Ben Franklin and Daylight Saving Time

Without a question, Benjamin Franklin was a highly intelligent man. As he was such a prolific inventor, he is frequently given credit for things he had no business with, despite the fact that there is a long list of valuable products that he either invented or helped improve. The practice of advancing the clocks by one hour in the spring to fully take advantage of the sunshine and reverting them in the fall is one such example of daylight saving time.

The concept that this idea originated with the Founders dates back to 1784. The 78-year-old Franklin was then residing in Paris and working as an American envoy there. He argued in an essay that was published in the April 26 issue of the Journal de Paris that if Parisians rose up with the sunrise, they would save a lot on candles.

But here's the deal. Franklin wrote a blatantly satirical piece. He described how he was inadvertently awakened at six in the morning by a random noise and found his room drenched in sunlight, becoming the first person in Paris to learn that the sun rises so early. Additionally, he detailed how he told his friends about it and how they rejected the idea that it was feasible.

Franklin also didn't mention moving the clocks ahead. Instead, the remedies he suggested (again, in jest) were to charge shuttered windows that blocked the light, to cap the weekly sale of candles at one pound per family, to sound the church bells at six every morning, and last but not least, to shoot cannons into the streets to rouse everyone up.