Current Events/Daylight Saving Time

Last Sunday, at 2 a.m., all our clocks turned back an hour. So, what was 7 a.m. the day before, is now 6 a.m. We get an extra hour of sleep but why do we do this?

During the summer months, the sun stays is visible for a longer time, and sunset happens late in the day. For this reason, certain countries advance the time by one hour – “spring forward” – near the start of summer, and put it back one hour – “fall back” – during autumn.

The time during summer is called Daylight Saving Time (DST). In Europe it is called Summer Time. The time during the winter months is called “Standard Time”.

DST helps stores that sell to people after they get off work, but it hurts farmers and others whose hours are set by the sun. It cuts traffic accident rates. Sometimes it can reduce energy costs, but it can also increase them.

Most of the world’s countries do not use DST, but it is common in Europe and North America.

The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and many other countries have DST. These countries also have regions that do not have DST:

In the United States: most of Arizona and Hawaii do not use DST

History

Englishman William Willett led the first campaign to start daylight saving time. While on an early-morning horseback ride around the outskirts of London in 1905, Willett had an idea that the United Kingdom should move its clocks forward by 80 minutes (almost an hour and a half!) between April and October so that more people could enjoy the plentiful sunlight.

The Englishman published the 1907 brochure “The Waste of Daylight” and spent much of his personal fortune trying to convince people to vote for the adoption of “summer time.” Year after year, however, the British Parliament did not pass the measure, and Willett died in 1915 at age 58 without ever seeing his idea come to be.

Germany was the first country to start daylight saving time. It took World War I for Willett’s dream to come true, but on April 30, 1916, Germany began daylight saving time to save electricity. Weeks later, the United Kingdom followed Germany and introduced “summer time.”

Daylight saving time in the United States was not begun to benefit farmers, as many people think. American farmers were against the time switch when it was first begun on March 31, 1918, as a wartime measure. The sun, not the clock, decided farmers’ schedules, so daylight saving was very disruptive.

Hired farm workers worked less since they still stopped at the same time for dinner and cows weren’t ready to be milked an hour earlier to meet shipping schedules.

The farmers won and DST was stopped in 1919.

Even so, some states and cities, including New York City and Chicago, continued to shift their clocks. Daylight saving time returned during World War II for the whole country, but was again stopped three weeks after war’s end and the confusing hodgepodge of which state or city was still using it began again.

Order finally came in 1966 with the enactment of the Uniform Time Act, which standardized daylight saving time from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, although states still had the option of remaining on standard time year-round.

Automatic adjustment

Most computers, mobile phones and other devices connected to the Internet will automatically adjust their clocks for DST. Some older computers will not adjust or will adjust the time incorrectly or on the wrong date. Also, computers with more than one operating system may be incorrectly adjusted twice or more when each operating system boots.

Oh! And It’s “daylight saving time,” not “daylight savings time.”
Many people think saving has an “s” on it. However, since the word “saving” acts as part of an adjective rather than a verb, the singular is grammatically correct.

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