During World War II, President Roosevelt established year round Daylight Saving, which became known as “War Time”. After the war, states and localities were again free to choose whether they observed the practice or not, leading to more and more confusion over the time. It was discovered that on one 35 mile stretch of highway between Ohio and West Virginia, buses and their passengers went through 7 official time changes on their journey! In some parts of Texas, people discovered they were 2 hours ahead of or behind their neighbors.
In 1966, Congress decided to end the confusion and the Uniform Time Act created the system that we still have today, with the time being changed on the last Sunday of April, and the last Sunday of October. The law does not actually require that anyone observes Daylight Saving – it just states that it must be done uniformly, making it somewhat difficult not to comply with the law!
Three states still refused to observe the new system by passing their own state laws – Indiana, Hawaii and Arizona. If you are traveling in Arizona, it can become even more confusing; the Navajo Indian Reservation, which covers a large part of the state, does observe Daylight Saving. However, the Hopi Indian Reservation, which is contained entirely within the Navajo reservation, does not observe time changes!
Today, over 70 countries throughout the world practice daylight Savings; Japan is the only major industrialized nation not to do so. Even research stations in Antarctica observe the practice, where the concept is virtually meaningless as there is no daylight in the winter and there are months of constant daylight during the summer.