Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins this Sunday morning at 2 AM. This means that time will be moving forward one hour this weekend.

DST first began back in 1918 when congress passed the Standard Time Act during World War I. The idea behind DST was that moving clocks forward during the summer months would help Americans take advantage of longer daylight and help reduce energy usage.

However, DST did not improve the life of the American farmer and only saved a minimal amount of energy. Therefore DST was repealed by the House of Representatives in June of 1919. This left the decision of changing clocks up to the states and localities.

By the time the Second World War rolled around, the government worked to clear up the time confusion across the nation. Both the House and Senate introduced daylight-saving measures. These were signed into law by President Roosevelt in 1942 and year-round wartime DST began.

In 1945 at the conclusion of World War II DST came to an automatic end. This once again plunged the country into mass time confusion, with states and localities setting their own clocks. By 1965 something had to be done, because of the widely varying times causing issues with transportation and railroad companies. That is when the Uniform Time Act was passed and signed into law in 1966.

The Uniform Time Act required that all states observe DST unless they formally opted out. Since then, the nation has been observing DST, with the exception of Arizona and Hawaii.

With the time change coming this weekend, be sure to set your clocks forward one hour before bed Saturday night. It will also be a good time to check the batteries in your smoke detector and weather radio.

After the time change this weekend, sunsets will come about an hour later than they have been. By Easter, sunsets will be an hour and 18 minutes later, occurring at 7:19 PM. The length of daylight will also be increasing. After the time change Sunday there will be 11 hours and 50 minutes of daylight.