Um, when does Daylight Savings begin in 2018?

Olivia Harvey
Updated
When is Daylight Savings 2018? Daylight Savings Time officially begins in March and we're SO ready to soak up an extra hour of sunlight.

We live and breathe for Daylight Savings Time (DST). That one extra hour of daylight makes life worth living, in our opinion. And when is Daylight Savings 2018? On March 11th at 2 a.m., we’ll be reunited with that extra hour once again and it will feel so good.

So what’s the deal with DST anyway? The idea began with Benjamin Franklin, who started Daylight Savings in the U.S. as a way to conserve energy. The extra hour of sunlight in the evening helped to preserve indoor lighting sources and early electricity.

The national act of Daylight Savings wasn’t officially instated until World War I. It was again used to conserve energy, and it also boosted the economy because people were out shopping later. President Woodrow Wilson desired to keep DST in effect alongside the rest of Europe after the war, but rural laborers protested due to the shortage of early morning sunlight.

Therefore, the U.S. stopped practicing Daylight Savings until World War II. At that time, President Franklin Roosevelt reestablished the practice, but made it a year-round event and called it “War Time.”

We hope you’re taking notes, by the way. This will be on the test.

After WWII ended, DST was left to the states to quibble over. It was a bit of mess until Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act that required states taking part in DST to follow a set of guidelines in order to keep everyone within the same time frame.

Those of us in states that do practice Daylight Savings (all states besides Arizona, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories including Puerto Rico), are part of the less than 40% of places in the world that do. Some states like Florida and Massachusetts are contemplating abolishing the practice altogether and opting to either permanently stay in or out of DST.

But while us DST-ers are still going strong, let’s enjoy the extra hour while we have it come March 11th. If you need us, we’ll be breaking out the sunscreen.