Daylight Saving Time Turns 60 and Arrives Earlier This Year

It's time to Spring Forward

Daylight Saving Time is when we Spring Forward and turn clocks up one hour. It was once the last Sunday in March, but it has been coming earlier. This year, we lose an hour of sleep on March 8, and 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of this annual change that gives more daylight in the evenings.

Even without the shift, the days have been getting longer since December 21. I recall darkness at around 5:30 p.m. the week before the Winter Solstice, and today it was closer to 6:30 before it looked like night.

Springing forward one hour will make 9:00 p.m. feel like it's 8:00 p.m. because it was on the previous evening. Some people report feeling tired and restless after the change. Others say they are not able to get to sleep at night.

In the mornings, we will be getting up an hour earlier than our bodies are used to, and we may feel sleepier an hour earlier, which can wreak havoc on our internal clocks.

Ben Franklin's role in DST

If you find yourself getting frustrated, there is a lot of blame to go around. First, you can thank Benjamin Franklin. In 1784, the writer/inventor wrote a satirical essay in the April 26, 1784, edition of the Journal de Paris, suggesting that candles could be saved by waking up earlier and using natural sunlight.

Franklin was not proposing a formal change, but his idea planted a seed. The Uniform Time Act, which established Springing Forward in March and Falling Back in November, was approved by Congress 182 years later in 1966.

Farmers don't care for DST

You may have heard that Daylight Saving Time was created to help farmers by giving them more daylight. This is not true because farmers did not like the shift. Their harvesting schedules and the internal clocks of their livestock were off.

Cows don't go by a clock and desire to be milked at the same time each morning. For decades, farmers actually lobbied against DSL but they were unsuccessful.

A golf game, collecting insects and a war

Ben Franklin's suggestion was in jest, but for a reason that would save resources. In other nations, the idea was being presented but for self-serving reasons.

In 1895, New Zealand entomologist George Hudson proposed setting the clocks up so he would have more daylight after work to collect insects. In the UK, in 1905, builder William Willett gave his support for the time change because he was frustrated that his golf games were being cut short by dusk.

In the US, daylight saving time was first introduced in 1918 as a wartime measure.

to save energy which was in line with Franklin's It was unpopular and repealed after World War I, but reinstated during World War II under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and remained in effect all year-long from 1942 to 1945.

Will the cycle ever end?

There has been an ongoing debate for years regarding the dissolution of Daylight Saving Time, but Congress has not agreed on the issue. Until they do we will continue to Spring Forward and Fall Back in March and November.

If this twice-yearly change is ever discontinued, I wonder how it will be determined whether to use the Spring or Fall system. If it's changed before March, we will stay on the November schedule, and after the third month, we will keep the Spring Forward time.

Until further notice, things will remain the same, losing an hour of sleep to have more daylight and gaining an hour when the clock is turned back.