Whiteflash-Diamond Playground

For everyone who set their clock back looking forward to that extra hour of sleep, or who showed up to work an hour late…you’re a week too soon. Typically Daylight Savings Time is the last week of October, but thanks to the 2005 Energy Conservation Act set forth by President Bush, we won’t be gaining that extra hour of sleep until next weekend.

Some computer software, cellphones and other electronic equipment that are programmed to automatically change will have to be manually reset Monday morning back to Daylight Saving Time, then changed back one hour next Sunday (I say some becuase there some companies that were actually prepared to move the switch to next weekend).

Oh and something to keep in mind…the 2005 legislation also changed the “spring forward” of Daylight Saving Time by one week.

For those of you who don’t know the history behind ‘Daylight Savings Time’:

Daylight Saving Time has been used in the U.S. and in many European countries since World War I. At that time, in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria took time by the forelock, and began saving daylight at 11:00 p.m. on April 30, 1916, by advancing the hands of the clock one hour until the following October.

The plan was not formally adopted in the U.S. until 1918. ‘An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States’ was enacted on March 19, 1918 under President Woodrow Wilson. It was repealed in 1919…seven months later. Daylight Saving Time became a local option, and was continued in a few states, such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and in some cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time, called “War Time,” from February 9, 1942 to September 30, 1945. From 1945 to 1966, there was no federal law regarding Daylight Saving Time, so states and localities were free to choose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time and could choose when it began and ended. On January 4, 1974, President Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. Then, beginning on January 6, 1974, implementing the Daylight Saving Time Energy Act, clocks were set ahead. On October 5, 1974, Congress amended the Act, and Standard Time returned on October 27, 1974. Daylight Saving Time resumed on February 23, 1975 and ended on October 26, 1975.