Clocks are about to change for Daylight Saving Time in California. Here are 10 fun facts

It’s almost that time of the year when your sleep is slightly altered in exchange for more daylight hours.

At 2 a.m. on Sunday, clocks will spring forward one hour all in the name of Daylight Saving Time. To test how much you know about the polarizing topic, we asked our readers to take our quiz with questions on its creators, origin and laws.

Here are 10 fun facts about DST and how our readers performed on the quiz:

Benjamin Franklin introduced the idea of daylight saving time

The applicable concept is officially credited to New Zealand entomologist George Hudson in 1895.

However, famous inventor Benjamin Franklin toyed with the idea nearly 100 years earlier, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 1784, Franklin pondered the shift to rising earlier in a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, adding that doing so would decrease the use of candles and save money.

“Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me,” Franklin wrote.

In the letter, Franklin said he didn’t want money or notoriety in exchange for his discovery — only credit.

The modern-day concept resurfaced in 1895 when Hudson proposed shifting the clocks to create more daylight for studying bugs, according to National Geographic.

Quiz results

• Benjamin Franklin - 424 votes or 60%

• George Hudson - 142 votes or 20%

• Woodrow Wilson - 113 votes or 16%

Daylight saving time has nothing to do with farmers

DST was never implemented in the U.S. for farmers but instead to save money and energy.

Clocks were briefly pushed forward as a global attempt to save energy during World War I, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health stated.

Germany implemented DST in 1916 and the U.S. followed suit two years later, according to The University of Colorado Boulder. It was repealed the next year.

Quiz results

• To conserve energy resources during World War I - 411 votes or 62%

• To create more daylight for farmers - 149 votes or 22%

• To use fewer candles and save money - 106 votes or 16%

California voted to stop the time change

In 2018, more than 7.1 million California residents — nearly 60% of the total vote — marked yes to Proposition 7 to stop the time change.

A yes vote on Proposition 7 would allow for legislation to either keep permanent standard or daylight time, eliminating the time change, as federal law allows.

In 2019, Assemblyman Democrat Kansen Chu introduced an assembly bill but it eventually died in committee, according to a previous Sacramento Bee story.

After Chu left office, Irvine Republican Assemblyman Steven Choi introduced Assembly Bill 2868 in 2021. The bill, which proposed year-round daylight saving time under Proposition 7, died the following year.

Permanent daylight saving time would require permission from the federal government.

Quiz results

• True - 395 votes or 62%

• False - 241 votes or 38%

Not all U.S. states fully observe daylight saving time

Two states, Hawaii and most of Arizona, do not observe daylight saving time and instead operate on permanent standard time.

In 2018, Sen. Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act.

If passed, daylight saving time would be permanent in the U.S., meaning people would not be forced to change their clocks back one hour in November. According to the act, time zones nor the amount of daylight hours would be altered.

Rubio reintroduced the bill last year, with Rep. Vern Buchanan introducing it in the House.

As of March 2023, neither proposal in the Senate nor the House has progressed through the introduction phase. Both bills have been referred to separate committees.

Quiz results (readers were allowed to pick two)

• Arizona - 587 votes or 96%

• Hawaii - 560 votes or 92%

We spring our clocks forward in March

We spring our clocks forward once a year at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March.

Quiz results

• 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March - 503 votes or 84%

• Midnight on the second Sunday of March - 58 votes or 10%

We turn out clocks back in November

We turn our clocks back once a year at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November.

Quiz results

• 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November - 531 votes or 90%

• 3 a.m. on the second Sunday of November - 47 votes or 8%

Franklin D. Roosevelt made laws on how clocks should be set

Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt briefly re-enacted daylight saving time during World War II before the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the biannual time change similar to what we use today. It was called “War Time.”

Quiz results

• Franklin D. Roosevelt - 482 votes or 82%

• Herbert Hoover - 83 votes or 14%

Harry S. Truman was behind the Uniform Time Act

In 1966, former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act that said the U.S. would observe six months of daylight saving time and six months of standard time.

Quiz results

• Harry S. Truman - 253 votes or 44%

• Lyndon B. Johnson - 169 votes or 29%

• Bill Clinton - 108 votes or 19%

We lose sleep with daylight saving time

We lose one hour of sleep with daylight saving time.

Quiz results

• 1 hour - 534 votes or 94%

• 3 hours - 17 votes or 3%

Bonus fact

The correct term is daylight saving time, not daylight savings time.

Quiz results

• Daylight saving time - 391 votes or 55%

• Daylight savings time - 325 or 45%

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