Crediting Founding Father Benjamin Franklin with the idea of changing the clocks is one of the most entrenched myths. Another conspiracy theory tied to shifting the clocks involves an alleged banking “phantom hour,” during which “invisible trading” supposedly takes place.
On the night of Oct. 24-25, the clocks will change from summer to winter time. At 3 a.m., the clocks will be set back to 2 a.m. The return to summer time will take place on March 27, 2027.
The idea of changing the time is attributed to Benjamin Franklin and linked to his satirical essay “Economic Project,” published anonymously in the Journal de Paris in 1784.
The American statesman, who was living in France at the time, expressed surprise at how early the sun rose. In the text, he joked that using natural light instead of candles could save Parisians a great deal of money. His absurd proposals included taxing window shutters, limiting the use of candles, and firing cannons at sunrise, the noise of which would wake people up.
In reality, as Deutsche Welle points out, the first person to come up with the idea of changing the time was New Zealander George Vernon Hudson, a post office worker and amateur entomologist. In 1895, he presented to the Wellington Philosophical Society a proposal that shifting the clocks by two hours in summer would make it possible to use daylight for work as well as leisure, including playing cricket, riding a bicycle or gardening. The idea was not put into practice, but it is considered the foundation of time changes around the world.
A decade later, British builder William Willett came up with the same idea, which he presented in a pamphlet titled “The Waste of Daylight.” Although he won the support of, among others, future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and writer Arthur Conan Doyle, Parliament repeatedly rejected the proposal.
The first countries to officially introduce a time change were Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1916. The decision was part of a plan to save energy, above all coal, so they could continue the war. Later that same year, Great Britain and France followed, and the United States did so two years later. It is worth stressing that these were not permanent changes but a temporary measure for the duration of World War I.
However, the British and the French kept changing their clocks during the interwar period. In Poland, the time change took place only once, in 1919. It was then abandoned until 1977, and since then clocks have been changed every year.
One of the most frequently cited stories related to the time change concerns the American candy industry and Halloween. Michael Downing, in his 2005 book “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time,” stated that the candy lobby played a significant role in moving the return to standard time to after Halloween. Manufacturers reportedly believed that an extra hour of daylight for children collecting treats would clearly boost sales of their products.
The author, quoted by The New York Times in 2007, claimed that in the 1980s businessmen placed pumpkins filled with candy on the seats of cars belonging to American senators in order to influence their decision. As the newspaper established at the time, the candy industry and the government disputed that version of events.
In reality, in 2005 the Energy Policy Act moved the end of daylight saving time to the first Sunday of November. The change took effect in 2007. Since then, Halloween in the U.S. has officially fallen during daylight saving time.
The change from summer to winter time is also linked to a conspiracy theory about the so-called banking “phantom hour.” Its proponents claim that the international banking system takes advantage of the clocks moving from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. to allegedly transfer funds to Asian markets or cryptocurrency markets, thereby generating profits that are supposed to go to financial institutions rather than retail customers.
In reality, the time change takes place on the night from Saturday to Sunday, when the world’s major stock exchanges, including those in Tokyo, London and on New York’s Wall Street, are closed. International settlement systems are also inactive at that time. As a result, it is not possible to move capital on traditional markets, because no settlements are carried out during those hours. (PAP)
