Daylight Saving -- Facts

As today we have to change the daylight saving time back to normal, I was wondering how this daylight saving came about. I did some research and found the following.

It was originally conceived by Benjamin Franklin. in an essay, "An Economical Project." Read more about Franklin's essay.

Later on the idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett (1857-1915) in the pamphlet, "Waste of Daylight" (1907), that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September.


It was Germany who first adopted by Germany in 1915 and a year later Braitain followed. During World War II, the clocks in Britain were put 2 hrs ahead of GMT during Summer. This was called Double Summer then.

It was adopted in the US only in 1918.

Today, approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country.

And still some countries like Japan, India, Sri Lanka, China, Pakistan and many others.