Daylight saving time (often called “daylight savings”) was first tried locally in 1908 in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, and then adopted countrywide for the first time by Germany and Austria‑Hungary on April 30, 1916, during World War I. In the United States, it was written into federal law in 1918 as a wartime energy‑saving measure, then standardized nationwide by the Uniform Time Act of 1966.

Quick Scoop

  • Earliest use : Local seasonal clock changes appeared in what is now Thunder Bay, Canada, in 1908, mainly to better align working hours with daylight.
  • First nationwide daylight saving : Germany and the Austro‑Hungarian Empire started daylight saving time on April 30, 1916, to conserve coal in World War I, and the idea quickly spread across Europe.
  • U.S. adoption : The U.S. introduced daylight saving time with the Standard Time Act in 1918 as a temporary wartime measure, dropped it, then brought it back in World War II and finally standardized it with the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
  • Why it exists : The main goal has been to “save” evening daylight—shifting an hour of light from early morning to later in the day—originally framed as an energy‑saving and productivity measure.

Many people still say “daylight savings time,” but the original legal and technical term is “daylight saving time,” without the final “s.”

TL;DR: If you’re asking “when was daylight savings?” in a general sense, the practice began in the early 1900s (1908 locally in Canada, 1916 nationwide in Germany) and became law in the U.S. in 1918, with today’s standardized pattern dating from 1966.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.