Be prepared for sunset before 5 a.m., as the hours switch to daylight saving time this weekend.

SEATTLE — Well, now is the time to say goodbye to daylight.

When Americans go to bed on Saturday night, they will have an extra hour of sleep. Clocks in the US will change early Sunday morning at 2am.

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

The annual time change comes despite Washington lawmakers’ insistence that the state adopt daylight saving time (DST) permanently.

Governor Jay Inslee signed the law into law in 2019. this would allow the state to adopt permanent daylight saving time.

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

Professor at the University of Washington was in the coalition of sleep specialists pushing the federal government to get rid of daylight saving time last year.

Many people agree that they don’t like changing their clocks twice a year, whether they go forward or backward. But the main argument seems to be whether permanent standard time is the answer.

So why do we even have daylight saving time? Here are some 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 credited to Benjamin Franklin, who first wrote about the idea in a letter to the editor of a magazine. Paris Magazine in 1784. Franklin simply suggested that Parisians should wake up earlier to save on lamp oil and candles, and more importantly, he wrote it as a satire.

If you like 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 proposing a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. . Although there was interest in Hudson’s proposal and he followed it up with another paper in 1898, the idea was never implemented.

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

Germany was the first country to introduce daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time was first adopted in Germany during World War I in 1916 to replace artificial lighting and save fuel for the war effort. It was quickly followed by Great Britain and many countries on both sides, including the United States.

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

Uniform Time Act

Daylight saving time was not standardized in the United States until the law was passed Uniform Time Act of 1966which gave the federal government the ability to control the time change.

The time change has now been implemented in more than 70 countries around the world. Currently, most of the United States observes daylight saving time, with the exception of Hawaii and most of Arizona, as well as the US island territories of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam.

Previously the deadlines were different

In the United States, daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. But it wasn’t always like this.

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

It affects your health

Losing an hour of sleep every March can take a toll on your well-being, according to sleep experts.

“Daylight saving time has been linked to an increase in heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and workplace injuries, and some sleep experts are calling for an end to the changeover altogether.” according to AARP.

Washington isn’t the only state that wants to stop changing time.

Over the past few years, at least 19 states have either passed laws or passed resolutions to implement daylight saving time year-round, but implementing the change would require updating federal law that dates back to the Uniform Time Act.

Under this law, states can either observe daylight saving time, as is currently practiced, or remain on standard time year-round, meaning there is no easy path forward for those hoping for a permanent shift forward.

So, whether you like it or not, you need to remember to set your clocks back an hour on Sunday, November 3rd at 2am.