What Time Is It? Daylight Saving Time 2012 World Clock For All Time Zones

By Cavan Sieczkowski | March 11 2012 11:31 AM

On Sunday morning, many were asking, What time is it? This was not just a groggy, slurred question coming from those who might have stayed out a bit too late Saturday night. The What time is it? question came from citizens around the world as Daylight Saving Time began at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Reuters

On Sunday morning many people were asking, "What time is it?" Daylight Saving Time 2012 began on Sunday, March 11, 2012, at 2 a.m.

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Daylight Saving Time marks the end of winter. The days will get longer and sunshine is aplenty as winter melts away to welcome spring. Each morning the change is noticeable, if gradual. It gets lighter earlier and stays lighter later. The Huffington Post's Donna Henes noted this creeping change. Two minutes a day x seven days = 14 minutes a week x four = nearly an hour a month x three months = three hours from winter to spring, said Henes.

This year, Daylight Saving Time will run from March 11 through Nov. 4, when you will once again wake up and ask What time is it?

When did Daylight Saving start? Benjamin Franklin noticed how Parisians were wasting natural light. On a trip to Paris, according to Henes, Franklin observed that the sun rose at 6 a.m. in France's capital but its citizens did not wake until noon, thus wasting many hours of natural daylight and then literally burning the midnight oil through many hours of darkness. Franklin wrote about this anomaly in An Economical Project.

During World War I, Germany and Austria made a move to conserve fuel by pushing the clock ahead one hour at 11 p.m. on April 30, 1916. Other countries quickly followed suit. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated War Time, which was a year-round Daylight Saving Time from Feb. 9, 1942 through Sept. 30, 1945, according to Henes.

In 1966, the U.S. implemented the Uniform Time Act, which stated that clocks should be pushed forward on the last Sunday in April and set back on the last Sunday in October. Today, those dates have obviously changed. Daylight Saving Time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

If you are confused about what time it is right now, refer to the clock widget below. Hover over your allotted time zone with your mouse for the official time.