Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer months, and back again in the fall, in order to make better use of natural daylight. The goal of DST is to move the hours of human activity to make the best use of daylight. The practice was first suggested in a whimsical essay by Benjamin Franklin in 1784. The concept of DST can be attributed to three people, according to David Prerau, computer scientist and author of "Seize the Daylight." The first person was Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century. Franklin noted that waking up closer to sunrise gave him more hours of daylight to illuminate his home. This allowed him to use fewer smoky and expensive candles, which helped him save energy.

DST changes twice a year, with clocks jumping forward one hour in the spring to begin DST and then sliding back an hour in the fall to end it. In the United States, DST formerly began on the last Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October. In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed a law that moved up the start of DST to the first Sunday in April.

DST is used in many countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. However, not all countries observe DST, and some have stopped using it in recent years. For example, in 2019, the European Parliament voted in favor of backing the EU Committee draft directive to stop the one-hour clock change in the European Union.

In the United States, there have been proposals to stay on standard time or move to full-time DST, and since 2015, more than 200 DST bills and resolutions have been introduced in almost every state across the US. The push to stop changing clocks was put before Congress in the last couple of years, when the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the Sunshine Protection Act in 2022, a bill that would make DST permanent. Although the Sunshine Protection Act was passed unanimously by the Senate in 2022, it did not pass in the U.S. House of Representatives and was not signed into law.

In 2023, DST will end on Sunday, November 5 at 2 a.m. local time, when our clocks will go back an hour, part of the twice-annual time change that affects most, but not all, Americans.