Saturday, April 20, 2024
Fair, 65°Wind: 10.4 mph, S
Welcome to our new web site!
To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.
During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.
By Mike Cook
Las Cruces Bulletin
Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead (spring forward, fall back) before you go to bed Saturday night. Daylight Saving Time (DST) 2022 begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 13, celebrating its 104th birthday in the United States.
British entomologist George Vernon Hudson (1867-1946) invented DST, presenting it to the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1895.
“The history of standard time in the U.S. began Nov. 18, 1883, when U.S. and Canadian railroads instituted standard time in time zones,” according to Wikipedia. “Before then, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by some well-known clock (for example, on a church steeple or in a jeweler's window).”
Standard time in time zones was established by federal law with the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918, which also established DST, Wikipedia said.
“DST was repealed in 1919, but standard time in time zones remained in law, with the Interstate Commerce Commission having the authority over time zone boundaries,” according to Wikipedia.
Congress enacted the War Time Act, reinstating DST Feb. 9, 1942, to save energy. The Amendment to the War Time Act ended DST Sept. 30, 1945. It was re-established by the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which mandated that DST start the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October.
Because of the energy crisis sparked by OPEC’s 1973 oil embargo, DST began the first Sunday in January in 1974 and the last Sunday in February in 1975.
Since 2007, DST has started the second Sunday in March and ended the first Sunday in November. That’s as a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by Congress and signed into law by then President George W. Bush.
DST is not observed in Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation), Hawaii or the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
DST 2022 will end Sunday, Nov. 6.
