Tomorrow, starting at 02:00 (March 30), the clocks will go forward 60 minutes. This will cause us to lose 1 hour of morning sleep, waking up earlier. The purpose of changing the clock is to take advantage of solar energy as well as save electricity.
How did the concept of daylight saving time come about?
It was 1907 when the Englishman William Willett presented the idea of “Daylight Saving Time”, so that people would not waste precious hours of daylight during summer mornings.
Willett thought of this idea in order to get people out of bed earlier, by changing the clock. He proposed that the clock should be moved forward by 80 minutes in four progressive steps during the month of April and in the same way during the month of September. Willett then spent the rest of his life trying to convince people that his scheme was the right one.
Unfortunately, he died of influenza in 1915, at the age of 58, a year before the Germans adopted his plan to change the clocks on April 30, 1916, but not by 80 minutes, but by 60, when the clocks went back to 11:00 p.m. Britain followed suit later, on May 21.
The Summer Time Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1916, and May 21, 1916, was the first day of the ‘Summer Time’ calculation.
But it wasn’t always changed by an hour.
Today, clocks are almost always set one hour ahead or behind, but throughout history there have been some variations, such as half-adjustment by 30 minutes, or double adjustment by two hours, and other adjustments by 20 and 40 minutes. A two-hour adjustment was used in several different countries during the 1940s.
A half-adjustment was used in New Zealand in the first half of the 20th century. In Australia, meanwhile, the clock was once pushed back or turned back by 30 minutes.
Since 1981, the time change has been established, which includes all of Europe, where in many of its countries, the hands move 60 minutes ahead. The European norm consistently determines the dates of the beginning of the summer time period, where the hands move 60 minutes ahead, and of the winter time, when it moves 1 hour behind.
The changes take place on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October. The change of clocks aims to save electricity and make use of sunlight. After the spring equinox, the day begins to lengthen and reaches its peak on June 22, with 15 hours of daylight and only 9 hours of night.
Daylight saving time will last until the last Sunday in October, when the clocks will be turned back 1 hour./ATA
