Don’t Forget to Change Your Clocks!

At 2AM on Sunday, March 12th, Daylight Saving Time will begin–so make sure to move your clocks forward one hour! While we will all lose an hour of sleep, we can also look forward to longer days filled with warm spring light. Though many credit Benjamin Franklin with the creation of Daylight Saving Time, it was actually the New Zealand entomologist, George Hudson, who proposed the idea. He was an avid insect collector who wanted extra light at the end of the day so that he could spend more time collecting bugs after his day job. Ben Franklin in 1784 wrote an editorial published in the Journal of Paris, arguing that Parisians could save on candles by rising earlier. It was not until 1918 that the U.S. Congress passed the Daylight Saving Act (see poster to the right). In recent times (2015-2022) there have been congressional pro- posals for a year-round U.S. Daylight Saving Time Act.