SEATTLE— Well, it’s that time of year to say goodbye to the afternoon light.

When Americans go to bed on Saturday night, they get an extra hour of sleep. The clocks will shift early Sunday morning at 2 a.m. in the US

Sunday sunset in Seattle is at 4:47 p.m., but the days will continue to shorten until the winter solstice on December 21.

The annual time change comes despite lawmakers in Washington pushing to keep the state on permanent daylight saving time (DST).

Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation in 2019 that would have allowed the state to switch to permanent daylight saving time.

But the Sunshine Protection Act has stalled at the federal level. Without congressional approval, the legislation remains in limbo.

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A University of Washington professor was part of a coalition of sleep doctors last year who pushed the federal government to abolish daylight saving time.

Many people agree that they don’t like having to change their clock twice a year, whether it jumps forward or goes back. But the main argument seems to be whether permanent standard time is the answer.

So why do we have daylight saving time anyway? Here are a few facts about the timer.

Who came up with the idea to change the clocks? It depends on who you ask

The creation of DST is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who first wrote about the idea in a letter to the editor of the Paris Magazine in 1784. Franklin was merely suggesting that Parisians should get up earlier to save money on lamp oil and candles, and more importantly, he wrote it as satire.

If you enjoy daylight saving time as we know it today, you can thank New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson, who presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1895 in which he proposed a two-hour forward shift in October and a proposed two-hour shifts back in March. . Although Hudson’s proposal attracted interest, and he followed it up with another article in 1898, the idea never came to fruition.

Fast forward to 1905, and a man named William Willett came up with the idea of ​​moving the clocks forward in the summer to take advantage of daylight in the mornings and lighter evenings. Willett’s idea was picked up by some legislators, who introduced legislation, but it was met with great opposition, and Willett died in 1915 before his idea could become a reality.

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Germany was the first country to introduce summer time

Daylight saving time was first introduced in Germany during World War I in 1916 to replace artificial lighting so they could save fuel for the war effort. It was quickly followed by Britain and many countries from both sides, including the US

Many countries returned to standard time after World War I, and it was not until World War II that daylight saving time returned and persisted for many countries.

The Uniform Time Law

Daylight saving time was not standardized in the US until the 1966 Uniform Time Act was passed, which gave the federal government oversight of the time change.

The time change is now being implemented in more than 70 countries around the world. Currently, most of the US observes daylight saving time, except Hawaii and most of Arizona, and the US island areas of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam.

The time frame used to be different

In the US, daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. But that wasn’t always the case.

According to the AARP, before the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which went into effect in 2007, daylight saving time was observed from early April to late October.

It takes a toll on your health

According to sleep experts, losing an hour of sleep in March can negatively impact your well-being.

“The shift to daylight saving time has been linked to an increase in heart attacks, strokes, traffic fatalities and workplace injuries – and some sleep experts have called for an end to this development,” according to the AARP.

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Washington is not the only state that wants to stop changing the clock

In recent years, at least 19 states have passed legislation or passed resolutions to adhere to daylight saving time year-round, but implementing this change would require an update to federal law, dating back to the Uniform Time Act.

Under that law, states can either observe daylight saving time as it is currently practiced or keep standard time year-round — meaning there are no easy shortcuts for those hoping for a permanent shift forward.

So whether you like it or not, don’t forget to turn your clock back one hour at 2am on Sunday, November 3.