With the start of daylight saving time on Sunday, here’s everything you need to know ahead of time.
This weekend, most Americans, including Illinois residents, will advance their clocks by one hour, signaling warmer temperatures and brighter days ahead.
The official time change will occur at 2 a.m. Sunday, with clocks advancing to 3 a.m. in states that use daylight saving time.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which amended the Uniform Time Act of 1966, mandates that daylight saving time begin every year on the second Sunday in March. According to the law, the time change will be in effect until the first Sunday in November.
According to officials, the change will push sunset to nearly 7 p.m., breaking a barrier that will be broken on St. Patrick’s Day next week. While we will have more daylight hours, we will have one less hour of sleep.
Here’s everything you need to know about Daylight Saving Time, including its history, the controversy surrounding it, and how to deal with losing some important sleeping time.
What is daylight saving time?
Daylight saving time is a clock change that occurs in the spring and ends in the fall, and is commonly referred to as “spring forward” and “fall back.”
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.
On those days, clocks move one hour forward or backward.
But it wasn’t always like this.
Clocks used to advance on the first Sunday of April and stay that way until the last Sunday of October, but a change was made to allow children to trick-or-treat in more daylight.
In the United States, daylight saving time lasts 34 weeks, from early to mid-March to the beginning of November in states that observe it.
Some claim that Benjamin Franklin invented daylight saving time when he said in a 1784 essay about saving candles, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” But that was intended as satire rather than a serious consideration.
During World War I, Germany was the first to implement daylight saving time on May 1, 1916, in order to save fuel. The rest of Europe quickly followed.
Until March 19, 1918, the United States did not observe daylight saving time. It was unpopular and was repealed following World War I.
Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round daylight saving time, dubbed “wartime,” on February 9, 1942. This was in effect until September 30, 1945.
Daylight saving time did not become standard in the United States until 1966 when the Uniform Time Act mandated standard time across the country within established time zones. The clocks would advance one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turn back one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October, according to the schedule.
States could still opt out of daylight saving time as long as the entire state did. Due to the 1973 oil embargo, Congress enacted a year-round daylight saving time trial period from January 1974 to April 1975 in order to conserve energy.
When does daylight saving time end?
Daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2023, in what is known as the annual “fallback.”
When does daylight saving time start?
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which amended the Uniform Time Act of 1966, states that daylight saving time will begin on the second Sunday in March, which will be March 12 in 2023.
The time change will take place at 2 a.m.
At that time, the clocks will jump directly to 3 a.m., differing from the autumn time change when clocks “fall back” to 1 a.m. upon the conclusion of daylight saving time.
