Before I begin, I would like to tell anyone who is only here to find out when and how to change their clocks this year: Turn your clocks back one hour at 2:00AM on Sunday, November 1st.

Have you noticed that as we get closer and closer to the winter months of the year, the days become shorter and shorter? We lose approximately 2 minutes of daylight each day due to Earth’s tilt and orbit around the sun.

Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the greatest mind of his time, noticed this phenomenon. In an anonymous letter, he suggested to the people of Paris to wake up earlier and utilize the morning light for longer working hours. Jokingly, he added it would economize the usage of candles and lower the standard family’s living expenses.

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Although Benjamin Franklin was never serious about the idea, others realized the countless benefits of adjusting their lives around the occurrence of natural light. George Vernon Hudson, an avid collector of bugs, noticed the significance of diminishing daylight on his bug-collecting escapades. In 1895, he proposed the idea of Daylight Saving time to the New Zealanders. Albeit not taken seriously at first, the New England government eventually embraced the idea.

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In Great Britain, William Willet independently came up with the same notion. In 1907, he published a pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight,” proposing the advancement of clocks 80 minutes forwards during the month of April and returning them by the same amount throughout September. He writes, “Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used.”

Through enthusiastic campaigning, Willet had convinced a Parliament member to repeatedly propose the idea as law. Although unsuccessful, the idea resurfaced under support of Winston Churchill two years later, but wasn’t acted on. It wasn’t until WWI when Daylight Saving Time was adopted, due to a need to conserve coal to combat the Germans, who had already begun to live by Daylight Saving. On May 17th, 1916, Parliament finally passed a bill to move the clock back an hour during Autumn.

With understanding, comes appreciation. During that stressful Saturday night, when you eagerly set all the clocks in the house back an hour, you’ll know who to thank for that extra hour of sleep.