Daylight Savings Time Ends November 7, 2021

Daylight Saving Time concludes at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021, when the clock will “fall back” one hour and in theory we get one extra hour of sleep.

Days continue to get shorter — last Thursday was the first time since March 10 that the sun set before 6 p.m.

The idea of aligning waking hours to daylight hours to conserve candles was first proposed in 1784 by American inventor Benjamin Franklin. In a satirical letter to the editor of The Journal of Paris, the American inventor suggested that waking up earlier in the summer would economize candle usage and calculated considerable savings.

In 1895, New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Hudson seriously proposed the idea of changing clocks by two hours every spring to the Wellington Philosophical Society. He wanted to have more daylight hours to devote to collecting and examining insects. Though the idea received some serious consideration in 1907 in the United Kingdom when British resident William Willett presented it as a way to save energy, it was never implemented.

In the United States, daylight saving time was first used in 1918 when a bill introduced the idea of a seasonal time shift.  It lasted seven months before the bill was repealed.

During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt re-established the idea of daylight saving time.  It was called “War Time.”

War Time began in February 1942 and lasted until the end of September 1945.

In 1966, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the idea of regulating a yearly time change.  Daylight saving time would begin the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October.

During the 1973 oil embargo, the United States Congress ordered a year-round period of daylight saving time to save energy.  The period would run from January 1974 to April 1975.  The plan did little to save energy and in October 1974, the U.S. switched back to standard time.

From 1987 through 2006, daylight saving time started the first weekend in April, running through the last weekend in October.

In 2007, the start and end of daylight saving time shifted again.  That year, it began on the second Sunday in March, and it ended on the first Sunday in November.

As this Sunday approaches, we hope that you enjoy the extra hour of sleep and remember to set your clock back an hour.