We get an extra hour of daylight when we "spring forward" each March and then lose it when we "fall back" in November. But have you ever wondered how DST began? Here are some tidbits about its origins and pros and cons of these time-changing events.
According to lots of sources on the internet, several events led to our modern-day DST:
- Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers, suggested something akin to daylight saving time in a 1784 essay
- During World War I in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria began saving daylight by advancing the hands of the clock one hour from April through October
- A postal clerk from New Zealand was the first to propose modern DST
- Congress first put America's clocks ahead one hour during World War I and (later for WWII)
- Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to eliminate confusion about DST across the country
- Thanks to this act, DST in the United States now begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November
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