By Gus Saltonstall
With the Marathon here and the Election right around the corner, it might be easier than usual to forget that Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, November 3.
Clocks will turn back one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, which means that at 1:59 a.m. on November 3, your digital clocks will fall back to 1 a.m., instead of continuing to 2 a.m. You will have to properly set any non-digital clocks yourself to the correct time.
The end of Daylight Saving Time means that we gain an hour, unlike what happens in the spring when we lose an hour. The sun will now set and rise an hour earlier, meaning that we gain an hour of sleep, but lose an hour of daylight.
In New York City, the sun will set at 5:50 p.m. on November 2, but on November 3, it will set at 4:49 p.m.
Here is a little bit more information on the history of Daylight Saving Time.
- Daylight Saving Time was first suggested in a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in 1784.
- Several countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, adopted summer Daylight Saving Time during World War I to conserve fuel by reducing the need for artificial light.
- In 1966, the Uniform Time Act made Daylight Saving Time consistent across the U.S, although states can opt out of it, as have Hawaii and Arizona.
- In 2007, after two earlier possibilities, the start date of Daylight Saving Time was changed in the U.S. to the second Sunday in March, and the end date to the first Sunday in November.
- On Mar. 15, 2022, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill that would have made Daylight Saving Time permanent as of November 20, 2023, if approved by the House and signed by President Joe Biden. (It never made it to Biden.) Sen. Marco Rubio reintroduced the bill in March 2023, and it was sent to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, but there has been no movement on it since.
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Kudos to Gus for not writing “Savings”!