Daylight Savings Time was first implemented in Thunder Bay, Canada to conserve energy in 1908. However, the idea did not catch on globally until Germany introduced it in 1916 to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort. Within a few weeks, the United Kingdom, France, and many other countries followed the idea. Most of them reverted back to standard time after World War I, and it wasn’t until the next World War that Daylight Savings Time returned to most of Europe. Although modern Daylight Savings Time has only been used for about 100 years, ancient civilizations, such as the Romans, have engaged in comparable practices thousands of years ago. They used different water clock scales for different months of the year to adjust the daily schedules to the solar time. Now, DST is used in 70 countries worldwide and affects over one billion people every year. The beginning and end dates vary from one country to another.

Daylight savings occurs twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. In the United States and many other countries, clocks will change at 2:00am. When we “fall back” and return to standard time on the first Sunday of November, the clock moves backward one hour to provide an extra hour of sleep. This means there’s more daylight in the morning since sunrise and sunset are an hour earlier and the days feel shorter as night falls more quickly. In the spring on the second Sunday in March, clocks are moved forward one hour, which takes away an hour of sleep as the sun increasingly stays out and the days get longer into summer. 

There have been efforts to make Daylight Savings Time permanent such as in 2022 when Senator Marco Rubio’s Sunshine Protection Act gained momentum. However, the bill didn’t come up for a vote in the House of Representatives, and the legislation for permanently enacting the act has stalled and is expected to continue through 2024 since this year’s version of the bill has not even passed the Senate Committee.

Whether you appreciate the hour of sleep gained on Sunday or see Daylight Savings as a pointless occurrence, the “falling back” of time is rooted in history and will continue until we’re met with a “spring forward” next year.