THE PRACTICE OF DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME HAS BEEN AN EVER-CHANGING THING

The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784. Some of Franklin's friends, inventors of a new kind of oil lamp, were so taken by the scheme that they continued corresponding with Franklin even after he returned to America. Daylight Saving Time has been used in the U.S. and in many European countries since World War I. At that time, in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria began  daylight saving time at 11:00 p.m. on April 30 1916, by advancing the hands of the clock one hour until the following October. Other countries immediately adopted this 1916 action. The plan was not formally adopted in the U.S. until 1918. After the War ended the law proved so unpopular (mostly because people rose earlier and went to bed earlier than people do today) that it was repealed in 1919 with a Congressional override of President Wilson's veto. Daylight Saving Time became a local option.

During World War II President Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time, called “War Time.” From 1945 to 1966 there was no federal law regarding Daylight Saving Time, so states and localities were free to choose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time and could choose when it began and ended. On January 4, 1974, President Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. Then, beginning on January 6, 1974, implementing the Daylight Saving Time Energy Act, clocks were turned back on October 5, 1974. Having rallied the general public's support, the government  committee's goal was accomplished, but only after discovering and disclosing that on the 35-mile stretch of highway (Route 2) between Moundsville, W.V., and Steubenville, Ohio, every bus driver and his passengers had to endure seven time changes! 

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. beginning in 2007, though Congress retained the right to revert to the 1986 law should the change prove unpopular or if energy savings are not significant. Going from 2007 forward, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.
· begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and
· ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November
SO DON’T FORGET….