Did you change all of your clocks on Nov. 3, the end of daylight saving time?
You might be wondering about the purpose of daylight saving time. Didn't it start when people still rode horses everywhere? Does it save energy?
Benjamin Franklin gets the credit for the idea of daylight saving, according to David Prerau, author of “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.”
But the first world leader to enact daylight saving on a mass scale was Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who wanted to save energy during World War I. The United States and England followed suit.
Today, most research shows that daylight saving time saves just a slight amount of energy. More energy is saved in mild climates, such as California, where daylight saving time saves about 1 percent of energy daily, according to estimates by the Department of Energy.
Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands don't even observe daylight saving time.
