Ready, Set, Spring (Clocks) Forward

Set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to bed tonight as Daylight Saving Time steals 60 minutes of shut eye, just this once, in order to give us months of longer, sunnier days ahead.

Officially the change occurs at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, March 11.

This annual tradition has crept forward a bit in recent years. 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, the longer days will run until Nov. 4.

This time change actually precedes the first day of spring, which is pegged to an astronomical event known as the vernal equinox -- the point at which the sun crosses over the equator, making day and night of equal length all over the world.

This year the vernal equinox will occur at 5:14 a.m. on Tuesday, March 20, according to the chronometers in Greenwich, England, the internationally agreed-upon starting point for time-keeping.

In San Leandro, the sun will hit this geometric midway point at 10:14 pm on Monday, March 19.

Who Ever Thought This Up?

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 that war, but it didn't become widely accepted here until after the second World War.

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

The start and stop times of Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. have been modified on a couple of occasions since.

But Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands don't observe Daylight Saving Time at all.

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.

(The  Huffington Post contributed to this report.)

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