From Deseret News archives:
It's about time History, trivia and lore about marking hours
All the increments we use to measure time, such as seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years, came into being gradually as various civilizations devised ways to organize their lives.
First adopted in 1967 in the United States, DST kicked in at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April. Clocks went back to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.
Since then, various changes have come along. In 1972, a congressional amendment allowed some areas to be exempt from DST, including Arizona, Hawaii, parts of Indiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. There have been times when we stayed on daylight-saving time all year 'round or changed the beginning and ending in other ways. Since 1986, the April/October formula has remained intact until this year.
In honor of Sunday morning's shift, here are some bits and pieces of history, lore and trivia dealing with the whole idea of time and daylight-saving time, in particular.
All about Franklin's idea
The idea of taking an hour off one end of the day and adding it to the other daylight-saving time was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin while he was serving as an American delegate in Paris. In an essay titled "An Economical Project," he discussed the thrift of natural versus artificial lighting and noted that if the Parisians shifted time correctly they could save enormous amounts of tallow and wax used for candles.
Franklin was 78 at the time, and wrote the essay somewhat in jest. But some of his friends, who had invented a new kind of oil lamp, were quite taken with the idea.
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