Clocks Fall Back One Hour This Saturday

Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend and that means an extra hour of sleep. Don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour before you go to bed Saturday night. DST ends at 2 a.m Sunday morning.

12 Things You Might Not Know About Daylight Saving Time

1. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation on April 30, 1916. The city of Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada implemented DST in 1908.

2. In May 1965, for two weeks, St. Paul and Minneapolis were on different times, St. Paul joined most of the nation by starting Daylight Saving Time 14 days before Minneapolis, which followed the later date set by state law.

3. Today clocks are almost always set one hour back or ahead. However, on Lord Howe Island in Australia, clocks are set only 30 minutes forward during DST. During DST’s history, there have been several variations – half adjustments (30 minutes) and double adjustments (two hours). Twenty and 40 minutes were also used.

4. Less than 40 percent of the world’s countries use DST. Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t participate. None of the US territories observe DST.

5. Candy makers say it sells more Halloween candy.

6. Accidents increase by as much as 11% during the two weeks that follow the end of British Summer Time.

7. It’s singular, not plural. (Saving not savings.)

8. In a study in 2017, researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Virginia reported judges who experienced sleep deprivation as a result of DST tended to issue longer sentences.

9. A 2016 study found the overall rate for stroke was eight percent higher in the two days after DST. Cancer victims were 25 percent more likely to have a stroke during that time, and people older than 65 were 20 percent more likely to have a stroke. (Researchers in Finland, compared the rate of stroke in more than 3,000 people hospitalized the week after a daylight saving time shift to the rate of stroke in more than 11,000 people hospitalized two weeks before or after the week of transition.)
10. In 1987, Chile delayed its time change by one day to accommodate a visit by the Pope.
11. The Navajo Nation, a semi-autonomous Native American territory, follows the United States DST schedule. Part of it lies in northeastern Arizona. During DST, the Navajo towns of Tuba City, Chinle, and Window Rock set their clocks forward one hour. A part of the Hopi Nation, which lies within the Navajo Nation, follows Arizona’s no-DST rule. To add to the confusion, there’s a smaller Navajo territory falling within the Hopi Nation within the Navajo Nation. Plus, there is a Hopi area adjacent to the main Hopi Nation. As a result, if driving from the Arizona state border through both Navajo and Hopi areas to the other side one can end up changing one’s clock seven times! For example: Tuba City (Navajo) and Moenkopi (Hopi) are only a couple of miles apart, but they have a one-hour time difference during the summer. Jaddito (Navajo), in the middle of Hopi Nation territory, is one hour ahead of the surrounding areas during summer.
12. Michael Downing wrote an entire book on the subject – Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. According to Downing, “In 1965 there were 130 cities in the country with populations of 100,000 or more and 59 did not observe daylight saving. Of the 71 that did, there were at least 20 different adoption dates. In Minnesota, St. Paul was on one time, Minneapolis was on a different time, and Duluth was on Wisconsin time. In fact, somebody even found a Minneapolis office building in which the different floors of the building were observing different time zones because they were the offices of different counties.”