The idea of Daylight Saving Time has been around a long time. Benjamin Franklin was the first to introduce the idea of daylight saving time.He wrote an article titled 'An Economical Project' in 1784, suggesting that people could wake up at dawn and get more natural light, saving the cost of candles and lighting. Franklin's suggestion, however, was largely overlooked. Not the right time for ole Ben.
It was brought up again by William Willett in 1907. Willett made a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight,” in which he highlighted that people don't make use of sunlight in the morning. He went as far as to say that 210 hours of daylight is wasted every year due to defects in our civilization. Willett spent time and money trying to convince the members of Parliament and the U.S. Congress to advance clocks by 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April and reverse it on consecutive Sundays in September. However, his proposal met with ridicule and questionings on moral grounds. Willet's plan...too time consuming.
World War I marked the beginning of daylight saving time. Germany was the first country to adopt it in May 1916. At that time, it was adopted to save fuel because huge amounts of resources were being used in the war, and there was a need for the conservation of coal used for heating homes and light during the later hours. Other countries gradually adopted daylight saving time after that. The U.S. adopted it in 1918. The time seemed right.
After the war, even though President Woodrow Wilson wanted to keep daylight saving time, it was met with objections from farmers. Daylight saving time ended due to these objections. It did come back into the picture during World War II. It was re-established by president Franklin Roosevelt. FDR said it was time.
This time, all U.S. states were given the freedom to choose whether they wanted to continue using daylight saving time. This caused a lot of chaos. So in 1966, the Uniform Time Act was passed by Congress to control this "Wild West" mayhem. Under this federal rule, the first Sunday in April would mark the start of daylight saving time, and it would end on the last Sunday in October. However, states were not required to observe daylight saving time; they might choose not to. Time to make a choice.
Since then, there have been multiple amendments regarding the dates of clocks forward and backward. This debate will probably go on until the end of time…
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What is the right way to say it: Daylight Savings Time or Daylight Saving Time?
Many of us are guilty of saying 'Daylight Savings Time' instead of 'Daylight Saving Time.' However, the right term is 'Daylight Saving Time' because the term 'saving' functions as an adjective rather than a verb.
Franklin had it right, wake up earlier, rather then mess with the clocks.
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