Spring Forward: Daylight Saving Time 2012 Begins Sunday

Don't forget to 'Spring Forward' this weekend.

At 2 a.m. Sunday, March 11, we'll be springing our clocks forward for daylight saving time. The bad news: we'll lose an hour of our day. The good news: sunset will be an hour later.

You may have noticed the annual tradition of daylight saving time has crept forward a bit. We used to spring forward on the first Sunday in April and fall back on last Sunday in October. But a couple years ago, Congress changed the date — adding more daylight saving time to the calendar. This year, it will run from March 11 until Nov. 4.

Unless you're in Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. They don't do daylight saving time.

Around the world, about 75 countries and territories have at least one location that observes daylight saving time, according to TimeandDate.com. On the other hand, 164 don't observe the time change at all.

Brief History:

According to a Huffington Post report, Benjamin Franklin has been credited with the idea of daylight saving time, but Britain and Germany began using the concept in World War I to conserve energy, the Washington Post observes. The U.S. used daylight saving time for a brief time during the war, but it didn't become widely accepted in the States until after the second World War.

In 1966, the Uniform Time Act outlined that clocks should be set forward on the last Sunday in April and set back the last Sunday in October.

That law was amended in 1986 to start daylight saving time on the first Sunday in April, though the new system wasn't implemented until 1987. The end date was not changed, however, and remained the last Sunday in October until 2006.

This year, daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

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