Starting this weekend, we’ll be having one hour less of sleeping, but plenty more light in the afternoon, so that’s got to be worth something. On Sunday morning, March 9, 2 a.m. will become 3 a.m. as part of the Daylight Saving Time routine, which won’t change again until November 2.

Up until 2006, the United States had a similar policy to that of Europe on Daylight Saving Time (DST), but it changed as of 2007, when time changed on the first Sunday in April and changed back in the last Sunday of October. But things changed as of 2007, and the DST got a four-week extension throughout the United States, starting second Sunday of March and ending on the first Sunday in November.

The idea of changing time according to necessity is not a recent one (by recent we mean the last few centuries), but rather an ancient one, as this sort of practice is known ever since the Romans, who used to adjust time depending on the month.

It was Benjamin Franklin who later made such a proposal while in France, in an attempt to help Parisian use less candles by waking up earlier so as to enjoy the sunlight more: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” But it wasn’t until 1905 that an actual DST was proposed for the first time by William Willett. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see his proposal materialize before his death.

It was during World War I that the Germans took advantage of Willett’s proposal and adopted the idea. The United States joined the idea in 1918, but the DST system has suffered numerous modifications over the years, differing from country to country.