Daylight Savings Time…Little Known Stories

This weekend, the sun set on another season of Daylight Saving Time. The extra daylight we now enjoy was actually the result of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Daylight Savings Time was originally adopted by Congress back in 1918. But did you know that throughout its long history, Daylight Saving Time has had a remarkable and sometimes unexpected impact?

A man was actually able to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War using a Daylight Saving Time loophole. When he was born, it was just after midnight, DST. When he was drafted, he successfully argued that in his home state of Delaware, standard time – not DST – was the official time for recording births. So he was technically born on the previous date–which had a much higher draft lottery number – and he was able to avoid being drafted.

In September 1999, the West Bank was on Daylight Saving Time, while Israel had switched back to standard time. A group of West Bank terrorists prepared some timed bombs – but misunderstood the time change – and the bombs exploded early, killing the terrorists themselves, rather than the intended victims – two busloads of innocent citizens.

In the 1950s and 60s, each state and locality was permitted to choose start and end DST dates as they desired. During 1965, Minneapolis and St. Paul – which are considered one metropolitan area – didn’t agree on start dates, and for a period of time, these Twin Cities had a one hour time change between them. And on one Ohio to Virginia bus route, passengers technically had to change their watches seven times in 35 miles!

To keep to their published timetables, Amtrak trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So when the clocks “fall back” in the fall, all trains that are running on time actually stop at 2 am – the official time of DST change – and wait one hour before resuming their routes. In the spring, the routes instantaneously become one hour behind schedule, but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.