Say so long to the sunshine as those long summer nights are growing longer by the day. Saturday, August 19 will be the last 8 p.m. sunset of the summer. We will not see another 8 p.m. sunset until April 28, 2024.
Much of the United States is losing close to two minutes of sunlight every day. By September 19, 2023 the sunset will be at 7:14 p.m. By November 27, 2023 we will see the earliest sunset of the year at 4:56 p.m.
In 2021, Senator Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act. The bill proposed making daylight saving time the new standard time, effective November 5, 2023. The bill passed the Senate vote but died in the House. In 2023, Rubio proposed the same bill. As of August, it has not been passed.
History of Daylight Saving Time
During World War Two nearly all of the United States was using daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time has been in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s. Year-round daylight-saving time was used during World War Two and adopted again in 1973 in a bid to reduce energy use because of an oil embargo and repealed a year later.
During World War I, daylight saving time was first used in 1918. It only lasted seven months before it was repealed.
During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt re-established the idea of daylight saving time. It was called “War Time.” War Time lasted a little over three years.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 proposed the idea of regulating a yearly time change. Daylight saving time would begin the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October.
In 1973, during the oil embargo, the US Congress ordered a year-round period of daylight saving time to save energy. This lasted from January 1974 to April 1975. It did little to save energy, causing the switch back to standard time in October of 1974.
From 1987 to 2006, daylight saving time began during the first weekend in April, running through the last weekend in October.
The last change happened in 2007, when the time was shifted again. In 2007, it began on the second Sunday in March and ended on the first Sunday in November.
