Tag: fun facts

Daylight Saving Time: Fun Facts

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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.

Fun facts for St. Patty’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! Under normal circumstances, this would be a happy day full of beer-drinking, block parties, and lots and lots of green outfits. The pandemic has put a bit of a damper on that, but we can still have some virtual fun. Here are 13 fun facts about St. Patty’s Day from MentalFloss!

St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City, 1960
A picture of New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, circa 1960.PETER KEEGAN/GETTY IMAGES
  1. We should be wearing BLUE on St. Patrick’s Day: apparently, the color green only became associated with the holiday after it was linked to the Irish independence movement in the late 18th century.
  2. St. Patrick wasn’t Irish: what?! Although he made his mark by introducing Christianity to Ireland in 432, Patrick was actually born to Roman parents in Scotland or Wales in the late 4th century.
  3. St. Patrick’s Day used to be a dry holiday: pubs were closed in Ireland and Northern Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day until the 1970s. Before then, it was a solemn, strictly religious occasion.
  4. NYC’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been happening since 1762: one of the world’s largest parades was actually canceled for the first time in its history due to COVID-19 in 2020.
  5. Chicago runs green for St. Patty’s Day: you’ve all seen it – the Chicago River has been dyed green on St. Patrick’s Day every year since 1962 (but won’t be this year).
  6. Some St. Patrick’s Day parades are…different: from 1999-2007, the Irish village of Dripsey hosted a 26-yard St. Patrick’s Day parade between two pubs. Today, the shortest one is in Hot Springs, Arkansas (98 feet).
  7. There’s a meaning behind the shamrocks: according to Irish legend, St. Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock (not a four-leaf clover, by the way), as a metaphor for the Holy Trinity when he introduced Christianity to Ireland.
  8. Credit where it’s not due?: in Irish lore, St. Patrick gets credit for driving all snakes out of Ireland. However, modern scientists suggest that Ireland has never been home to any snakes because the island was too cold to host reptiles during the Ice Age, and the surrounding seas have kept them away ever since.
  9. Corned beef, hold the corn: corned beef, a popular Irish-American staple on St. Patty’s Day, doesn’t have anything to do with corn. The name is a nod to the large grains of salt historically used to cure meats, which were also called “corns.”
  10. St. Patrick’s Day is a bar owner’s dream: it was estimated in 2017 that 13 MILLION pints of Guinness would be consumed worldwide on St. Patty’s Day. In 2020, it was expected that American beer sales would be up 174% and that Americans celebrating would spend more than $6 billion on the holiday.
  11. His name wasn’t originally Patrick: hold on, what? According to Irish legend, St. Patrick wasn’t originally called “Patrick.” His birth name was Maewyn Succat, but he changed it to Patricius after becoming a priest.
  12. There are no female leprechauns: in traditional Irish folk tales, there are no female leprechauns. Rude!
  13. The lingo makes sense: you can’t attend a St. Patrick’s Day event without hearing a cry of “Erin go Bragh.” What’s the phrase mean? It’s a corruption of the Irish Éirinn go Brách, which means roughly “Ireland Forever.”
Green Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day
Every year, the Chicago River is dyed green for the holiday.TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES