How Much Do You Know About Daylight Savings Time?
Daylight savings time said goodbye to us again on November 3rd. After this day, the United States enters standard time, also known as winter time. But what is the point of switching back our clocks?
Daylight savings time, also known as summer time in the UK and other countries, is the practice of forwarding clocks to make the night longer within the summer period. In general, regions which use daylight savings time change their clocks by moving forward one hour close to the beginning of spring and by moving backward one hour in the late fall. The specific daylight savings time regulations may vary from country to country. There are nearly 110 countries that carry out the daylight savings time system around the world every year.
Benjamin Franklin was the first person to conceive the idea of daylight savings time during the period when he lived in Paris as an American delegate in 1784. In Franklin’s opinion, by requiring people to get up earlier during the summer, everyone could save 64 million pounds of candles. In 1895, George Hudson, a British-born New Zealand entomologist, first proposed modern daylight savings time to the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 1907, William Willett, a prominent British builder, advocated for daylight savings time in the pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight”. In this article, Willett proposed adjusting clocks forward 20 minutes on four Sundays incrementally in April and moving clocks backward the same amount of time in four continuous Sundays in September.
Port Arthur (Candana), was the first city in the world to enact DST in 1908. In order to conserve coal within the wartime, in 1916, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were the first nations to implement daylight savings time. Later, Britain and many European countries followed subsequently. Two years later, the United States adopted daylight savings time as well. From then on, more and more countries adopted it,and it became common during World War II.DST was adopted widely in North America and Europe due to the 1970s energy crisis.
General speaking, daylight savings time helps to save energy, promotes outdoor activities in the evening during the summer, and is beneficial to people’s health from both a physical and psychological standpoint. Daylight savings time is also helpful in supporting retail businesses because it allows the retail industry to delay operation hours to increase the daily potential profits.
On the contrary, in the opponents’ opinion, energy savings are difficult to visualize. Daylight savings time is bad for people’s health because changing the clock twice every year may disrupt the body clock.
Just like a coin has two sides, daylight saving time has its advantages and disadvantages. What is your opinion?
