No matter how strongly you may feel about it, daylight saving time will soon move clocks forward one hour.
Here's what you should know about the time change this spring and how the practice came about.
What is daylight saving time? Summer schedule
Daylight saving time is the practice of moving the clock forward one hour in the spring so that sunrise and sunset occur at a more reasonable time.
The Uniform Time Act established nationwide standards for observance of daylight saving time when it was enacted in 1966. Before that, there was a patchwork of standards as municipalities and states decided whether or not to observe the practice.
When does the 2024 daylight saving time change occur in the US?
In 2024, daylight saving time will begin at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. It will mean losing an hour of sleep and setting your home clocks ahead an hour, although your cell phone will likely adjust automatically.
The sun will rise and set an hour later.
When does the 2024 daylight saving time change back?
Unless efforts to make daylight saving time permanent are successful, daylight saving time will end for the year at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 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 permanently end?
The US Senate passed the Sun Protection Act in 2022 and reintroduced it in 2023.
But the U.S. House of Representatives has yet to consider the bill that would permanently extend daylight saving time from just eight months to all year.
Has Oklahoma's Daylight Saving Time Bill Passed?
Oklahoma joined many states when it considered a bill last year to make daylight saving time permanent; Known as the “activation bill,” it would go into effect if the Sun Protection Act became federal law.
While Oklahoma's “close the clock” bill easily passed the Senate in 2023, it never came to a vote in the House of Representatives.
The bill's author, Sen. Blake “Cowboy” Stephens, R-Tahlequah, has submitted a new invoice hoping to achieve the same goal of adopting daylight saving time year-round. The bill will be considered in the next legislative session.
Did Benjamin Franklin invent daylight saving time?
While he was a 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 today's equivalent of $200 million by waking up at dawn and “using the light of the sun 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 saving time? Did daylight saving time start thanks to farmers?
Most people have heard the myth that Daylight saving time arose to give farmers an extra hour. of sunlight in the afternoon.
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 time was very disruptive,” History.com reported. “Farmers had to wait an extra hour for the dew to evaporate to harvest hay, contract workers worked less as they still left at the same time for dinner, and cows were not ready to be milked an hour earlier to meet deadlines.” shipping schedules”.
Nationwide daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, although states and cities still had the option to implement it themselves, creating a patchwork of time zones across the country until the Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966. .
Who invented daylight saving time?
The first true defender of daylight saving time was an English builder named William Willett. In 1907, he published a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight” that campaigned to move clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, 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 his idea became a reality, according to History.com.
Which country started daylight saving time?
In 1916, Germany enacted daylight saving time to save electricity. The United Kingdom adopted the practice weeks later, known as “daylight saving time.”
Today, less than 40 percent of the world's countries practice daylight saving time.according to Statista.