Post by Charity on Apr 2, 2006 22:41:51 GMT -5
It is sometimes asserted that DST was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris. Read the full text. However, the article was humorous; Franklin was not proposing DST, but rather that people should get up and go to bed earlier.
It was first seriously proposed by William Willett in the "Waste of Daylight", published in 1907, but he was unable to get the British government to adopt it despite considerable lobbying.
The idea of daylight saving time was first put into practice by the German government during the First World War between April 30 and October 1, 1916. Shortly afterward, the United Kingdom followed suit, first adopting DST between May 21 and October 1, 1916. Then on March 19, 1918, the U.S. Congress established several time zones (which were already in use by railroads and most cities since 1883) and made daylight saving time official (which went into effect on March 31) for the remainder of World War I. It was observed for seven months in 1918 and 1919. The law, however, proved so unpopular (mostly because people rose and went to bed earlier than in current times) that it was later repealed.
[edit]
Observation of DST
Daylight saving time is generally a temperate zone practice; day lengths in the tropics do not vary enough to justify DST. Hawaii, the only U.S. state in the tropics, does not observe DST.
The amount of the time shift varies, but one hour is the most common. The dates of the beginning and ending of DST also vary by country. With a few exceptions, switchovers between standard time and daylight saving time generally occur in the early morning hours of a Sunday morning, presumably because doing so then causes less disruption than a change on a weekday would.
DST commonly begins in the northern hemisphere on either the first Sunday in April or the last Sunday in March, and ends on the last Sunday in October. However, beginning in 2007, the United States will begin observing DST on the second Sunday of March until the first Sunday in November, but if no energy savings can be shown from the extension after the U.S. Department of Energy completes a study of impact of the change, Congress may revert back to the schedule set in 1986 under Section 110 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Since 2002, the European Union has fixed the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October as start and end dates (European Summer Time).
In the southern hemisphere, the beginning and ending dates are switched; therefore, the time difference between the United Kingdom and Chile may be three, four, or five hours, depending on the time of year.
more
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time
It was first seriously proposed by William Willett in the "Waste of Daylight", published in 1907, but he was unable to get the British government to adopt it despite considerable lobbying.
The idea of daylight saving time was first put into practice by the German government during the First World War between April 30 and October 1, 1916. Shortly afterward, the United Kingdom followed suit, first adopting DST between May 21 and October 1, 1916. Then on March 19, 1918, the U.S. Congress established several time zones (which were already in use by railroads and most cities since 1883) and made daylight saving time official (which went into effect on March 31) for the remainder of World War I. It was observed for seven months in 1918 and 1919. The law, however, proved so unpopular (mostly because people rose and went to bed earlier than in current times) that it was later repealed.
[edit]
Observation of DST
Daylight saving time is generally a temperate zone practice; day lengths in the tropics do not vary enough to justify DST. Hawaii, the only U.S. state in the tropics, does not observe DST.
The amount of the time shift varies, but one hour is the most common. The dates of the beginning and ending of DST also vary by country. With a few exceptions, switchovers between standard time and daylight saving time generally occur in the early morning hours of a Sunday morning, presumably because doing so then causes less disruption than a change on a weekday would.
DST commonly begins in the northern hemisphere on either the first Sunday in April or the last Sunday in March, and ends on the last Sunday in October. However, beginning in 2007, the United States will begin observing DST on the second Sunday of March until the first Sunday in November, but if no energy savings can be shown from the extension after the U.S. Department of Energy completes a study of impact of the change, Congress may revert back to the schedule set in 1986 under Section 110 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Since 2002, the European Union has fixed the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October as start and end dates (European Summer Time).
In the southern hemisphere, the beginning and ending dates are switched; therefore, the time difference between the United Kingdom and Chile may be three, four, or five hours, depending on the time of year.
more
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time