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AMERICANS have just realized that not every resident has to change their clocks before bed on Saturday night.
Daylight Savings Time affects nearly every state in the U.S., except for those with excessive year-round sun.
Daylight savings was first introduced to add an extra hour of sunlight to the day during the First World War.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Standard Time Act to establish the time change across five time zones after several other countries had done the same.
But at the time, the bill got pushback from farmers who thought it was a ploy to trick them into working longer days.
The Library of Congress explains, “The United States adopted daylight saving time on March 31, 1918, as a means to conserve electricity during wartime, not, as commonly believed, to allow farmers to work longer in the fields.”
“In fact, the agriculture industry fervently opposed the measure because farming schedules are based on sunrise and sunset, not the clock.”
The law stuck for around 50 years until one state broke away from the pack because of its weather.
In 1968, it was decided that much of Arizona would observe Mountain Standard Time year-round as the sunny desert weather makes the days long enough.
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The same applies to a second state, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
More states could be excused from clock-switching as a renewed push to end daily savings has taken root in the Capitol.
In 2018, Florida Representative Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act which would make daylight saving time permanent, meaning the time would no longer change.
The bill was verbally supported by President Donald Trump but has failed to succeed despite multiple reintroductions.
In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed the act, but it stalled in the House of Representatives.
But Rubio refuses to go down without a fight and reintroduced it yet again this year in March.
Ohio, one of 19 states that have passed laws or resolutions in support of the act, says that permanent daylight savings would reduce crime by giving more hours of daylight.
State officials also wish for residents to have more time for outdoor activities in the spring and fall.
On Tuesday, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine released a statement asking for daylight savings to be erased completely.
Based on the organization’s research, officials feel that a permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety.