No matter how strongly you might feel about it, daylight saving time will once again move clocks an hour forward soon.
Here’s what to know about the changing of the clocks this spring, and how the practice came about.
What is Daylight Saving Time? Daylight saving explained
Daylight saving time is the practice of setting the clock forward one hour in the spring to have the sunrise and sunset at a more reasonable hour.
The Uniform Time Act established nationwide standards for the observance of daylight saving time when it was signed into law in 1966. Before that, there was a patchwork of standards as municipalities and states chose whether or not to observe the practice.
When does the Daylight Saving time change 2024 occur in U.S.?
In 2024, daylight saving time will begin at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. It will mean losing an hour of sleep and moving the clocks around your house forward one hour, though your cell phone will likely automatically adjust.
The sun will rise and set an hour later.
When does Daylight Savings 2024’s time change fall back?
Unless efforts to make daylight saving time permanent succeed, daylight saving time will end for the year at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3. This will mean setting your clocks back an hour and gaining an hour of sleep, plus earlier sunrises and sunsets.
When does Daylight Saving Time end permanently?
The US Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act in 2022 and reintroduced it in 2023.
But the US House has yet to consider the bill that would permanently extend daylight saving time from just eight months to the entire year.
Did the Oklahoma Daylight Saving Time bill pass?
Oklahoma joined many states when it considered a bill last year to make daylight saving time permanent — known as a “trigger bill,” it would go into effect if the Sunshine Protection Act became federal law.
While the Oklahoma bill to “lock the clock” easily passed the Senate in 2023, it never made it to a vote on the House floor.
The bill’s author, Sen. Blake “Cowboy” Stephens, R-Tahlequah, has filed a new bill hoping to accomplish the same goal of adopting daylight saving time year-round. The bill will be considered in the upcoming legislative session.
Did Benjamin Franklin invent Daylight Saving Time?
While founding father Benjamin Franklin is often given credit for first coming up with the idea in a 1784 essay — in which he proposed that Parisians could save the modern-day equivalent of $200 million by waking up at dawn and “using sunshine instead of candles.”
But, as History.com points out, Franklin was proposing a change in sleep schedules rather than the time itself.
Why do we have daylight savings? Did Daylight Saving Time start because of farmers?
Most people have heard the myth that daylight saving time came about to give farmers an extra hour of sunlight in the evening.
But in reality, farmers led the opposition to daylight saving time in 1919, a year after it was implemented in the United States as a wartime measure.
“The sun, not the clock, dictated farmers’ schedules, so daylight saving was very disruptive,” History.com reported. “Farmers had to wait an extra hour for dew to evaporate to harvest hay, hired hands worked less since they still left at the same time for dinner and cows weren’t ready to be milked an hour earlier to meet shipping schedules.”
Nationwide daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, though states and cities still had the option to enact it for themselves, leading to a patchwork of time zones across the country until the Uniform Time Act passed in 1966.
Who invented Daylight Saving Time?
The first true proponent of daylight saving time was an English builder named William Willet. In 1907, he published a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight” that campaigned for advancing clocks in spring and turning them back in fall, according to the National Museum of Scotland. Willet also encouraged people to get out of bed earlier in the summer to make the most of daylight.
Willett died in 1915 before seeing his idea come to fruition, according to History.com.
Which country started Daylight Saving Time?
In 1916, Germany enacted daylight saving time to conserve electricity. The United Kingdom adopted the practice weeks later, known as “summertime.”
Today, less than 40 percent of the world’s countries practice daylight saving time, according to Statista.
First appeared on www.oklahoman.com