Monday, March 11, 2013

Daylight Saving Time


Daylight saving time began Sunday at 2 am. Did you set your clocks forward an hour?

Did you know:
  • The modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson and it was first implemented during the First World War. 
  • Many countries have used it at various times since then. 
  • Although most of the United States used DST throughout the 1950s and 1960s, DST use expanded following the 1970s energy crisis and has generally remained in use in North America and Europe since that time.
  • The practice has been both praised and criticized. Adding daylight to evenings benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but can cause problems for evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting (formerly a primary use of electricity), modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.
  • DST clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Software can often adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST protocols are changed.

World map. Europe, Russia, most of North America, parts of southern South America and southern Australia, and a few other places use DST. Most of equatorial Africa and a few other places near the equator have never used DST. The rest of the land mass is marked as formerly using DST.

Although not used by most of the world's countries, daylight saving time is common in the Western world.

  DST observed
  DST formerly observed
  DST never observed

(From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time)

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