Off the Wall: Daylight Savings Time Started as a Joke!
Daylight Saving Time: The Unbelievable Sarcastic Joke of Benjamin Franklin
(From the man who advised us all to ‘Fart Proudly.’ - DD)
Daylight Saving Time: The Unbelievable Sarcastic Joke of Benjamin Franklin
(Commonplace Fun Facts) - Origin of Daylight Saving Time Is Not What You Might Think.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with some of the greatest ideas of all time. Not only was he the inventor of bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove, and lightning rod, but as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, his ideas surpassed scientific inquiry and helped create a nation. In fact, so wide were his interests that he spoke into virtually every area of human interest, and the world continues to feel his influence today in the arts, medical science, economics, cartography, and much, much more.
For those countries that observe Daylight Saving Time, Franklin’s influence is often remembered with resentment twice each year as the nation adjusts to Daylight Saving Time. Remembering to change all the clocks is almost as bad as the feeling of jet lag for a few days as the body tries to catch up with the extra or missing hour. We have Franklin to thank for this phenomenon.
The problem is that he wasn’t really being serious.
Franklin suggested a new management of time as a letter to the editor in The Journal of Paris in 1784: “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.”
Franklin calculated the total savings for about half a pound of candles per…