Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 40: The first spring forward

Americans who hate Daylight Savings Time should rue the day March 31, 1918, as that was when DST became an official practice in the US. 

For most of history there was no organized approach to best using the increased daylight that comes with summer. In Roman times, when the day was split into 12 equal hours of day and night, they just changed the number of minutes in each hour to suit prevailing conditions. When fixed-length hours became the norm, businesses and other institutions would shift opening and closing times as needed, but that was a voluntary practice.

The idea of actually shifting the clock ahead was suggested by a few individuals, but didn't catch on (outside of a handful of localities) until World War I, when Germany and Austria-Hungary shifted their clocks ahead in 1916 in order to conserve coal. Most of Europe followed over the course of the next year, with the US (as with their entry into the war) coming later. And like much of Europe, the US wound up dropping DST after the war (though Congress had to override President Wilson's veto to do so).

DST would pop up in the US again during World War II (though it was called War Time rather than Daylight Time), and was repealed again after the war. Localities were allowed to observe DST, and many states did, creating a patchwork of local times. Complaints by several industries (most notably transportation) led to the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which required states to observe DST unless they passed a state law exempting the entire state from the practice.

And that's pretty much where things have stayed until recently, with a renewed push for year-round DST (most notably in the Sunshine Protection Act). Proponents tend to forget the mid-1970s experiment with this that was prompted by the 1973 energy crisis, which saw problems with late sunrise times in the winter months that had kids going to school in the dark.

So there you have it, 40 days of things that happened on Easter. Tune in next year when we'll have 40 days of things that happened on Holy Saturday (if I take this to its logical extension I can run out most of the 2020s with things that happened during Holy Week).