Time flies — forward and back, as daylight savings has rolled around again

Tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 7, at 2 a.m., we “fall back,” which means the clocks go back one hour.

Along with March, November has institutionalized the daylight savings time edict of “gaining” or “losing” hours.

For those inclined toward conspiracy, this looks like an effort to create “circadian rhythm disorder” for millions of Americans. The fancy medical term refers to the body’s inner clock, which first went haywire when the wide use of clocks came into fashion.

In the 17th century, when railroads came on the scene, they had to run on schedules, so people and those shipping goods knew reliable times to get on board, and people needed personal time pieces. Before that, most folks lived by getting up with the sun, eating when they were hungry and hitting the sack not long after the sun went down.

According to writer Gary Stephenson, the idea of daylight savings time, which had been around for a century or more, was first put into practice in World War I. The Germans decided to set their clocks ahead an hour to save electricity and fuel to aid in the war effort.

The U.S. picked up on their enemy’s idea. “In the United States, daylight saving time was first used in 1918 when a bill introduced the idea of a seasonal time shift. It lasted seven months before the bill was repealed,” according to Mr. Stephenson. “During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt re-established the idea of daylight saving time. It was called ‘War Time’ … which began in February 1942 and lasted until the end of September 1945.”

But the idea was back in 1966, when Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act, setting the last Sunday in April to “spring forward” and the last Sunday in October to “fall back.”

The oil embargo and subsequent crisis of 1973 had elected representatives tinkering with time again, Mr. Stephenson reports, with Congress ordering “a year-round period of daylight saving time to save energy. The period would run from January 1974 to April 1975. But the plan did little to save energy and in October 1974, the U.S. switched back …”

Are we done yet? Not quite. In 2007, the current system was put in place, moving the clock ahead an hour on the second Sunday in March and back an hour on the first Sunday in November.

What time is it? Time to set your clocks back an hour when you go to bed this Saturday. Don’t worry about your smartphone or computers. They do it automatically — without asking so many questions.