The Standard Time Act established time zones and daylight saving in 1918, but it was short-lived. Find out when you should set your clocks back now!
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Credit – or blame – for the biannual shift goes back to Benjamin Franklin, who published “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” in a 1784 journal after he noticed that people burned candles at night but slept past dawn.
This is the weekend when we “spring forward” one hour to observe Daylight Saving Time. This lead to the idea of changing the clocks to allow for more daylight in the summer, which he presented in a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1895. This Sunday morning, Michiganders must put their clocks ahead one hour.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established Daylight Saving Time throughout the United States and gave states the option to exempt themselves.
Daylight saving time officially starts at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 13. Today, daylight-saving time is used in dozens of countries across the globe. They are Arizona (except for the Navajo nation), Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
A meme featuring Cher has been circulating the Internet reminding everyone about daylight saving time.
About 70 countries around the world observe daylight saving, but many countries near the equator do not.
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By the way, it’s “daylight saving time”, not “daylight savings time”. In the previous year alone, 14 state legislatures have debated bills aimed at revising how we keep time.
