It probably seems strange to be thinking about the end of daylight saving time in the middle of a scorching hot summer. After all, who can think of pumpkin spice and early sunsets when it’s 100 degrees outside? But like it or not, the tradition of changing clocks to “fall back” by an hour is only a few months away.

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2024 when we will set clocks back an hour and return to standard time. Daylight saving time began at 2 a.m. March 10, 2024 meaning it is in effect for 238 days, or about 65% of the year, according to the National Institute of Standards and Times.

Standard time shifts more daylight hours to the morning and away from the evening. The practice was formally introduced in the U.S. in 1918 as an energy conservation measure. and is observed in most places in the U.S. except Hawaii, parts of Arizona and in several American territories.

Blame Benjamin Franklin?

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, DST was inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s “An Economical Project,” a satirical piece written in 1784.

“It was whimsical in tone, advocating laws to compel citizens to rise at the crack of dawn to save the expense of candlelight,” the Almanac explained.

In the letter to the editors of a Paris newspaper, Franklin joked that all Parisians whose windows were closed after sunrise should be taxed. His proposal, he said, would “encourage the economy of using sunshine instead of candles.”

The idea of daylight saving time picked up steam during World War I when Germans adopted similar measures to help with the war effort. It was then revived by the U.S. during World War II.

The time change became law in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act, establishing the start and end times within standard time zones. The policy, regulated by the Department of Transportation, aims to save energy, reduce traffic fatalities, and reduce crime, though experts have questioned those objectives.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act that made DST permanent in the U.S. In 2005, the Uniform Time Act tweaked that schedule by setting the start of daylight saving time to the second Sunday of March and the end on the first Sunday of November, lengthening the duration of DST.