by nate on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 | Knowledge, Life, Tips, Travel, World | No Comments

Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time. If you have a plan to travel or anything this Fall, you may need to rearrange your time. For 2009, Daylight Saving Time ends at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 1st. So don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour before you go to bed on Saturday night (or do it right at 2 a.m., if you’ll be partying or will just happen to be awake at that time).

Origins

Benjamin Franklin first suggested Daylight Saving Time in 1784, but it was not until World War I, in 1916, when it was adopted by several counties in Europe that initially rejected the idea.

Let’s read a little more about DST according to Wikipedia:

Daylight saving time (DST; also summer time in British English—see Terminology) is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist. Many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally.

The practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight; its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory.

DST’s occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment and sleep patterns. Many computer-based systems can adjust their clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change.

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Eventhough this practice is commonly used in United States and Europe, let’s see about DST elsewhere in the world.

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