While the temperature has yet to break the freezing mark, tomorrow night marks the first sign of spring. Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins Sunday, March 8, at 2 a.m.
According to legend, Benjamin Franklin was one of the first people to propose a version of DST while he was an envoy to the French government. After observing the amount of artificial light the French used after dark, Franklin published a satirical pamphlet with the maxim “being early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
At that time, there wasn’t a need for standardized clocks between different communities and the idea never took off. But the advent of rail transport changed that as stations needed to be running on the same time. In 1879, Sir Sandford Fleming, a Toronto man, advocated for standardized time around the world to facilitate trade and travel.
In 1916, Germany was the first country to adopt DST to avoid using electricity during the First World War. The United States also added DST for a similar reason during the Second World War.
By 1966, most communities throughout North America began to spring forward each year. Since 2007, the clock moves forward on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November.