BIDDEFORD — Missing that extra hour of sleep this morning?

Daylight Saving Time, the practice of setting the clock ahead for one hour during the warmer part of the year so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less, officially began again at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Maine, along with most regions of the United States observe Daylight Saving Time, with the exceptions being the states of Arizona and Hawaii, the U.S. territories of Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and portions of Indiana.

In the wee hours of the morning Sunday, clocks moved from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.

For areas that observe daylight saving time, the time change runs for a total of 34 weeks or about 238 days every year, which equates to about 65 percent of the entire calendar year.

The practice of Daylight Saving Time was an idea proposed by Benjamin Franklin but never  implemented until 1916 by Germany during World War I. It was first tried in America in 1918. 

The time change was so disliked by residents of the United States that it was abandoned in 1919 and not brought back until the 1940s during World War II as the year-round “War Time,” a way for the country to save energy nationwide.

With the war’s end in 1945, some areas of the United States continued Daylight Saving Time and some did not. In 1966, Congress voted to make the practice unifrom and official for the nation.

Daylight Saving Time ends this year at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 4 when once more you’ll be able to regain that extra hour of sleep.

—  Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 ext. 326 or by email at [email protected]