Daylight Saving Time: Fun Facts

Did you know it is “Daylight Saving” Time, not “Savings?” I’m sure I’ve been saying that wrong for years! I hope you remembered to turn your clocks forward this past weekend and that those of you with young kids didn’t have to deal with too much chaos on Sunday. That was always the worst part of Daylight Saving Time when my boys were young!

Shelly Sutter at Chicago Title shared some fun facts about Daylight Saving Time I wanted to re-post below:

• It’s Daylight SAVING Time; you’re not savings daylight, right?
• Daylight Saving Time was not, in fact, invented to benefit farmers; Benjamin Franklin actually first suggested the idea in 1784.
• During World War I, Germany was the first country to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915.
• Up until 2006, Daylight Saving Time in the United States began in April and ended in October; in 2007, it was extended to March through November.
• About 70 countries around the world observe Daylight Saving Time, but the following states and territories do not observe it in America: Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Hawaii, and most of Arizona.

According to a list by Mental Floss, the average person loses 40 minutes of sleep the night we have our Daylight Saving Time switch. I don’t know about you, but it feels like a lot more than that! Some other fun facts from Mental Floss:

• Daylight Saving Time cost airlines and other transportation companies millions of dollars when it was extended, due to the price of rearranging flight, train, etc. schedules.
• Pets can notice changes in humans’ behavior during Daylight Saving Time; they thrive on our predicable schedules, so they know when something is different!
• Most farmers actually oppose Daylight Saving Time; think about it, cows get milked the same time of the day every day, no matter what the clock says!
• Daylight Saving Time can deter crime, but can pose health hazards and waste energy, too.
• Finally, Ben Franklin was mostly joking when he suggested Daylight Saving Time; credit for the idea formally goes to an entomologist who did his insect hunting at night and became frustrated by how early the sun set during summer months. When his idea to spring clocks forward for the summer to allow more daylight for bug collecting was proposed to a scientific society in 1895, it was panned. Two decades later, Daylight Saving Time would begin its spread across the industrialized world.