Daylight Saving Time normally adds 1-hour to standard time with the purpose of making better use of daylight and conserving energy. This means that the sunrise and sunset are one hour later, on the clock, than the day before.
The History Of Daylight Saving Time
Did you know that US politician Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay called “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” to the editor of The Journal of Paris in 1784. In the essay, he suggested (although jokingly) that Parisians could cut down on candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning and therefore making better use of the natural morning light instead.
Then in 1895 a New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. There was interest in the idea, but it was never followed through on and then in 1905 (independently from Hudson) a British builder William Willett suggested setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September, a total of eight time switches per year.
But it was Canada that became the first location to use Daylight Saving Time when the folks of Port Arthur which today is known as Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada introduced it in July, 1908.
Of course now Daylight Saving is something we all expect, but you also now know a little bit of history and how a Kiwi was involved right at the start.
Daylight Saving Time Around the World 2017
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is often incorrectly referred to as “daylight savings time”. In some countries, it is also called “summer time”. When DST is not observed, it is called standard time, normal time or winter time.
Detailed information is available for the first half of 2017 and for the second half of 2017.
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