I FOUND THIS VERY INTERESTING...HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY and SINCE WHEN DO WE HAVE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME? During World War I, in an effort to conserve fuel, Germany began observing DST on May 1, 1916. The rest of Europe soon followed. The plan was not adopted in the United States until the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918, which established standard time zones and set summer DST to begin on March 31, 1918. The idea was unpopular and Congress abolished DST after the war, overriding President Woodrow Wilsons veto. DST became a local option and was observed in some states until World War II, when President Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round DST, called War Time, on February 9, 1942. It lasted until the last Sunday in September 1945. After 1945 many states and cities east of the Mississippi River (and mostly north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers) adopted summer DST. From 1945 to 1966 there was no federal law on daylight saving time, so localities could choose when it began and ended or drop it entirely. In 1954 only California and Nevada had statewide DST west of the Mississippi, and only a few cities between Nevada and St Louis. In the 1964 Official Railway Guide 21 of the 48 states had no DST anywhere. By 1962 the transportation industry found the lack of consistency confusing enough to push for federal regulation. The result was the Uniform Time Act of 1966. Beginning in 1967, the act mandated standard time within the established time zones and provided for advanced time: clocks would be advanced one hour beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turned back one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. States were allowed to exempt themselves from DST as long as the entire state did so. If a state chose to observe DST, the time changes were required to begin and end on the established dates. In 1967 Arizona and Michigan became the first states to exempt themselves from DST (Michigan would begin observing DST in 1972). In 1972 the act was again amended, allowing those states split between time zones to exempt either the entire state or that part of the state lying within a different time zone. The newly created Department of Transportation (DOT) was given power to enforce the law. As of 2014 the following states and territories are not observing DST: Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:04:31 +0000
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