November 2, 2023
It’s a yearly signal that winter is right around the corner!
Daylight Saving Time ends this Sunday (November 5) at 2 a.m. New Canaan residents need to remember to turn their clocks back an hour before they go to bed on Saturday night or remember to do it when they wake up on Sunday morning.
The change back to Standard Time provides an extra hour of daylight during the shorter winter days.
The idea of manipulating the time was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, just in case you’re wondering. However, it wasn’t until 1916 that the practice of Daylight Saving Time became commonplace.
Germany was the first country to advance its clocks. They did so during World War I in an effort to conserve the fuel that was being used on the battlefields and to produce more weaponry. The United States and Britain quickly followed suit. At the conclusion of the war, all three countries reverted back to Standard Time, only to reinstate Daylight Saving Time again during World War II.
In the U.S., Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which established predetermined "Spring Forward" and "Fall Back" dates. Since the law was not mandatory, Hawaii, most of Arizona, and the U.S. territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands decided against changing their clocks.
In 2005, the most recent change to Daylight Saving occurred when the Energy Policy Act moved the start date of Daylight Saving to the second Sunday in March and the end date to the first Sunday in November.
