If you started your day a little bit tired, you may have been still feeling the affects of Daylight Saving Time. Let’s take a closer look at why we have daylight savings!

People often give credit to Benjamin Franklin for starting Daylight Saving Time, and while he did write a satirical essay about daylight and productivity, he did not actually propose the concept of changing our clocks. With an essay of his, Franklin satirically proposed that Parisians wake up at dawn to improve the economy by using sunlight instead of candles.

That concept eventually turned into the Daylight Saving Time, so instead of waking up earlier, we move the clocks in order to experience the daylight later in the day. The idea behind this was we would have more daylight hours when we were awake so as to be able to use the daylight more instead of artificial light.

Daylight saving time first started being used during World War I, but many places got rid of it after the war. Then in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reinstituted Daylight Saving Time during World War II. However, with many states and cities changing the times on different days, this practice was a little chaotic until 1966. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act to standardize Daylight Saving Time and have specific start and end times for the country.

We still have Daylight Saving Time today with the exception of Hawaii and Arizona who opt out of daylight saving time and remain on standard time. What do you think? Does Daylight Saving Time save you energy?