Why do we use daylight savings time?

DST has simply become an event that we all accept every year but it does certainly serve her purpose and have a history. DST was introduced to save energy as well as make better use of daylight with the changing seasons and the way that the earth moves around the sun. The idea of daylight savings time was first suggested in ancient times but then was revisited by famous scientists later on.

Daylight savings time has only actually been in use for around a century but the idea stands far beyond that. Ancient civilizations were known to have used a similar type of system adjusting their clocks to different schedules based off of the seasons. A great example of this involves rum and water clocks which were set on different scales based off of the month of the year.

American inventor Benjamin Franklin also discussed the merits of daylight savings time in his essay called in An economical project for diminishing the cost of light. This was about economizing candle usage by making people get out of bed earlier in the morning to use the natural light. The same principles occur today only with power consumption.

The first country to utilize daylight savings time was Germany and it was enacted in 1916 when the entire country turn their clocks forward at 11 PM on April 30. The original methodology for this change was to save fuel for the war effort in World War I, many other countries followed suit and since that time other countries like the United States enacted the same rule every year starting in 1918.

Today over 70 countries worldwide utilize daylight savings time and it has been revised throughout the years. The current daylight savings time schedule has been introduced and followed since 2007.