Daylight Savings Time Ends

Turn back your clocks this Sunday!

Setting clocks ahead to have more daytime during waking hours was first suggested in a whimsical essay by Benjamin Franklin in 1784. This practice, now known as daylight saving time (DST), was adopted by many countries during the 20th century, especially for summer. DST saves energy by decreasing the time that people need to rely on artificial lighting instead of sunlight each day.

In 1907 William Willett campaigned unsuccessfully to implement a version of summer DST in England. Summer DST was first adopted during World War I in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and Australia. During World War II, the United States kept its clocks advanced one hour year-round, while the United Kingdom adopted “double summer time,” with clocks advanced two hours in summer and one hour in winter.

Most of the United States now follows summer DST. The start and end dates were standardized by the Uniform Time Act of 1966 and changed in 1986 (effective the following year) to the first Sunday of April and the last Sunday of October. The dates were moved again in 2005 (effective 2007), to the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. In 1996 the European Union standardized its summer DST, called summer time, to begin on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in October.

Article by: Jonathan D. Betts – Curator of Horology, Royal Observatory Greenwich, National Maritime Museum.