Time to spring forward

The time has come to set those clocks ahead an hour as we leap forward into spring at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Let the sighs and grumblings begin as the hour we received last fall is taken away from us again.

Daylight saving time was first used during World War I as a method of conserving fuel that was needed to produce electric power. It was not formally used in the United States until 1918 but was so unpopular that after the war ended, Congress repealed the act in 1919.

Years later, during World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted a year around daylight saving time known as "War Time" that lasted from Feb. 9, 1942 until Sept. 30, 1945. But from 1945 until 1966, there was no actual federal law regarding the time change, so states and cities were allowed to choose whether or not to observe it. This caused a lot of confusion, especially to people who worked in the broadcasting and transportation industry.

On one Ohio to West Virginia bus route, passengers had to change their watch seven times in 35 miles. Finally, on Jan. 4, 1974, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. This stated that beginning Jan. 6, 1974, clocks were set ahead. Congress amended the act, and standard time returned on Oct. 27, 1974. It then resumed on Feb. 23, 1975, and ended on Oct. 26, 1975.

Since then, daylight saving time has caused a few mishaps along the way. While most are nothing more serious than people being late for church, others have been more life-changing. For instance, during the Vietnam War draft, a man beat the draft through a loophole that he found. He was born just after 12 a.m. daylight saving time and argued that standard time, not DST was the official time for recording births in his state of Delaware in the year of his birth. This would mean that he was actually born on the previous day, which would give him a much higher draft lottery number and allowed him to avoid being drafted.

In another instance, in September of 1999, the Palestinian West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. The West Bank Terrorist made time bombs and smuggled them to Arabs who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As they were being planted, they exploded one hour early. killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims, two bus loads of people.

If you happen to be riding on an Amtrak train, you might awaken to find yourself at a complete standstill. To keep their published timetables, trains can not leave the station before their scheduled time. So when the clocks fall back in October, all Amtrak trains in the United States that are running on time will stop at 2 a.m. and wait one hour before continuing. In the springtime change, trains will instantly become an hour behind and will just keep going, doing their best to make up the time.