Daylight Saving Time: Things Could Be Way Worse

Daylight saving time for most readers today means little more than an inconvenience in the spring; they lose an hour's sleep. Daylight saving time brings with it some baggage, some interesting, some not so interesting.

I'm using as reference an article by Bill Chappell titled "Daylight Saving Time Starts: Change Your Clocks!" And make no mistake about it we will bump our clocks ahead an hour tonight so if you're headed for church Sunday and you get there based on today's time sorry, it will be over, or at least well underway.

Chappell was nice enough to provide a map of time-zone differences which you can view here.

However, daylight saving time plays an interesting role in our somewhat recent history, at least in my lifetime and many of us over oh, about 45 years old.

The reason it is worth bringing up is that the time of its occurrence is somewhat similar to the times today. In the early 1970s, Richard Nixon was president. He had been elected on the basis that he had a way to get us out of Vietnam with "dignity" or as his campaign slogan said "Peace With Honor." Of course, we all know we did not leave on an honorable basis; we simply cut our losses and left. At any rate, that is how he got into office after being beaten by Kennedy in 1960.

The Arab coalition of oil manufacturers decided to place an Embargo against the U.S. and the story to the American people was that we were 'out of fuel" however rather than charge us an arm and a leg like today, we simply couldn't get gas. Often stations would be out or you would be limited to 10 gallons.

In stepped Nixon with a couple of other ideas. First he limited Interstate speeds to 55 mph the logic being cars got the best gas mileage at that speed. And finally, in late 1974 (and this is the part that fits with this article), he initiated daylight saving time to limit fuel needed for lights. This lasted for I believe around eight months into 1975.

I relay this information to you to give you a little interesting trivia, if you're younger than 45 or so and to help you feel a little better about losing some sleep tonight.

References:

World Time Zone Website, "Time-Zone Map"

NPR.org Website, Bill Chappell, "Daylight saving Time Starts: Change Your Clocks!"