Daylight Saving Time in the US begins on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November each year. DST begins anew this year at 2am on 3/12.
It hasn’t always been this way. The NYT ran a story this week about the on-again-off-again-on-again history of daylight savings time blaming it all on the railroads…and Congress. Because each state gets to decide whether it will Spring ahead and Fall back, there are still places like Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands that aren’t observant. According to National Geographic, they are standard time people throughout the year that don’t do DST at all.
Although Ben Franklin is often credited with creating DST, that honor goes to Hudson — although not the same Hudson as the river. New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Vernon Hudson first proposed the idea of a two-hour time shift in an 1895 paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society.
If you are having trouble adjusting to the new time and can’t fall asleep, visit Wikipedia for more information than you would ever need to know about DST history, economic implications and where it is and isn’t implemented.
Photo Credit: “Nyack Sunrise Over the Hudson, 9/10/09, ” Dave Zornow