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When do we “fall back” for daylight saving time 2024, and why does the time change twice a year?
The end to daylight saving time is just around the corner, meaning clocks in most parts of the U.S. will “fall back” one hour on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. Here’s what to know about daylight saving time, and why we change our clocks twice a year.
When is daylight saving time?
Daylight saving time, when we turned our clocks forward one hour, began on March 10 this year. Daylight saving ends on Nov. 3, when clocks get turned back one hour.
The switch happens at 2 a.m. local time.
So, at 1:59:59 a.m. on Nov. 3, your digital clocks, like the one on your cellphone, will not jump to 2 a.m. — they will fall back to 1 a.m. You will need to reset your analog clocks and any clocks that do not automatically adjust.
This means we will gain an hour — unlike the springtime change to daylight saving time, when we lose an hour of sleep. It will mean that the sun sets an hour earlier in the evening and rises an hour earlier in the morning.
For example, in New York City, the sun will set at 5:50 p.m. on Nov. 2, but the following day, once daylight saving time ends on Nov. 3, the sun will set at 4:49 p.m.
The history of daylight saving time
Time zones in the U.S. were established by the Standard Time Act in 1918, which also introduced daylight savings, according to the U.S. Astronomical Application Department, a part of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The law was so controversial, daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, reinstated during World War II, and went on to become a state and local decision.
But the the Uniform Time Act of 1966 made it a federal law again, although the start and end dates have changed over the years. Since 2007, daylight saving time in the U.S. starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.
While the idea of switching the clocks to rely more on sunlight is often attributed to Ben Franklin, The Franklin Institute disputes this, saying he merely suggested people in Paris change their sleep schedules so they save money on candles and lamp oil.
The institute credits New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, who presented the idea in 1895 because he wanted more daylight in the evenings.
The National Conference of State Legislatures, however, attributes the idea to British builder William Willett. While Hudson wanted more daylight to hunt insects, Willett, they say, wanted it so he could play more golf.
Which states don’t observe daylight saving?
Hawaii and most of Arizona do not switch their clocks for daylight saving time, choosing to stay on standard time only.
A majority of countries in Europe and North America observe daylight saving time, though not all follow the exact same schedule. Many countries in the Southern Hemisphere do as well, but their timing is different because their summer occurs during our winter months.
Will the practice of changing the clocks for daylight saving ever end?
In 2022, the Senate passed a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent. The bill was backed by 17 bipartisan cosponsors, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has long argued we should stop “falling back” in November and keep daylight saving time year round.
“This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid. Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support. This Congress, I hope that we can finally get this done,” Rubio, a Republican, said in a statement.
Rep. Vern Buchanan, also a Republican from Florida, introduced similar legislation in the House, saying there are “enormous health and economic benefits to making daylight saving time permanent.”
However, time ran out on the House bill in 2023 after it was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce.
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Britain’s Conservative Party on Saturday elected Kemi Badenoch as its new leader as it tries to rebound from a crushing election defeat that ended 14 years in power.
The first Black woman to lead a major British political party, Badenoch (pronounced BADE-enock) defeated rival lawmaker Robert Jenrick in a vote of almost 100,000 members of the right-of-center Conservatives.
She got 53,806 votes in the online and postal ballot of party members, to Jenrick’s 41,388.
Badenoch replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who in July led the Conservatives to their worst election result since 1832. The Conservatives lost more than 200 seats, taking their tally down to 121.
The new leader’s daunting task is to try to restore the party’s reputation after years of division, scandal and economic tumult, hammer Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policies on key issues including the economy and immigration, and return the Conservatives to power at the next election, due by 2029.
Alberto Pezzali / AP
“The task that stands before us is tough but simple,” Badenoch said in a victory speech to a roomful of Conservative lawmakers, staff and journalists in London. She said the party’s job was to hold the Labour government to account, and to craft pledges and a plan for government.
Addressing the party’s election drubbing, she said “we have to be honest — honest about the fact that we made mistakes, honest about the fact that we let standards slip.”
“The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party, and our country, the new start that they deserve,” Badenoch said.
A business secretary in Sunak’s government, Badenoch was born in London to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.
The 44-year-old former software engineer depicts herself as a disruptor, arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to “rewire, reboot and reprogram” the British state.
A critic of multiculturalism and self-proclaimed enemy of wokeness, Badenoch has criticized gender-neutral bathrooms and government plans to reduce U.K. carbon emissions. During the leadership campaign she drew criticism for saying that “not all cultures are equally valid,” and for suggesting that maternity pay was excessive.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the Conservative Party was likely to “swing towards the right both in terms of its economic policies and its social policies” under Badenoch.
He predicted Badenoch would pursue “what you might call the boats, boilers and bathrooms strategy …. focusing very much on the trans issue, the immigration issue and skepticism about progress towards net zero.”
Alberto Pezzali / AP
While the Conservative Party is unrepresentative of the country as a whole — its 132,000 members are largely affluent, older white men – its upper echelons have become markedly more diverse.
Badenoch is the Tories’ third female leader, after Margaret Thatcher and Liz Truss, both of whom became prime minister. She’s the second Conservative leader from a non-white background, after Sunak, and the first with African roots. The center-left Labour Party, in contrast, has only ever been led by white men.
In a leadership contest that lasted more than three months, Conservative lawmakers reduced the field from six candidates in a series of votes before putting the final two to the wider party membership.
Both finalists came from the right of the party, and argued they can win voters back from Reform U.K., the hard-right, anti-immigrant party led by populist politician Nigel Farage that has eaten away at Conservative support.
But the party also lost many voters to the winning party, Labour, and to the centrist Liberal Democrats, and some Conservatives worry that tacking right will lead the party away from public opinion.
Starmer’s government has had a rocky first few months in office, beset by negative headlines, fiscal gloom and a plummeting approval rating.
But Bale said that the historical record suggests the odds are against Badenoch leading the Conservatives back to power in 2029.
“It’s quite unusual for someone to take over when a party gets very badly beaten and manage to lead it to election victory,” he said. “However, Keir Starmer did exactly that after 2019. So records are there to be broken.”