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Associate Curator of Science Matthew Howles takes a look inside the Wells Cathedral clock in the … [+]
In 2020, daylight saving time ends on a full moon Halloween night.
Since the early 20’sth century, most people in the United States live and work by the clock, not by sunrise and sunset. If everyone agrees to set the clock, passing a state or national law, for example, most people’s daily schedules change with it. And, in theory, moving the clock forward one hour during the spring and summer months would give most people an extra hour of daylight at night.
After all, spring and summer days include more hours of daylight than fall and winter, but without daylight saving time, most of those extra hours of sunlight would occur in the early morning, when most people don’t. she is awake. The time change moves everyone’s shared schedule to better overlap with the additional daylight.
So is; If it seems like the days are suddenly ending ridiculously early, remember that 5:30 pm sunsets are a default setting.
During World War I, daylight saving time became a very attractive idea in several countries, because it reduced the public demand for fossil fuels such as coal, which countries on both sides of the war needed to save for the more pressing matter of fight each other. Germany introduced its version of daylight saving time for the first time in 1916, and the United States did the same in early 1918 or so.
If keeping up with the time change seems confusing now, you should have seen it a century ago. After the war, the federal government abandoned the idea of a standard national daylight savings time, leaving state and local governments to decide whether and when to reset their clocks. The result was as chaotic as might be expected, but it lasted until World War II, when the federal government again set a standard for the sake of the war effort. After that, the US again allowed different cities to set their own time, and a couple of states even decided to roll the clocks. back in the spring instead of forward.
Congress passed a law that standardized daylight saving time in 1966, largely thanks to lobbying from the increasingly frustrated transportation industry, which had struggled to put together flight schedules and train schedules connecting a confusing mosaic of ever-changing time zones. .
In 1973, political tensions in the Middle East led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to declare an oil embargo against the United States and several other countries. To cope with the resulting energy crisis, the US government briefly experimented with making daylight saving time a change throughout the year, which meant that winter daylight hours would also be extended a bit longer. late, but that sunrise would also come much later in the mornings.
Things returned to routine in 1975: 8 months of daylight saving time and 4 months of standard time. In 2005, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 established the current dates for the time change: Daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March (can you believe that March was only 8 months ago?) And ends on the first Sunday in November. .
And that’s why we have an extra hour of Halloween night in 2020.
