ‘save summer’ by having June begin at the end of February?”

Source: https://www.almanac.com/content/when-daylight-saving-time

7 myths and facts about DST

1. Myth: America was the first country to practice Daylight Saving Time

Benjamin Franklin by David Rent Etter (1835). Credit: National Parks Service.

Although the idea originated with Benjamin Franklin, who believed we could conserve candles if people got up consistently with the daylight, it was probably first practiced in Britain. Even so, Germany is the first recorded country to have taken up the practice starting in May 1916, as an effort to try and save fuel during World War I. The US Chamber of Commerce backed the measure and America soon followed suit. An hour longer of daylight meant more leisure time, increasing sales of things like baseballs, barbecue accoutrements, and golf balls.

2. Fact: Not every state in the US practices DST

The Arizona desert. Credit: The DigitalArtist Pixababy.

For instance, sun-baked Arizona and Hawaii refuse to change their clocks. Both Massachusetts and Maine have considered getting off DST, but haven’t scrapped the whole thing quite yet. Internationally, 70 nations practice Daylight Saving Time. But that’s fewer than 40% of all the countries in the world. China and Japan, for instance, don’t practice DST.

3. Myth: America adopted Daylight Saving Time to help farmers

A farmer. Credit: Neil Palmer (CIAT) Flickr.

The reason given is that it gave farmers more time to work in their fields. Actually, farmers fought against widespread adoption. DST means an hour less in the morning to milk the cows or get harvested crops to market. What’s more, some feared it would take us off of “God’s time.” In the United States, DST was repealed shortly after World War I ended, and wasn’t instituted nationwide permanently until 1966.

4. Fact: Daylight Saving Time can affect your health

Credit: Robert Shields, US Army.

Losing or gaining an hour may not seem too big of a change. But in fact, it can jolt the body’s internal body clock, causing a higher risk of sleep disorders, heart attacks, strokes, and miscarriages. Sudden changes in circadian rhythms can affect fertility as well. A 2013 study published in the journal Open Heart, found a 25% increase in the number of heart attacks occurring the day after a spring DST. Fatigue, decreased productivity, and even cluster headaches are also more common.

5. Myth: Daylight Saving Time saves energy

Credit: Benita 5, Pixababy.

The US Congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005, extending DST by another month, for a total of eight. This was the second time this occurred. The first was in 1984. They thought this action would save electricity, and so were perhaps too hasty. A 2008 US Department of Energy study found that the decrease was modest, just 0.003%. While a study out of the University of California-Santa Barbara found that energy use actually might increase. The state of Indiana, after it adopted DST, found it experienced increased consumption. They believe, during the period of extra sunlight, people were running their air conditioners for longer.

6. Fact: New York City stayed on Daylight Saving Time after World War I

Credit: Kai Pilger. Pexels.

Once World War II came around, the country went back on DST (President Roosevelt called it “War Time”) to conserve fuel once again. It dropped off again after the war. But New York kept DST, and due to its stature as a world financial hub, other areas naturally followed suit. So a strange dichotomy was set up, where cities were following DST, while rural areas were not. At least, not until the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which forced states to either adopt DST or not. The act was signed into law by then president Lyndon B. Johnson. Before that, you could take a 30 mile drive in many places in the country and pass through several different times, depending upon whether the locality adopted DST or not.

7. Fact: You’re less likely to get robbed during Daylight Saving Time

Credit: Tobias “ToMar” Maier Wikimedia Commons.

That’s according to a 2015 Brookings Institute paper. Researchers discovered that during the fall DST, robbery fell 7%, while during the spring one, robbery fell a full 27%, as the extra hour of daylight in the evening kept would-be robbers away.

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